Hellraiser

Robert and Joe have such sights to show you in this movie episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. Join them as they discuss Clive Barker’s “Hellraiser” and the questions it raises about monastic traditions, flagellation, puzzle boxes and the science of pain.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
What city is this? One of the four inquired. Frank
had difficulty guessing the speaker's gender with any certainty. Its clothes,
some of which were sown to and through its skin,
hid its private parts, and there was nothing in the
dregs of its voice, or in its wilfully disfigured features
that offered the least clue when it spoke. The hooks

(00:22):
that transfixed the flaps of its eyes and were wed
by an intricate system of chains, passed through flesh and bone,
alike to similar hooks through the lower lip, were teased
by the motion, exposing the glistening meat underneath. I asked
you a question, dear, and you see the figure beside
the first speaker demanded. Its voice, unlike that of its companion,

(00:44):
was light and breathy, the voice of an excited girl.
Every inch of its head had been tattooed with an
intricate grid, and at every intersection of horizontal and vertical
axes a jeweled pin driven through to the bone. Its
tongue was similarly decorated. Do you even know who we are? Welcome?

(01:07):
Stuff to blow your mind? A production of I Heart Radios.
How stuff works? Hey, you welcome? To stuff to blow
your mind. My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe
McCormick and Robert. I guess you've been reading Clive Barker, right,
that's right. Yes. Our cold open is is was a

(01:27):
passage from the nineteen eighties six novella The hell Bound
Heart by Clive Barker, which he himself adapted and directed
in seven into the horror film we all know as
Hell Raiser. Wait a minute, there was just one year
gap in between writing the novella and making the movie. Yeah. Yeah,
Clive Barker was on a roll in the in the
late eighties, like he was. I mean, he's still on

(01:49):
a roll. He's one of these uh, these creators. It
really has has not visibly slown down. Um, says Stephen King.
Quote from that year he said, I've seen the future
of horror, and did is Clive Parker? Yeah, yeah, quote
quote the King. I think that that that quote was
actually in the trailer for for Hell Razor, the film,
as was I Am Pain? No, No, I think he doesn't.

(02:11):
He doesn't declare that he is pain until three year
possibly four. Um. I'm imagining a future crossover sequel. It's
like Jetson's Meet the flint Stones, but it's Judge Dread
meets Pinhead and they just alternate back and forth with
I am the Law and I um but that that
actually sounds like a great matchup. I actually I would

(02:32):
be all surprised if it hasn't been done or at
least pitch, because Judge Dread is thrown down with like
Alien before, and I think he's met Batman. Pinhead's been
in a number of comic books. You could see the
the more nuanced side coming out of each because you
discovered that in small ways, Judge Dread is also pain
and Pinhead is also the Law. Yeah. Um, so I

(02:54):
want to, you know, wax nostalgic for a moment here.
I didn't get into hell Razor movies until probably not
because I was too young for them really prior to that, wait,
how old was that? Though? Oh, don't make me do
math jo, but I was. I was like in junior
higher or so uh in. And by that point, the
first three films were already out and Doug Bradley's Pinhead

(03:16):
was already cemented as a as a horror icon. Yeah.
I mean he's up there with like Freddie and Jason
at that point. Yeah, like in the Simpsons tree House
of Horror episodes of the Shinning episode is so good,
Pinhead is one of the horror icons that drags Homer
out of the refrigerator. Oh yeah, it's like it's like

(03:36):
Jason Freddie Pinhead and then just some werewolf or something.
I think. So, yeah, it's like a quick scene, but
like already by that point, I think it had been
decided that this, uh, this this, this creature, this entity
had a role in the Halloween pantheon of Hollywood. So
you read the book before you saw the movie. Um,

(03:57):
I think I read the book after I saw the movie.
I remember reading it on a school trip. Yeah, and
it's a it's it's short, it's a novella. But yeah,
it was really it was really impressive at the time.
As our colde open illustrates, it has a slightly different feel.
It's the film hell Raiser is essentially the hell Bound Heart.
It is, you know, Barker's own adaptation of it. But

(04:20):
at the same time there are differences, and one of
the key differences is, uh, this character of Pinhead, the
hell Priest, whatever you want to call it, is just
called lead Cinembyte and the first hell Raiser that the
role played by Doug Bradley in the novella it is
it has a slightly different flare to it. Yeah, I
was reading some things about the production, and it seems

(04:41):
to me that the reason Doug Bradley's pinhead became such
an icon in the movie had to do with the
practical necessities of filmmaking. And again it was something about
like character, Like the other Cinabytes that appear in the
film would have been given more dialogue, but they're makeup
effects didn't allow it, right, because you have like the

(05:03):
chatter and the butter being Cinobytes and the butterball butterball
but being similar. But but yeah, that makes sense that
the makeup prevented them from speaking. And Doug Bradley could speak,
though he couldn't walk around very well. Apparently he had
these black contact lenses in that made it hard for

(05:24):
him to see, and he was afraid of tripping over
the skirts of his of Cinabyte robe, so he didn't
move very easily. But he could talk, and so he
could say things like save your tears, it's a waste
of good suffering. Yeah, he has a very commanding voice,
whereas in the original develo, the character that would become
Pinhead is described as this excited girl. And then the

(05:48):
Cinobytes themselves come off They still come off his his
grotesque in their own way, but they're more and they're
more androgynous for starters. And then there is this there's more,
this sense that they are not as demonic as they
are justist other worldly, like they have lived in another
realm of the senses for so long, uh, and that

(06:09):
they just don't have anything in common with with human
sense perception anymore. Right, they are they are explorers that
go beyond the boundaries of pleasure and pain. And that's
a lot of what we're gonna be talking about today
when we get to the science portion of today's episode.
But I know you're not done talking about hell Raiser, right,
Oh no, And I do want to just remind everybody
as far as The hell Bound Heart goes, you can

(06:31):
you can find it for yourself on Amazon or wherever
you get your book in all formats, including a dollar
ninety nine e book and both an audio book production
and a full blown like audio play production, so you
have no excuse not to go in and grab a
copy of it if you want to check it out.
I also highly recommend the books of Blood. Uh. Those
are some There's some really great short stories in those collections. Uh.

(06:53):
But yeah, I've always been a Clive Barker fan. I
haven't read everything he's written, but it's just an unmatched creativity.
They're both on the written written page, but behind the
camera and visual art as well. Just before we came
in here, I was having a conversation with our colleague
Ben Bolan of stuff they don't want you to know

(07:13):
and ridiculous history, and he was asking what my favorite
Clive Barker was, and I had to admit I have
not read any. For some reason, I just never gotten
into Barker. He was very surprised because he knows I
like horror fiction, but uh, I don't know. For some reason,
I just never went there, Maybe because when I I
don't know. When I first saw the movie Hell Raiser,
I think this was like my freshman year of college.

(07:34):
I found it actually very depressing. Well, I found it
it was full of interesting imagery. I thought it was
actually kind of original and imaginative, but something about the
world it it pictured it seemed very bleak to me.
It was like a world where nothing is good and
everything goes to hell and there's nothing to care about. Yeah,

(07:55):
it's a bleak, brooding film. And and I can see
why I was especially into it as like a brooding
junior high student and as a you know, a teen
spoke to you then yeah, I mean then also it
it felt you know, it's a cool wid a rebel.
I think too, because like Stephen King, I was stupid
into Stephen King at the time. And Stephen King has
certainly be you know, graphic, but but Barker always felt weirder,

(08:17):
more counterculture in a way that really resonated with me.
And you know, there's probably no better way to push
back against small town southern Baptist upbringing than to to
turn to and you know, the explosively creative worlds of
an openly gay British horror writer. Well, and I will
say it is uh despite its flaws. I mean, I
will talk about how I just rewatched the movie Uh,

(08:39):
and it did not match up with my memories at all.
I found it. I have to admit I found it
rather funny upon rewatching it, especially a lot of the
line delivery by the Cinabites and it's over the top
ponderousness that like, uh, there were a whole there was
a lot of unintentional laughter. But I will say it
is still a pretty imaginative concert up. It was like

(09:01):
very original for its time. Let's now that we're speaking
on on Pinhead's voice in the movie, let's have a
quick uh splash from the trailer will tell your soul part.
That's just a sample though, because most of the original
theatrical trailer is screaming. Okay, uh yeah, So I guess

(09:23):
should we briefly discuss the plot of the movie. Yes,
And for anybody who hasn't listened to a movie episode
we've done before, we will get to you know, a
lot more science and interpretation of of this particular you know,
cinematic installment. But but first we do need to remind
everybody about what's up in Hell Racer, because it's easy forget,
especially if you've seen a lot of the sequels. Uh

(09:45):
and and if you've seen some of the later sequels
then then truly God help you. But the original plot
line goes like this, do you have a creepy uncle? Well,
did your creepy uncle ever say, have an affair with
your mom and then use an antique puzzle box to
open a dimensional rift in your grandma's house, summoning a
weird sect of transdimensional Cincinnats in your uncle's quest for

(10:08):
new extremes of pleasure. Well, that uncle is Frank Cotton,
and yes, he's dragged away to the realm of the Cinabytes,
so the order of the gash, and after a while
manages to escape in a much reduced state um and
works out a plot to reclaim his body. And that's
essentially the plot line of hell Racers. Right, So you've
got your core elements of this mysterious puzzle box that

(10:30):
is just a normal kind of cube with some paintings
on it. But if you manipulate it in the right way,
press here and turn there and that kind of stuff,
it starts opening up. And then once it opens up,
a familiar series of events unfolds where lights shine in
through you know, cracks in the walls and stuff, uh,
chains with hooks at the ends of them shoot out

(10:51):
of the walls and grab you. And then the centabytes
show up and they're these people usually with like shaved
heads or just generally weird heads. Usually something has happened
to their head. They're wearing black leather robes as if
they're a combination of the there's sort of like S
and M priests, and they show up and they're like, Okay,
it's time to take you away to a dimension beyond sensation.

(11:13):
It's time to experience pain and pleasure indivisible. Right. Yeah,
and they're you know, they're they're very much there's a
boundary confusion with them, right, because they're both ghastly and
beautiful in their own way. They're erotic and grotesque at
the same time. Yeah. And the suggestion, I think it's
explored much more in the book is that these creatures
are there part of some weird, esoteric, other dimensional religious

(11:38):
order that worships the exploration of the extremes of sensation
right then, and so that they've gotten to the point
where where they can no longer tell the difference between
pleasure and pain. It's just sort of like experiences to
the max all the time of whatever valence possible. Yeah,
it's it's more it's not like I'm gonna pull your

(11:59):
skin off. Uh, It's more like, oh, I'm I'm sorry,
I'm rude, I'm being rude. I should pull your skin off.
I should be a good host, and this is the
natural thing to do. Yuh, though I feel like that.
I think that's more there in the book, which again
I haven't read, But in the movie it does come
to feel more like they're there to punish you sometimes.

(12:20):
I don't know if this conceit about them just being
sort of experiment ers is really consistent in the film now.
I mean, even in the first film, which is which
is certainly the truest to the original source material, even
in that you can tell that that Barker is leaning
more into the idea of them as movie monsters, though
it's still it's still Clive Barker's movie monsters, and Clive

(12:43):
Barker is one of those creators who has always loved
his monsters most of all, you know. But but still
even in the film, you know, the cinemabytes are not
the most important aspect of the plot. They're not the
central antagonist. Even our heroine uh Kur Steve Cotton and
her father Larry Cotton aren't as central to the plot

(13:04):
as Frank the the individual who just described the uncle,
and Chris Kirstie's mom Julia. It's ultimately about their dark
love affair that ultimately transcends the boundaries of life and death. Uh.
You know, they're the characters at the heart of all this,
and and they're the ones whose desires we most understand
and even on some level sympathize with, even though they

(13:25):
are you know, dark, desperate and depressing characters. Yeah. I
think the deal is Frank is just this guy who's
seen it all. He's had every hedonistic pleasure of the
flesh possible. He's he's you know, he's beyond good and evil.
He has no morality left. He's just he's just like
trying to to seek the next highest possible sensation. Uh.

(13:46):
And he's usually got a knife out because he's just
that kind of guy. Right. And then Julia, on the
other hand, played by the the excellent Claire Higgins in
this she's you know, by and large, the best performance
in the film. There is one scene where I don't
know if they did this on purpose, but the way
they did her makeup and her hair, she looks exactly
like David Bowie and his Aladdin sane persona. Oh I

(14:09):
I didn't notice that. I have to look back at it.
But but yeah, she's wonderful in it, and and in
the same way her character. Her character is also like
trapped in a life of of tedium and boredom. Like
her husband is this boring guy who watched this boxing
on television and and she just seems to be, you know,
putting up with him. Uh. And and so thus comes
her attraction to Frank. And even when Frank comes back

(14:32):
from the dead uh in this you know, grotesque body. Uh,
you know, she still ends up helping him. Oh and
of course helping him involves like killing a bunch of people.
I think so he can It's not exactly clear he
can basically drink their blood and thus reconstitute his original body. Yeah, Like, yeah,
it's it's a little vague, and I like that it's vague.

(14:53):
You know, weren't really sure exactly what the necromancy is
of all this, but that that is the thing. Frank
is essentially a necromancer. Uh and and has these these powers. Uh.
You know, looking back at the film, it's you really
can't overstate the importance of Frank and Juliet. They are
the core of the film. They are its main characters,
and they are its main monsters. Yeah. The cinembytes show

(15:14):
up mostly in the third act as a kind of
almost as a kind of d S X machina. Yeah,
which is fitting because they are literally coming out of
the machine, right d S xbox. And let's say a
few other things I want to say about the film
just rewatching it. Um, the music is fine, it's a
bit dramatic, but I've long wanted to see a cut

(15:36):
of it with the original score by post and cut
Industrial Act Coil. This was the late Peter Christofferson of
who was also in Throbbing Gristle, and the late John
Balance was also in Psychic TV, so that they had
conducted the original put together the original score for the film,
and the replacement score that's more traditional and cinematic was
supposedly a condition of additional funding that Barker Is eaved

(16:00):
in order to finish the special effects in the film.
Uh So, I would my musical taste lean far more
Coil than they do traditional cinematic score. So, uh, you know,
when what I've heard of it, it sounds really interesting.
So that's that's that's one thought I have on it. Coil.
If you're not familiar with them, they were. They were
a big influence on the likes of say Trent resner

(16:23):
Um and uh and of course Clive Barker was also
an influence on Trent Resuer as well. Yeah, I'd say
Nine Inch Nails is pretty thoroughly cinembyte music. Yeah, especially
the early stuff. Let's see what else about this film, Oh,
the costumes and the practical effects I think hold up
very well. Yeah, they do. And I think this is
this is definitely a film where you look at it

(16:43):
and you I'm impressed by just how ambitious it really was,
perhaps overly ambitious, especially given the small budget and the
fact that Barker was, you know, adapting his own work
here directing it as well, and this was his He'd
done some screenwriting, but he had not directed anything previously.
And it's really you know, it's they go for not

(17:04):
only they have the cinabytes in there and all these effects,
but also like a regeneration scene and additional demon monsters
that you know, if you were being like maybe a
little more careful with your budget, you might say, well,
do we need this monster? We already have this monster.
Maybe we can actually cut two whole monsters in two
big practical effects from the film and use those funds elsewhere.

(17:25):
But uh, still, you know it it mostly comes together.
I'm not quite sure the purpose served by the monster
that's referred to as the Engineer, which doesn't look anything
like an engineer. Instead, it's like a big sort of
larva that crawls down the hallway with a scary mouth
on the bottom part, chasing after people. Yeah, it's that's
something that the engineers mentioned in the novella, but it's

(17:48):
more it's like a being of light or something. It's
it's not a monster. So that like that, I feel
like comes off a little confusing in the picture, like
what is this and how's it connected with everything? Now?
I don't want to rag on the film too much,
but I will say that one of the things that
was funniest about it to me is that Pinhead, even
in the first movie, I mean, I think he gets

(18:08):
even more like this as the movies go on. Pinhead
gets increasingly frettified, Like he becomes like a wise cracking,
you know, making jokes at the camera kind of Freddy
Krueger character. But even in the first movie, almost everything
he says is this like threatening, lee pretentious kind of
line that could be a quote on the VHS box cover.

(18:29):
It's all stuff like will tear your soul apart, or
the box you opened it, we came, or of course, uh,
the the inimitable I am pain. Yeah yeah yeah. Like Freddie,
he has a lot of catch phrases and sort of
quote ready samples. Uh. And I've heard him in a
number of different DJ nixes as well, throwing a little

(18:49):
pinhead right. Uh. He also reminds me a bit of
nineties pro wrestlers in that regard. You know, he's like
the rock you know, he has the Rocks. I guess
more post nineties, but still, you know, he has his
his catchphrases that he lashes out with. You can imagine
macho man Randy Savage saying the box you opened it,
we came. I actually just learned that Doug Bradley serves

(19:11):
as the authority figure in the indie British occult themed
wrestling promotion Blackcraft Wrestling. I don't know what that means. Well,
look it up, beild it exists. Um. It's like clearly
he's doing kind of like a he's not in a
wrestling ring. He's like showing up like they're doing a
green screen thing and he's you know, making matches and whatnot.
But it's it's Doug Bradley being Doug Bradley. But like

(19:35):
he officiates a match by saying you're suffering, will be
legendary even in hell. Now I will say that in
the I think it's by the fourth win. He does
have a line about pain that that is I think
it's actually pretty good, where he says, uh, quote what
you think of as pain is only a shadow. Pain
has a face. Allow me to show it to you.

(19:55):
Allow me to show it to you, and uh and
like that that line I think is pretty good. Like
he gets at some of the the intangible aspects of
pain and the how difficult it is to understand another
individual's pain or relate your own. But of course this
is and this is from hell Raiser Inferno. Then he
goes on to say, uh, uh, gentleman, I am pain,

(20:15):
and he kind of he kind of ruins the moment.
You know, it can go so far. He can't help
but go for the catchphrase, ladies and gentlemen, I am pain.
So in summary, uh, this is what I'll say about
how Razor. Uh. It's a it's a film I have
a lot of nostalgia for and having rewatched it in
the past, week, I'd say that that more things work
than don't work. And then it's still like it's it's

(20:36):
astounding that that that everyone is able to put this
film together and then ultimately, like clearly it resonated, even
though like my personal taste, I like the cinobites of
the novella more like Pinhead worked, like Pinhead became a staple,
like Pinhead is part of American popular culture now. A
couple of years ago I went through the process. I

(20:59):
don't know, I decided I needed to do this, but
I watched all of the Hell Raiser sequels. I don't
think that's a journey people need to go on. There.
There are fleeting pleasures throughout them, like Part three has
some pretty funny stuff. Part four has some funny moments.
Part three is kind of like peak Freddie uh hell Raised,

(21:20):
like they realized, like, oh, this is what we've created.
We've created this this this this horror creature that you
know the masses are into. Let's give him the film
that this core character deserves. Of course, Part four is
Pinhead goes to Space, which is I don't know, it's
hard to sniff it that. Yeah, that that film is
notoriously a mess, but then it also just has so

(21:42):
many like crazy things in it it's hard to completely
dismiss it. I kept wanting to see I think I
may have said this on the show before, but Rachel
and I have frequently talked about how there needs to
be a crossover again, franchise crossover, but not with Judge Shred.
This should be Hell Raisor, and then the air bud
sequels they cross over. So you've got like Golden Retriever

(22:05):
puppies and they're playing with the box and it's called
hell Buddies, and so the cinebytes come out and they're
ready to do all their hooks and stuff, but then
they're conquered by the cuteness of the puppies. So it's like,
I am all right, Well on that note, let's take
our first break, and when we come back, we're going
to talk about puzzle boxes. Than alright, we're back, alright,

(22:31):
So we know that Hell Razor starts with a mysterious
puzzle box. It's this box that, uh, it can be opened,
but how you open it is apparently not obvious, and
people just fiddle around with it until they figure out
the secret, and then they end up unleashing the hooks,
the chains, the cinabytes and so forth. Yeah, the first
film and all subsequent films, they are generally gonna be

(22:52):
some scenes with somebody fiddling with the box. And it
doesn't seem to It seems to adhere to unreal physics,
which is fitting. It is a magical box that opens
a magical doorway through which magical beings then enter um.
So you know, I don't take any issue with that
at all, But uh, of course, in the idea itself
is just irresistible. We love myths about boxes that should

(23:14):
not be opened, or the idea of a box that
resists opening is also tremendous as well, an enclosure born
of human ingenuity that must be solved via human ingenuity
as well. Oh yeah, I mean, I think it's a
wonderful conceit for opening a story like this, that there
is this thing it requires effort. It suggests that there's
kind of a that there's a beyond normal amount of interest.

(23:38):
Right people seek out this box when they're they're board
with all of the sensations of Earth and they want
to go beyond. They want to see what of other
level they can reach. They have to find this secret artifact. Yeah,
and you know, ultimately, I think we all have puzzle
boxes like that in our lives that we're trying to unravel. Right.
But one of the interesting things here is that, of

(23:59):
course Clive Barker's not just creating this out of nothing.
He's he's drawing on inspirations. One of the inspirations is
clearly and you know especially I think they flesh this
out a little bit uh in the fourth film, uh,
playing on the tradition of philosophical toys, uh, the that
captivated to audiences in the eighteenth century. And we've talked

(24:19):
about some of these on the show before, like the
pooping duck, various automatons, wind up clockwork devices. They don't
really do anything. I mean, they don't you know, fulfill
a purpose. They do things, but those things that they
do are merely to amuse us or to make us
think about, you know, the biomechanical nature of the world,
or God as a clockmaker, that sort of thing. Sure,

(24:41):
a machine that poses a question. Yeah, and they're also testaments,
of course, to the creator's talents. How could someone so
gifted with machinery make a musical box such as this?
But then there's a there's another legacy of boxes that
he's drawing out, and that is the puzzle box, particularly
the puzzle boxes of the Victorian period. And I have

(25:04):
to admit I really wasn't familiar with with these at all,
Like even you know, having seen the hell Raiser movies,
I never looked into anything anything beyond the you know,
the wind up clockwork stuff. But there's a tradition of woodworking,
uh trick boxes, puzzle boxes, and they're pretty pretty phenomenal.
So one example I came across from said to be

(25:27):
from the year nineteen hundred, is a wooden book money box.
So it looks like a book that you would have
on a shelf, like a hard bound book, but it's
made out of wood. If you pick it up, take
it off the shelf, you see that there's a coin
slot in top in the top of it. So it's
not being too secretive, like I put money into this,
But then how do you get the money out? Well,
to do that you have to know the trick, and

(25:48):
these older trick boxes there generally there's just one way
to do it. So on this one, you slide part
of the book spine aside and that allows you to
slide another little panel and that opens the box and
you can get the money inside. Uh. It's clever, you know,
kind of the woodworking version of the various clockwork marvels
that we were discussing earlier. But then it ends up

(26:09):
coming to it into its own in the twentieth century,
because it's during this period that you have woodworkers both
in Europe, particularly in England and Switzerland, but also in Japan.
They really begin pushing the boundaries of what's possible with
a wooden puzzle box, and the Japanese puzzle boxes seemed
to be some of the most impressive. They typically look

(26:31):
like ornate wooden boxes with no visible hinges or lids,
and then they may require as few as three or
more than a hundred moves to open. So sliding, yeah,
like sliding this little panel, like first of all, finding
the panels to figure out like which what does a

(26:51):
piece of wood that moves here, and then sliding it
to the side, sliding something else to the side, doing
all these little tricks in order to open up the
old him an interior of the box. Um. Yeah, And
and this was according to wood Smith's Shop, which is
a video series from wood Smith Magazine Episode twelve o
four is on YouTube. These guys Chris and Phil host

(27:14):
it and uh you know they're they're going for the
hell Raiser audience by the way, Yeah, they're They're exactly
what you might imagine when you think of like sort
of I'm guessing like Midwestern um perhaps um, you know,
would wood wood workers, Uh you know that. But they
show off one of these boxes and the craftsmanship is amazing.

(27:34):
Like woodworking, I feel, is an area that I often
take for granted, Like I see a finished piece of furniture,
be it something from Ikea or something you know, in
a more robust and I don't really think about all
the skill that went into making it. And perhaps that's
why things like wooden puzzle boxes exist to show you
just how much skill is involved in turning uh you know,

(27:55):
raw wood into something that serves the purpose. Well, there's
something counter into do about it, because we don't usually
think of woodworking as is being concerned with moving parts.
Most often, woodworking is you know, design and crafting of
static elements, maybe with very few moving parts, or some
things that maybe there's a hinge or something on a cabinet,
but these combined elements of of course, the kind of

(28:18):
beautiful static art and design of woodworking with the kinds
of interlocking mechanisms you'd more often see in machinery and metalworking. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So you know, I can, I can describe them a
little bit, but I really you should look up some
videos of people manipulating these boxes and then hopefully, you know,

(28:39):
get your hands on a wooden puzzle box of your own,
because there are still people making them. There's an individual
by the name of Kegan Sound that's with a K
K A G A N S O U N D
at Kegan sound dot com. You can look him up.
He's apparently one of the foremost wooden puzzle box makers
in the world, and he's he's something of a modern
day Lema che And if you will wait, well that's

(29:02):
from the fourth movie, right, we find out that the
creator of the box is somebody named Lamar shand I
think it's also revealed in the novella If okay, it's
it's the Lament configuration or the La marchand Box. Yes. Yeah,
there are also people that are apparently making puzzle boxes
out of Lego blox, which makes sense now some of
you might say, well, hey, how about the Rubik's cute

(29:23):
uh or no rubis invention. I would say, like, if
you do it just right, it opens up and there's
something inside. Well, that's the thing. It doesn't have an interior,
so it's not it's a puzzle cube, not a true
puzzle box. There is no inside to the Rubi's cube.
It will not open up new realms of pleasure and sensation. No,
that's not true. If you solve it, you get all

(29:44):
the faces, solid colors, Hoaks shoot out of the walls.
That's how you get the hooks. Um. Yeah. I should
also point out that it's not always completely clear in
the hell Raiser books that the Lament configuration has an
interior either, But there are shots in the film that
establish an interior to the box, and it's interior is
described in the novella. So there are scenes in the
movie that I can imagine would have worked a lot

(30:07):
better in fiction when you didn't have to see them staged.
And one of them is the scene where the box
is solved in order to fix the problem, you know,
where the cinemabytes are sent back to their realm because
Kirsty Swanson like does the right things with the box.
I mean, it just looks funny when she's messing with
the box while the house is falling apart and Pinhead

(30:28):
is saying, no, don't do that. Yeah. Yeah. It's the
problems of translating the novella to to the film because
in the novella the box is also not described as
being really ornate, even it's really more has more in
common in the book with the these wooden puzzle boxes
we've described. Now, you know the the here's another area

(30:51):
to consider, So that the box of Lament is largely
positioned as a thing that must be solved in order
to open a gate, to reveal a secret. But we
probably shouldn't forget that the cinepytes are also presented, especially
in the novella, as explorers. Uh there's a sense of
curiosity to them. Uh they're truly spaced out on sensation,
you might say. And uh so I'm wondering might we

(31:12):
consider the Lament configuration as a means of exploration as well,
because certainly puzzle boxes are used in various animal studies
by scientists, typically with a food reward at the center.
I believe we've discussed the sorts of boxes in the
study of Corvid's where they'll be like generally, you know,
there's food in the middle of the box. There may

(31:32):
be some tools, or they have to make their own tool,
what have you. But they have to come up with
a way to free the prize from the box, which
is ultimately what Frank's trying to do with the Lament configuration. Now,
another noteworthy puzzle box from science history is a Thorndyke's
puzzle box. Uh. This is the work of an American
psychologist who is working at the same time as as

(31:55):
pav Lav and in the same area, you know, looking
at animals and their problem solving ability using their behavior,
and he used this on cats in particular to test
their learning and problem solving abilities. They're essentially cages that
can be exited by performing at the correct task, hitting
the right mechanism, etcetera, in order to to step out

(32:15):
of the cage and get your food. Uh and uh.
In His main observation from all of this was that
a cat would behave radically the first time use that
you put them in the box the first time they
were in there for the experiment, but then they would
learn so in subsequent experiments they wouldn't. They would waste
less and less time in the box. They would just
realize like, oh, I'm in here again. I pushed this button.
Then I get out and I can get my food.

(32:36):
And then Thorndyke's work would lead to another noteworthy box,
Skinner's Box, in which the animal has to engage a
mechanism in order to be fed within the box, the
work of BF Skinner. So later installments of the hell
Raiser franchise explored to some degree the idea of the
boxes a place or thing that may contain us, but
for the most part not so much. But the the

(32:57):
idea of the puzzle boxes a means of exploring human desire.
I think that's kind of an interesting idea to consider. Well,
it makes me wonder if the box is also being
used to test us somehow. If it is being used
to test us, then to test the humans that you know,
play with it. Obviously the people doing the testing would
be the cinobytes, right, So maybe we should turn to
the cinobytes and think a little bit about about pain, experience, sensation,

(33:23):
and flagellation. Absolutely all right, So let's just start with
the word cinobyte, because this this really gets into a
lot of what we're going to discuss here. A cinnobyte
is merely a member of a religious group living together
in a monastic community. There are plenty of cinnobytes. Technically,
there are plenty of cinnabytes in the world today, and
they have They have nothing to do with the hell
Raiser movie. If you've never seen it written out. It

(33:45):
is not spelled like cinnabun uh. It is c e
n o. They had. The word apparently emerged in the
fifteenth century, and it comes from the late Latin colonobita.
If I'm saying that correctly, Basically you have the Greek
coin cohen plus bios life, so it basically means the

(34:05):
monastic life. Now, one obviously does see certain levels of
self inflicted pain, however, in monastic history. So religious rights
of flagellation or blood lighting can be found throughout Christian, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist,
Native American, and other religious rights. We we've covered some

(34:27):
of these on the show before. There there are plenty
of religious rights of pain that can be found in
the world and in human history, just as there are
various secular rights of pain that can be found today.
Within the realms of say performance art or even you
know b D s M for instance, uh the later
of which served as partial inspiration for Clive Barker, and
likewise Barker's work, while enough influencing B D s M

(34:50):
to some degree as well. Oh that's not surprising. Uh.
So I was looking around, yeah, for more historical ideas
about pain and pleasure indivisible as the as Pin says,
they explore, and I came across a book by the
American psychologist James H. Luba, who lived eighteen sixty eight
to nineteen forty six, who focused a lot of his

(35:10):
work on the psychology of religion. And this book was
called The Psychology of Religious Mysticism. And in this book
there's part where he's in the middle of a section
about narcotics, consciousness, and mysticism, and Luba begins to discuss
the idea of pleasure in pain or enjoyment in suffering,
which is a major theme of of this movie and

(35:31):
of the novel. And his hypothesis is that quote, the
apparent paradox of people seeking and enjoying pain becomes intelligible
when one takes into account the passion for vivid consciousness Uh.
And so he of course is this is in the
context of religious experience. So he mentions members of self
flagellating Muslim sex of the quote, painful ascetic practices of

(35:55):
the yogi, or the violent dancing frenzies of the mind ads.
He says as those quote all may yield a sense
of new or increased life. Now what does he mean
by that? Well, he explains further by quoting a letter
from Gothold Ephraim Lessing to Moses Mendelssohn, which in which
Lesson writes, quote, were agreed in this, my dear friend,

(36:17):
that all passions are either vehement cravings or vehement loathings.
And also that in every vehement craving or loathing, we
acquire an increased consciousness of our reality, and that this
consciousness cannot but be pleasurable. Consequently, all our passions, even
the most painful, are as passions pleasurable. Uh, which is

(36:40):
kind of interesting. Explore more in a second. But that
I just realized that made me think of a passage
in The Brothers Karamazov that's all about, uh, a character
talking about the pleasure one takes in taking offense. Uh.
And I remember being like Wow, how have I never
read this before? It's so true that, like, in getting

(37:04):
mad about something unfair that has happened to you or
somebody who's been mean to you or something, there is
so often this feeling of like almost joy in the
way that you get worked up about it. Yeah, And
and there's a difference to like there's certainly there's righteous anger.
There's a situation where like if you feel like you've
been wronged and you're you're having been wronged is a

(37:26):
part of a larger problem in the culture in the world,
then yeah, you can get in this area of righteous anger.
But I think more of what you're talking about here
are the petty things in life, you know, where it's
like the server at a restaurant doesn't bring you your
appetizer first, and you you have been wrong and you
just start getting excited about how mad you are, and

(37:49):
on some lie, like you're probably not thinking, oh I
feel so alive, I'm so angry at the server, but
in a way that is happening. But yeah, So what
does Luba think is going on with these these passions
being pleasurable even when they're painful. Uh. He writes that
it's because these heightened states of awareness and passion triggered

(38:10):
by pain offer an escape from a sort of baseline
form of consciousness characterized by tedium, insensibility and normal fatigue. Thus,
for some people, normal states of consciousness become so boring,
so exhausting and tedious, that the self infliction of pain
actually unlocks a state of mind that is to them

(38:32):
preferable by contrast, And and this becomes an important distinction
in Luba's idea here. It's that religious ecstasy in the
self infliction of pain is not actually an enjoyment directly
of the pain itself, but an enjoyment of a kind
of rapturous and highly aware state of mind that's brought
about by the infliction of pain. Quote. Not the pain

(38:55):
nor the wound does the martyr enjoy, but the exaltation
that come with the quivering of the flesh. The quivering
of the flesh. Oh, you're a fan too, No, I mean,
it's so it's interesting. I'll come back to hell Raiser
in just a second. I mean, first, I would point
out that, of course this is in the sort of
like William James E in cast of like broad observational psychology,

(39:18):
which it doesn't necessarily mean he's wrong, but it does
mean that it should be thought of more like interesting
philosophical writings based on observations rather than conclusions derived from
rigorously controlled experiments. But again, it's not say he's wrong,
it's just that it's not really science by modern standard.
It's more like philosophy and cultural criticism. He could be

(39:39):
onto something there, uh, And I do think those observations
maybe onto something. It's funny that it lines up so
well with the character of Frank in Hell Raiser, a
man who again in the movie, we we see a
couple of scenes of him appearing disgusted by normal hedonistic pleasure.
Like all of the regular pleasures of the flesh that

(39:59):
seemed to have they failed for him. They don't work anymore.
Everything's boring. So according to Luba's framework here, it could
make sense for him to join a self flagellating order
devoted to the mortification of the flesh, because maybe pain
will unlock higher states of conscious awareness and excitation that
he wants to reach, but for which the bridges of

(40:20):
normal pleasure have collapsed. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a
solid read on on Frank's character for sure, you know,
but Also, Julia is the sort of flip side of
that coin. She's the tedium side of it. She is
she lives this life of boredom and perhaps some level
of contempt for her boring husband as well, um and
ends up being sucked into this world of of intense

(40:41):
sensation as just as Frank has. But I think in
all this one thing we get to is that it
starts to become complicated to try to define and understand pain.
I think because when you ask what is pain, it's
something we all know about. You know, there's no aating
whether there is such a thing as pain. But when

(41:02):
you try to come up with a rigorous definition of
it that applies to every case, that becomes difficult. I
think it goes back to that quote from the help
Priest himself. What we think of pain is a shadow,
but pain has a face. M who just but actually
like for us to actually define the lines of that face. Uh,

(41:24):
It's it's extremely difficult and a huge part of that.
And this is something we've talked about in the show before.
It's like the difficulty in even discussing pain. Like I
can talk about my pain, you can talk about your pain,
but it becomes very difficult for us to properly understand
each other's pain. Uh, and but properly related. Yeah, and
there are some contexts in which I think it's simpler

(41:46):
than others. But even in the simpler ones, say like
regular no susceptive body pain that you would feel in
the context of, you know, getting pricked with a needle
or something in a clinical setting. Even then, if we
look to like us to approximation type answers within the
medical world, you can get definitions like this one, which
is cited by the International Association for the Study of Pain. Quote.

(42:09):
Pain is an unpleasant, sensory and emotional experience that is
associated with actual or potential tissue damage or described in
such terms. Okay, so that's kind of complicated. It's got
multiple clauses in there. But also one of the things
that's difficult about that you immediately hit a snag with

(42:30):
the idea that pain is explicitly and necessarily described as unpleasant,
and this very definition would of course, I think that
would apply to most cases. I mean most cases when
people say they're in pain, they think of that as
bad and they wanted to stop right Well, yeah, I
mean part of it. You have the problem with our
our language. Uh. For instance, in in yoga, I practice yoga,

(42:53):
and something that's often touched on by the teachers is
that is the distinction between discomfort and pain. Like you
should work with discomfort, like discomfort is part of the practice.
But if you are feeling pain, then that means you
need to back off because you don't want to go
into that third area of injury of damage. But a

(43:13):
lot of times it can be hard to tell the
difference between discomfort and pain. I mean, are they distinct
classes of things or is that a gradient with you know,
them being at two different sides of a scale. Uh.
And of course, the very definition that says that pain
is necessarily unpleasant would seem to rule out the existence
of pleasure in pain. It would either mean that nobody

(43:34):
actually does take pleasure in pain, and I think lots
of anecdotal evidence would seem to disagree with that, right,
or that painful sensations that bring about pleasure are not
actually technically pain. But in that case, what are they?
What would you call them? I mean, it's a great
man once said pain don't hurt, So what are we
to make of that? Okay, so you quote Roadhouse and

(43:57):
he said, but I think that position in a way
is inco parent he so he says, pain don't hurt,
but then he spends the rest of the movie trying
to prevent the villain from inflicting pain on people. It's true,
I've got a real beef with Roadhouse, But I wonder
if that quote, like part of it is that what
he's trying to say is that for him, physical pain

(44:17):
does not have, at least in this case, an emotional context.
But I think it's in a way, it's like a
lot of things in the Roadhouse, Like maybe it's accidentally
clever because because it is getting at that distinction, like
for for human beings, pain is both sensory, like purely sensory,
but also it has this enormous emotional context, right, Yeah,

(44:37):
that it pain is a physical sensation. You know, there's
no susception in the nerves in the flesh, and so
it detects something that is an injury, could indicate an
injury or something like that. But then it also is
a motivation. It triggers avoidance behaviors. Yeah, Like in the
the yoga example for instance, like the pain is there
to tell me, hey, this thing you're doing to your arm,

(45:01):
uh is not in your normal practice. You should you
should be aware that if this continues, worst things could occur. Injury,
damage could occur. Again, that's normal functioning, not getting into
you know, disorders of pain. But again yeah, for humans,
pain is a complex topic. Uh, physical sensation, but also
this emotional realm as well. And there are seemingly dimensions

(45:24):
of pain that are beyond the scope of less cognitively
advanced organisms. You know, not saying animals don't feel pain,
but and their animals do not necessarily have this emotional
context to their their suffering as well. Yeah, certainly not
in the same way. I mean, you can see that
a painful stimulus might cause a retreat or avoidance behaviors,

(45:46):
and say a crab, but it's hard to believe that
a crab has the full spectrum of human like fear
and emotions that that you would get from feeling a
painful wound, which raises an interesting question. Would a being
more cognitively advanced than a human being have a greater
potential for suffering and pain? And maybe would that explain

(46:08):
something about the nature of many gods and myth and legend. Oh,
I mean This shows up in existing works of theology.
I mean, I think it's something that's often used to
develop the Christian mythos, which is of course has a
big theology of the suffering of God. It says that
God came down into human form, was crucified on the
cross in the form of Jesus Christ, and then descended

(46:29):
into hell for three days, and then was resurrected. And
in order to emphasize the immensity of the sacrifice, Christian
theologians often point out that this isn't just like a
human suffering, it's God himself suffering. And since God's state
of holiness and perfection was already infinitely greater than humans,
it follows that when he descends to suffering and death,

(46:51):
that suffering is infinitely greater of an insult than it
would be to a normal human. So the parts of
our brain that respond a pleasure also react two sensations
of pain. This also further complicates things, and the line
between the two is sometimes a bit of a blur.
For instance, two thousand thirteen study from the University of
Oslo found that quote the brain changed how it processed

(47:14):
moderate pain according to the context of what the alternative
was if the pain was less than anticipated, then the
brain transformed the sensation into something comforting or even pleasurable. Likewise,
there was a two thousand fourteen study from Northern Illinois
University that linked sado masochism the altered states of mind
that can be obtained their linked them with with those

(47:35):
states of mind you might achieve through yoga or meditation,
you know, which which I think a lot of that
makes sense. You were talking about, like just a feeling
alive in the moment of sensation, be that sensation, you know,
painful or pleasurable. Like there is a is essentially a
built in mindfulness exercise to that. In the same way
that if you focus on your breath you are living

(47:57):
entirely or at least more so in the body then
you are normally Likewise, if you uh, you know, if
you you accidentally prick your finger, you're you're living in
the moment of that that that that finger prick, Like
there's probably not a lot else on your mind in
that single instance. Oh. In fact, that this actually comes
up in the study I want to talk about in

(48:17):
a minute that has to do with how pain. Pain
has been shown to alter or mediate our perception of
our identity excellent. Uh. The same two thousand fourteen study,
the researchers uh, and you know, they suspected that pain
inflicted in consensual sado masochism alters blood flow in the brain,
particularly to the dorso lateral prefrontal cortex, which plays into

(48:40):
our ability to distinguish self from other. As such, intense
pain may result in feelings of oneness with you know,
the other individual or with humanity or the universe, which
it is interesting to think about. That is really interesting.
I mean that gets back into stuff we talked about
in our episodes on psye adelics, of course, with the uh,

(49:02):
the sort of self other distinction that is sometimes dissolved
by changes in brain chemistry. But of course we know
that not all changes in brain brain chemistry have to
come from ingesting chemicals from outside the body, right right,
um man, I quite again, I do want to underline
the consensual aspect of that study. They are talking about
consensual acts of salomaschism here, of course. Yeah. Now, I

(49:25):
figured it would be worth talking about other interesting scientific
research that offers complications in our understanding and experience of pain.
One thing that I came across that was really interesting
to me. Is something that is known. It's it's a
cognitive heuristic known as the peak end phenomenon. And so
this is a psychological memory bias that says that people

(49:49):
don't in their memories mentally characterize and experience by taking
an average of the entire duration of the experience. Rather,
they mentally care aaracterize and experience according to memories of
a couple of little things, and they tend very often
to be moments of peak intensity of the experience and

(50:10):
then the final moments of the experience. And this has
been found to apply to both pleasurable and painful experiences.
Of course, not all experiences. No psychological phenomenon applies to everything,
but to a lot in which it very often has
strange consequences. It's been documented a lot of times now,
but one important early study is by Daniel Kaneman, Barbara Frederickson,

(50:34):
Charles Schrieber, and Donald Radelmeyer published in Psychological Science in
called when more pain is preferred to less adding a
better end. So in this study it was pretty simple,
You've got to test conditions that both induce pain. Again,
like most studies are pretty much all good studies, this
is going to be non threatening pain, but it will

(50:55):
be uncomfortable. And what it is here is a plunge
your hand into cold water and holding it there. So
in test one, you plunge your hand into cold water,
which was fifteen degrees celsius, and you hold it there
for one minute. And then in test too, you do
exactly the same thing, plunge into the fifteen degree celsius
cold water, hold it there for one minute, but then

(51:17):
you also have to hold it for an additional thirty
seconds as the temperature in the water is gradually slightly increased,
though it's still cold, more cold than is comfortable. A
majority of people, a significant majority of people chose when
they had the choice to repeat one of the two tests,
chose to repeat the second test rather than the first,

(51:40):
meaning they'd rather the discomfort go on longer if the
final moments of the discomfort were slightly less intense. And
other studies have found versions of this in different context.
It does seem that we are willing to experience more
pain or discomfort for a long, longer period of time

(52:01):
if the last few moments of the pain are not
as bad, and this seems to suggest that there's some
way that as we form memories of painful or unpleasant experience,
those memories can be formed in such a way that objectively,
more pain chronologically measured seems like less pain because the
ending of it wasn't quite as bad, and the ending

(52:23):
seems to matter the most to us. But this also
makes perfect sense if you think of of pain as
the signal warning you about something that may happen about
you know, continued stressing of this particular muscle, or continued
exposure to a dangerous element such as heat or cold.
Oh that's very interesting. I hadn't so, I'd seen it

(52:43):
mainly interpreted, like what's causing this? The main interpretation I
had seen had been recency bias. Of course, you know
we tend to uh no, well, again, there are two things.
It's the peak intensity of the experience and the end.
So focusing on the end of the experience, it would
be the recency bias. Right is, the things that happen
more recently seem more salient to us. Um. But yeah,

(53:04):
that also makes sense, especially for registering pain, because pain
is a lot about what could happen. It's supposed to
be giving you warnings that are useful information in order
for you to protect your body. Right. But then again,
at the same time as we're discussing and will continuous
discuss the human pain is complex, so there are other

(53:24):
elements that I guess may skew that sort of thing. Oh,
of course. Yeah, so so that's that's an interesting possibility too.
And I should note that, of course, like a lot
of psychological phenomenon, the peak in phenomenon doesn't always apply
at every instance, but it's a general rule. It seems
like we followed this an awful lot. But if more
pain objectively measured seems in our minds like less pain,

(53:46):
at least in retrospect, then what is pain like? What
is the real pain? What is the real thing that
we want to try to lessen and avoid? Or in
some of these rare cases where people are enjoy or
taking enjoyment and pain, what is the kind they want
to experience? More pain in the memory or pain in
in the in the moment sensation, since those things don't

(54:08):
always necessarily match up. Yeah, that's true. I mean, this
is the kind of thing that I feel like this
happens anytime we look at pain, or you really think
about pain, is that it seems like our our language
of pain is severely lacking, Like we just don't have
the proper vocabulary to get it all the different nuances here. Yeah, totally.
I mean it raises all kinds of questions, like I mean,

(54:30):
even for yourself, if you're not trying to make a
judgment for other people, assuming pain is something you want
to avoid in this context, would you rather have less
pain in the moment or less pain in your memory
of an experience? I don't know how to like, I
really don't know how to answer that, right, And this
is and this is the total human dimension of pain,

(54:52):
like the memory of pain. And this is the kind
of thing that yeah, you know, some animals are gonna
have to deal with a certain animals is gonna have
to deal with to some level. But but humans and
pain and memory and the ability to to mentally time
travel back to that pain and then to to likewise,
you know, imagine encountering that pain in the future like

(55:13):
that defines so much of what we do. Absolutely, now
I've got another study to talk about with pain. But
should we take a break first and then come back.
Let's do it. Thank alright, we're back. We're continuing to
spin off of hell Raiser and the hell Bound Heart
and discuss the nature of pain, pleasure and pain indivisible

(55:33):
as the cinnabytes would say. So, one study I came
across that I thought had some interesting bits, and it
was called The Positive Consequences of Pain, a Biopsychosocial Approach
by Bastion, Jetton, Hornsey, and Lechness from the Social Psychology
Review in and here this is a big review article.

(55:54):
So it's like looking at existing literature to collect examples
of ways that pain has been documented to have some
positive effects. And of course you can't list all of them,
and and maybe some of these are better held up
by evidence than others. But these are the things that
the broad categories that they found some evidence of. One

(56:16):
is might be pretty straightforward, but it's kind of interesting.
Pain often enhances subsequent pleasure by providing a contrasting experience.
Pain causes people to rate pleasurable experiences in the aftermath
of the pain as more pleasurable than they otherwise would. Yeah.
Like an example of this that ties in directly with

(56:37):
some of the methods used in these experiments is that
if you go to ah too certain saunas, there will
be a cold water pool like a chilling water pool
in which you may immerse all or parts of your
body and then in and then once you've overcome with
the displeasure of that, then you may go and climb
into the hot tub, and then the hot tub will

(56:58):
be more pleasurable for the discomfort that you have had
in the cold top. Yeah. I don't know to what
extent this plays a role in the mythology of the cinabytes,
because it seems like they're sort of pursuing pain for
its own sake in some cases, like they're not always
following it up with a nice sauna or something. Oh yeah,
we never see them just giving a nice gentle bag massage. Yeah,

(57:18):
the hooks shoot out the hooks and then it's like, ah,
but then after that you get to go have some
ice cream. Okay. Another thing from their list is they
say there's evidence that pain increases sensory sensitivity. It's sort
of increases our sampling rate of sensations from the physical world.
In some cases, this can be good. Yeah, I mean
this makes sense, right if your if your body is

(57:40):
receiving or resonating with the signal that something something is
potentially damaging the body, then it makes sense that the
century awareness is also ratcheted up in order to take
in what may be harming the body. Right. Another one
they point out pretty interesting is that pain sometimes blocks
or a aviates our sense of guilt, which could otherwise

(58:03):
prevent us from experiencing pleasure. Robert, I think you had
some details on a study that looked into this, right, yes,
I do. This is a study. This one came before
the other one. This is from two thousand and eleven,
but it's also from brock Bastion, the lead author of
the other study. A real um, you know Hollywood leading
man name. Uh it sounds like an action here. Uh

(58:26):
So basically M. Brock Bastion of the University of Queensland,
Australia set out to understand, uh, you know, what's going
on with pain in this situation. Bastion's team recruited young
male and female test subjects under the guise of a
mental and physical acuity study. The researchers asked the test
subjects to write a personal essay about a time in

(58:47):
which they ostracize someone, and the aim here was to
make them feel guilty or immoral. Meanwhile, a control group
wrote personal essays about a routine memory. You know, nothing painful,
just a memory. And the searchers instructed both the immoral
volunteers and the control group to hold their hands in
a bucket of ice water for as long as they

(59:07):
could stand it, and others dip their hands in a
soothing bucket of warm water. So the question is would
immoral test subjects punish themselves with longer dips in the
cold water? The the individuals who just had to write
a personal essay about a time that they were awful,
would and then would they feel better afterwards? And the
answer ends up being yes on both counts. Uh. Those
who were primed to feel shame about past actions dip

(59:30):
their hands in the cold water for longer durations, and
they described the dip as more painful and express reduced
feelings of guilt afterwards. So Rockbastion argues that this experiment
illustrates our culturally altered understanding of pain. We've come to
process it not only is negative and environmental feedback, but
is justice and punishment. So on a psychological level, uh,

(59:53):
you know, a little bit of self inflected pain rebalances
the scales. Uh. Now, I would say, on one hand,
this is the kind of like intuition confirming social psychology research.
That always makes me think, like, I'd like to see
that replicated, you know, a few times. But but yeah,
assuming that the results hold up, that that is interesting

(01:00:14):
that like the pain would have this this effect on
our self critical judgments, which also, of course gives another
explanation of why self infliction of pain rituals might be
so common in certain religious orders, especially people who take
sins of the flesh very seriously. Yeah, we we see,
we see and read about an example of self flagellation

(01:00:37):
in m Burdo Echo is the name of the rose. Yes,
and of course in that in the movie adaptation, Uh,
the girl is played by the same actor who would
play a Cinabyte in the fourth Hell Racer movie. Really,
so there's your vital on Burdo Echo Hell Razor connection.
Love it? Okay? A few more things mentioned in this study. H.

(01:00:59):
So one thing they say is that pain there's some
evidence that pain quote brings cognitive resources online, so it
helps increase our cognitive effective control of ourselves. Uh, they
say that pain that this one was interesting and we
hinted at it earlier. They say that pain enables identity
management and one example they give here is that physical

(01:01:22):
pain in the body can sometimes interrupt what the authors
call quote high level awareness of a symbolically mediated, temporarily
extended identity. In other words, the kind of thinking about
oneself that leads to negative, repetitive introspection, worry, self consciousness.
That physical pain increases awareness of the immediate physical body

(01:01:45):
and decreases the immediate salience of these kinds of worries.
That the negative introspection about oneself, and this this horrible
symbolic entity known as a person tied up in this
idea of the soul, which really we should we so
we should thank the cinnabytes for tearing the soul apart,
like in the movie It. You know, it comes off
as more this threat. Right, I'm gonna tell you you're

(01:02:07):
going to tear your soul apart. What really we should
be saying the saying thank you. That's the kind of
ego loss I've been searching for. That's why I picked
up the limit configuration. Right, That's how you finally achieve
the higher state of consciousness. Yeah, okay, and a couple
of other things they mentioned. This one I think is
pretty straightforward, but it's true. Pain can be interpreted as
demonstrating virtue such as courage, toughness, dedication. The symbolic value

(01:02:32):
of withstanding pain can sometimes override the physical discomfort of
the pain itself, though at the same time worth pointing out,
that's a great way to wind up in that that
third category of injured if you were just you know,
like I'm too I'm too masculine. Uh, you know, I'm
too powerful to listen to the pain signal. Well, now
you have the injury and damage signal, and you have

(01:02:54):
to deal with that, right, yes. And they also note
several ways in which it appears that pain promotes affiliation
between people, you know. They say, the expression of pain
can sometimes increase empathy and care for others, and the
expressions of pain can trigger social connections, and they can
strengthen bonding and solidarity. And in the later you know
how raizor movies. This this holds true, right because once

(01:03:14):
the cinebytes are done with you, like you are one
of them. Yeah, I guess that's true. Now, I do
want to stress on a briefly serious note that while
we're talking about these uh possibly recognized psychological benefits of
different kinds of pain, we should stress that none of
the potential benefits of pain should be interpreted as excuses
to continue practices of actual self injury uh, you know,

(01:03:37):
meaning like the deliberate damaging of your body tissues such
as cutting or burning, if you are practicing self injury
or considering it, uh, including of course non suicidal self injury.
This is not something to deal with on your own.
This is something that's important to talk to people about,
talk to friends of family members or mental health professional
if at all possible. There are other ways to get

(01:03:58):
relief from the underlying shoes that lead to this coping mechanism,
and they're far less dangerous absolutely. Um. Now, on the
on the same nime, you know, we do have listeners
who who have you know, taken part in b D
s M. We've also heard from listeners who have done
hook suspension. But I think it's it's very important to
note like these are these are avenues that one should

(01:04:21):
you know, enter into with safety in mind. And also
if you you know, if you go into any of
these things, you know safety is going to be a
part all of those ventures, like how to essentially utilize
pain without leading to that area of damage. Um of
you know, of injury or certainly infection. Um, so certainly
do your research. It's also worth stressing that some levels

(01:04:44):
of physical pain that the pain is not always the
right word, can certainly be acquired through exercise. Oh yeah,
I mean, I just want to say one of the
studies I was looking at, though, it was very clear
to say that I think at the time exercise had
not been found to be like a an empirically re
viable way of curing self injury pattern behavior. Uh that

(01:05:04):
anecdotally it was often reported by patients that exercise was
had been substituted for self injury. Yeah, I would say that,
Like basically, if you if you were inspired by anything
you heard here and you want to try something, well,
first of all, the cold water I think is a
great avenue to consider. But also yeah, just you know,
most levels of exercise, you know you hear about like

(01:05:26):
feeling the burn, right, um, you know, experiencing some level
of discomfort during a workout, and perhaps the soreness that
you would experienced in the following forty eight hours. Like
you know, that's a I think that's that's an area
where one might pursue some of what we're talking about,
and that comes with a lot of added benefits for
your life and your mental health as well. Right, Yeah,

(01:05:48):
and if you're doing it right, yeah, you're not injuring
yourself in the process. Like so much of what we're
talking about, like it really resonates with with my own
yoga practice, is that you know that, like I can
feel myself, you know, putting myself into this this level
of discomfort, staying clear of the area of injury, and

(01:06:09):
in doing so, like feeling this heightened state of existence,
you know, uh, like I feel more in tune with
my body and my surrounding and with the people in
the room with me that are also engaging in this, uh,
in this practice, that are also experiencing the same thing. Um,
so yeah, I would I would say, yeah, don't don't

(01:06:29):
do what what pinhead does, go to a yoga studio instead. Well,
I would be curious in your yoga practice, do you
find the reduction of the negative aspects of self self
into respection and the ability to self regulate your identity
processes through this the discomfort brought about in yoga. Absolutely, Yeah,

(01:06:51):
that's that's one of the main reasons I do it
for sure. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting and maybe I gotta
give yoga to try one of these days. Well, you
gotta give it more one try, because I hated it
the first time I did so. Anywhere in talent that
does like horror yoga, like horror themed yoga. There's our
former co host, Christian would go to a death metal yoga.

(01:07:13):
I've heard of that. It's not the same. Yeah, you want,
you want a full horror themed yoga, pumpkin head yoga. Yeah,
I don't know. Well, there's there's so many forms of yoga.
I feel like there is room for that that brand
of yoga as well. Okay, I think we may have
done it for pain here, but I think we could
briefly talk about skinless critters. Do you want to do that? Oh? Yeah,

(01:07:35):
well yeah. Frank in the film spends a lot of
time skinless. You know, it comes back as a shriveled corpse,
and then he's able to drink enough blood to regenerate,
but then he needs to acquire a new skin. He
keeps thinking he's going to get skin, but then he never.
Like one victim after another, he's like, he's got to
have skin. This time, he's almost there, and then still
no skin, right and in the second movie, which which

(01:07:59):
I have seen in a long time, but I remember
as being fun, uh grotesque. I don't know if I
remember fun remember fun. But basically it's like it's Ernest
goes to Hell. They go to Hell. It's not well,
they go to Hell. Yes, but Earnest. I don't think
it's quite an Earnest movie. Um, but No. In that film,

(01:08:20):
we we encounter Frank again and we encounter Julia, and
Julia now also has this skinless and has to acquire
a skin, and at one point she's able to slip
away by sort of uh you know, being like like
sort of leaving her skin behind, shedding her skin, and uh.
It is interesting to to then look to the natural
world and see that we do see a practice like

(01:08:43):
this as a defense mechanism in certain organisms. We've talked
about autatonomy before on the show, the amazing biological ability
to shed part of one's body to facilitate a skate
from a predator, the most classic example being a lizard
shedding its tail. Yeah, you sort of give the predator

(01:09:04):
a consolation prize, yeah, or a distraction. There are a
few different interpretations of it. Right, It's a compromise. It
gets the tail, you get to survive. But there's also
there are also two species of African spiny mice that
slouch off portions of their furry flesh when they're grabbed
by a predator. Uh So, so you know, it's one

(01:09:25):
thing to see this in a lizard, but here's a
here's a mammal that does it. And it's it's flesh.
It's not a limb that it's going to regrow. It's
just a big portion of its skin that pulls aside.
So as I saw explained in Nature, Uh, these self
flaying mice simply slip out of portions of their own
hide and rapidly regrow complete suits of hair, follical skin,

(01:09:47):
sweat glands for and even cartilage to fill in the gaps.
And and we see some of that regenerative power in
Julia Cotton in hell Raiser too. But Frank he'd never
seemed to have quite learned that ability on his own.
Now he had to steal his brother's skin. Now we
find another rather uh skilled skin shucker, if you will,

(01:10:10):
in the form of a particular gecko species from Madagascar.
Uh these are fish scaled geckos. I'm gonna attempt the
species name. This is where when we need uh mark
Mandinka in the studio. But it's a gecko Lepis megallepis.
And basically they have these giant, kind of oversized looking

(01:10:32):
fish scales on their body and uh and and basically
if something tries to capture them, they shed the skin.
And it actually makes it difficult to study them because
you have to researchers have to collect specimens with special
cotton based traps, and even these are are not quite
delicate enough to prevent injury. Like they'll basically shed some
of their skin at the drop of a hat. It's

(01:10:53):
a bumber. You need to find a way to calm
them down before you catch them. Yeah. Well, I mean
but basically they're they're like I don't want to be
caught period. Yeah, you know, so there's a lot like
Frank in that that situation. Frank does not want to
be recaptured by the cinepipes. Uh. And of course, not
only are these both of these these these these different
animals of the mice and the geckos, not only are

(01:11:13):
they interesting in their own right, uh, this is another
one of those areas as with you know, lizards regrowing
their tails and other regenerative uh powers in nature, Like,
there is a potential here to to figure out how
to employ regenerative medical UM technology in humans down the
line salamander research. Yeah, yeah, that's sort of thing. So

(01:11:36):
you know, we could reach the I don't know about
regrowing a human's complete skin, but certainly we're getting into
that area of possibility. But the skin comes off really
easily in Hell Raiser. I don't know if you've noticed this,
And in a lot of horror films, um, well, there
are two things that happened way too easily. First of all,
someone can be impaled on something super easily. And then

(01:11:57):
also and in person's entire skin can be pulled off,
you know, with relative ease. So as far as impaling
and stabbing and stuff goes, horror movies seem to forget
that people have bones. You ever noticed that. It's like
where are the bones? Somebody trips and a table leg
all the way through the body, like just straight through, yeah,
right through all the bones in the chest, through the heart,

(01:12:18):
everything is if the human body is made out of
balsa wood. Robert, this has been mighty fun to discuss today,
But I noticed hooks and chains emerging from the studio
walls too. That's the sign that we have to call
it there. Obviously, we we could continue to talk about
the nature of pain here. Uh. So hey, if you want,

(01:12:39):
if you want more, check out some of our past
episodes on pain. Uh and I'm sure we'll come back
around to pain in the future. There are a number
of things we've touched on here that we could flesh
out in a future episode. Unintended yes, yeah, I mean
when you're talking hell Raiser, all puns are intended. So uh.
In the meantime, if you want to check out other episodes,
where can you find well, you can find them Stuff

(01:13:00):
to Blow your Mind dot com. That's our website. You
can also find them wherever you get your podcasts. Uh.
And hey, if you're on that thing they call Facebook,
you can find the Facebook group for Stuff to Blow
Your Mind. It's the Stuff to Blow your Mind discussion module.
That's a fun place to interact with other listeners and
uh and occasionally the hosts themselves. Huge thanks as always

(01:13:22):
to our excellent audio producers Seth Nicholas Johnson. Thanks Joe, Hey,
this is Seth hopping in real quick. Just to say
a quick thank you to Annie Reese for providing the
voice of our cinembytes at the beginning of there the
lead Cinebytes the Proto pinhead Um. If you want to
hear more from Annie doing awesome things with her voice,
you should listen to her podcasts that Sminty Stuff Mom

(01:13:44):
Never Told You and Savor all this month. Just like
we're doing our Halloween themed episodes, they're doing their Halloween
themed episodes and they're all really great. There's some stuff
on female monsters, the feminism of the Alien franchise, female
serial killers, the Winchester House. Um, let's see apple cider,
the turnips. You know turnips were the original jack lanterns.

(01:14:06):
Just saying these are all really cool things that you
will learn if you go listen to uh Annie on
her other podcasts, Sminty and Sabor go do that. Everyone
All right? Back to you, Joe. If you would like
to get in touch with us with feedback on this
episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
or just to say hello, you can email us at
contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff

(01:14:34):
to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart Radio's
How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio
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(01:15:01):
no