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The Jordan Harbinger Show
00:40:55 2/19/2023

Transcript

The HPV vaccine protects you from the HPV virus, which can cause cancers, including cervical cancer, and the more young people who got the HPV vaccine, the more will be protected from HPV related cancers. If you didn't get the HPV vaccine when it was offered to you at school, you could be eligible to get it now for free as part of the Laura Brennan CatchUp Program. So go to HPV study to find out more from the HSC. Special thanks to Peloton for sponsoring this episode of The Jordan Harbinger Show. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger and this is skeptical, Sun. A special edition of The Jordan Harbinger Show We're Fact Checker and comedian David S. Smiley and I. We break down a topic that you may have never thought about open things up and debunk common misconceptions. Topics such as why the Olympics are kind of a sham, why expiration dates on food are nonsense, why tipping makes no sense. Recycling banned foods, toothpaste, chem trails and a whole lot more. Normally, on The Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. We have longform interviews and conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers and performers. If you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show, our episode starter packs are a great place to begin. These are collections of our favorite episodes organized by topic that'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Topics like persuasion and influence China, North Korea, abnormal psychology, crime and cults, and more. Just visit Jordan Harbinger RT.com Slash Start or take a look in your Spotify app to get started today on Skeptical Sun. Every year around Halloween, millions of teenagers and drunk adults and terrified believers gather around Weegee boards to contact the other side. Now we may have been a part of this, and we weren't moving that little thingamajig, but it was definitely moving. So what is actually going on here? Skeptic comedian David C. Smalley is here to discuss it. And before we start, David, I understand your daughter has found a way to contact ancient people. Yeah, I'm that ancient person. At least the first one. We just started a podcast called Daughter Issues, where I tell her all about what she calls the olden times, which is the 80s and 90s where we grew up. And she tries to bring me up to speed on like Gen Z slang and music, and we do music tests with each other. It's a blast. And yeah, people can search for daughter issues on their podcast app, or they can go to Daughter podcast for all the episodes and videos. Sounds lit, fam. Yeah. Yeah, Those I now understand it's pretty cool. I bet you do feel older, more out of touch and irrelevant after every single episode, though it's depressing. You are 100 percent correct. All right, so back to the olden days, what is this fascination with Weegee boards? Imagine, after years of dealing with the stresses of social media meetings, you don't want to attend phone calls, you don't want to take text messages you don't want to respond to in loads of social anxiety that we all develop. You finally get to die, right? Only for some a*****e to buy a Ouija board. Now you're taking a spelling test. You know you didn't sign up for this. I don't get the fascination, but imagine just being heckled by the living when you finally think you're escaping into death. So this is like a game board with a little magnifying glass in you all. Put your hands on it and supposedly you're talking to dead spirits. Yeah, and that's what a Ouija board is, and many people have seen this. I'm sure there are some who are googling it. They're like, Oh, that thing, I have seen that thing, and I maybe didn't know how to pronounce it because it's oh UI J, which we'll talk about in a second. But I just hope there's a block feature when we die. Like how my, my phone, my iPhone won't ring. When I get calls from unknown numbers, it just goes straight to my voicemail. I want these Weegee requests to go straight to my celestial voicemail. Like an unknown messages thing, like on Facebook or Instagram, you get to decide if you're going to take a look at it later. It goes to my requests folder as possible. Spam Ouija Ouija board request Ouija. When did this all get started? This seems like an old thing that just got commercialized. Yeah, so we've been, you know, annoying the dead with the equivalent of impromptu Zoom meetings since 1100 A.D.. All right. The earliest record of this is actually in China, where Fuji or planchette writing was used to contact the other side to ask them to write us messages. Now, most people would recognize a planchette as the thing. You just mentioned the little magnifying glass that you move around a Ouija board or sorry, the thing you rest your fingers on as the spirits solve your unsolicited riddles. People would take a plane ticket, but imagine that little thing with like a hole in it for a pen or a pencil or some kind of writing utensil. The early ones, it would be that thing with a little hole in it for writing utensil. They would rest their fingers on it, and then they would ask the spirits questions and then have the spirits write out answers. And there are people who still do this version of it, and they usually end up just drawing during a bunch of nonsense on the paper and then try to interpret that as like a car accident. And they almost always say something like that, the spirits trying to tell you how they died, as if this mess of interactive pen is all some kind of car accident situation. Imagine trying to draw regular English letter using a planchette and then imagine trying to draw a symbol, a character in traditional Chinese using that song. Oh, I thought about I thought about that. I'm like, That is so complicated. Like that would be incredibly difficult 14 strokes instead of three or four. Yeah. Good luck, folks. And also as if that's what dead people want to communicate if they found a way to cross dimensions and speak to a living people. Here's how I died, right? No universal truths. No lessons. Just yeah. Jen was texting and driving again and finally caught up to us, and we paid the price. See guys later. Yeah, yeah. Don't worry about solving the afterlife or religious questions that have plagued humanity for millennia. Just scribble a car like a three year old. OK, so people were doing this in 1980. I wonder if they were trying to sell something even back then. I mean, I don't have evidence of that, but I wouldn't doubt it. But this is America. So, you know, we got in on it as soon as we could, and you know it, we could trace the money back to 1848 in New York, the Fox sisters started doing this, and they claimed they were being contacted by a spirit who was communicating with a series of knocks. There was just a story. At first they were saying that a spirit was coming to them and would knock and they would ask questions. Knock once for yes, twice for no things like that. And then eventually they whipped out a spirit board or a talking board, and they started asking questions and getting answers. And then before long they started telling others, people came to watch them. And as far as we know, the Fox sisters are the first recorded spiritualist to perform for a crowd and actually be paid. Wait, I was talking about selling a board like thing, but they're performing with this, right? Yes, like a Ouija board is now a tax write off as long as you use it to con. Of course. Of course. Yeah, the sisters are actually they actually, like toured with this thing. They toured with the Spirit Board of the talking board, and they also performed table turning or table taping. Do you know what that is? Is that where the magicians make the table float and move around? Because if so, that's probably pretty mind blowing back then the first time anyone saw it. It's even mind blowing now. So I get why they would make bank doing it. I wish it was that sexy because that is cool. I've seen Criss Angel do that. Yeah. David Blaine do that. You're wondering like, how the hell are they getting this table to float? Move around? But that takes effort and planning and setup and skill. OK. Table tipping is literally just table tipping. You put your hands on a table and you ask the spirits to move through you. And by the way, it's always best to pick a tiny circular table because it's easy to throw those off balance and you just put your hands on it and you ask the spirits to move it. And then when they comply and the table moves, your metaphysical abilities are proven. Hold on. Jordan, don't don't think about this. You have an aneurysm. It doesn't make any sense. You're telling me people just put their hands on a table, push it down or around. And when it tilts, they're like, Oh, it's the spirit world doing it and people just give them money for this. Yeah, it's the opposite of reiki, right? Right. Because they're actually touching something. I see what you did there. They almost always do it with like a group of people, like a Ouija board where everybody like puts their hands on the same thing. And so you, you never really know who's doing the moving right. There are some brave people who have, like, you know, put themselves on YouTube and saying, like table turning alone or table tipping alone. And wouldn't you know it in every situation? The table always tips down in the direction where their hands are. That's interesting. How the most the easiest way to actually do this. If you were tricking people and the way the spirits do, it happens to be exactly the same type of result. Exactly. Look, if the table were to float up to where their hands are seemingly being pressed down from an empty spot on the table, at least we would have some questions here. How are they doing this illusion? But if it's what you're talking about, it's like they're just not even trying. It's almost always like a sweet, elderly lady with like 49 views and two comments, so it doesn't feel right to just like be a jerk in the comments. Like, this is a bunch of bulls**t, you know? So I just I just leave it alone. Yeah. Fake news. I just leave it alone. But it's pretty ridiculous. But if you want to cringe, just go search for table tipping alone on YouTube, you'll see plenty of it. So how did this go from planchette writing in Middle Ages, China during the Ming Dynasty or whatever to a global brand? OK, so in 1886, the Associated Press was writing about the Fox sisters. They were reporting on how they were using this talking board and all of that. There's a guy named Charles Canard. He read the article and basically stole the idea. Within four years, he had created what's called the Canard Novelty Company with a man named Elijah Bond, who was a patent attorney. They filed for a patent. And then the rep at the patent office in order to complete the process. He said that Elijah needed to demonstrate proof that this actually works. This guy was a skeptic. I like it. So then he asked the board if he could spell his name. And it did. And if you're wondering how that's possible, you may have forgotten from literally 17 seconds ago when I said Elijah Bond was a patent attorney, so he clearly knew the name of the rep at the patent office. It spelled out his name and Elijah. Got the patent. So how did they name this thing and come up with a name Weegee? Is it Ouija board? It looks like Ouija board or we are bored, but everyone says Ouija board. Everybody says Ouija. It's kind of confusing. Both are technically acceptable, so it's spelled o u i j a. So when I say it by itself, I say Ouija because it just feels weird to say Weegee when there's clearly an AA at the end of it. Yeah, but because I grew up in the states, that things a Ouija board. I think we all know that. So some people believe that the name comes from combining the French and German words for yes. So you have we and then jar. Yeah. Yeah, it's just, yeah, I'm saying, yeah, the English version of it. You're very sophisticated. Yeah, yeah. But the makers claim the board was asked what its name was like. It had its own personality, and they asked the board, What what's your name? And it just said, Good luck. Fair. So, yeah, I mean, pretty smart board. So the creators just claimed that Weegee or Ouija is ancient Egyptian for good luck. But this can't be confirmed, mostly because ancient Egyptians didn't write any vowels, just consonants. So we don't know what their language sounded like. And by the way, four out of the five letters in Ouija are vowels. So what? It would have just been a J. You know, it doesn't make any sense. So since no one knows if that could be correct or not, that's probably why they claimed it. However, there's another story multiple sources have confirmed or claimed from their perspective that the name likely came from a woman named Helen Peters, who was the sister of Elijah Bond. She reportedly had spiritual powers. She was wearing a locket with the name Ouija while she was sitting in the patent office. But other people have said the name was weirder. It was like a person she knew who had died, and it said Wieder or quaeda or something along those lines, OK? And then they just said it was Ouija. But since the entire concept is based on bulls**t anyway, it's not shocking that even the name is in question. You know, it's not just a product of our collective delusion, the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. A lot of people ask me how I to stick to my fitness routine, especially since I have such a bananas schedule. For me, it's really creating a routine that is sustainable and can be duplicated on an ongoing basis. Consistency is the key, right? And Peloton helps me have a sustainable fitness routine because there are thousands of classes to choose from. It's also 24-7. I've always got time for it. I might only have 15 minutes in between calls, but I can still fit in a Peloton cla*s. Peloton is really famous for their bikes, but they also make a top notch rowing machine that stores upright, which you think no big deal. But when you try to have a rower on the floor, you'll be so glad this thing goes upright. If you're a newbie to rowing, the Peloton row has sensors that can track your movements that shows you how your form is doing, and it warns you if you're doing something wrong that could injure you or whatever. And right now is the perfect time to get rolling with Peloton, so we can promise you've never rode like this before. Peloton Row offers a variety of classes for all levels and game changing features that help you get rowing or advance what you can already do. Explore our Peloton row and financing options at one Peloton.com/ row. Thank you for listening to and supporting the show. It's your support of the sponsors that keep things going. All the advertisers and discount codes are Jordan Harbinger Akam Slash deals. You can also search for any sponsor using the Air Chat Bot on the website as well. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Now back to skeptical sun. You know, what it reminds me of is, is it the usual suspects where he's just making things up based on the crap that stuck to the detectives wall? That's what we're doing right now. We're like, maybe they went with and it's like, No, they're also doing this. They're just like, What do you call this? What's the Spirit's name? And she's looking at this thing in the back. It's like made in Taiwan and she's like, it, says one Thai is the name is one Thai. And it's like, Oh my God. The spirits are speaking to her. That's like, how that's how I feel, how much effort they put in to this kind. Furthermore, the guy's name was the guy's last name was cornered. Doesn't that mean something like ruse or unfounded rumor? Oh my gosh, I want to fact check that immediately. Look that up because I feel like there is a word cornered and it means like a nonsense trick or something along those lines. I could be imagining this. I'm thinking, can A.R.T. an unfounded rumor or story? Oh, the old canard that L.A. is a cultural wasteland, so that's in his last name is Canard Kenan. Well, right, that's almost too convenient. That's fun, but it just basically means unfounded rumor or questions. Now you sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I like idea. Sounds funny. Speaking of bulls**t, Penn and Teller covered the Ouija board on their show, I watched that whole thing like 20 years ago. Did you see this? Are you familiar with this? I did. I saw the episode and then I went back and rewatched it this week while I was fact checking myself. Yeah, OK. I don't remember it because it has actually been at least 20 years since I watched it. I don't know if it was that long. Was it that long ago? Was it 90? I was in law school, so it had to be like 20. I might have been like 2004, 2005. Wow. So I just watch it again. And the thing that I did not remember, the main thing I didn't remember. I knew that they did the thing with the Ouija board with like professionals who like, you know, are selling their own version. And then I remember them trying to summon a spirit with a group of volunteers. I did not remember who the spirit was. Do you remember the spirit they were trying to summon? No, it was Fred Mertz. Who's that? William Frawley from I Love Lucy, the guy who played Fred Murphy seems rude to go for a specific person. Somehow, you're not related. They went to the knickerbocker in Hollywood, and he died on the steps of the knickerbocker, like literally right outside on the sidewalk. And so they went into the lobby feet away from where he died and tried to do it right there. So they picked him to try to call his spirits, and that's where his life ended. Is this what your daughter's podcast is like, where you bring up references like this? And I have no idea who you're talking about, and she just spaces out and stares, right? But it's things like Atari and Nintendo, and she's like, What? Or I'll go, How do you make your your bicycle sound like a dirt bike? She's just like, What do you use it? He's a coke can or a bottle or a car in the spokes like those that she's like, What? Nobody does that. It's things from our childhood. But yeah, very, very similar. I thought you would know. You would know William Frawley. You never watch I love Lucy. I mean, maybe yes, I know of the show. The actors on their side of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Yeah, the only other two Fred Nova. It was Fred on the show. Yeah. So they tried to summon his spirit right there. And then they had a funny little moment where they literally blindfolded the people, and then they turned the board 180 degrees without them knowing it. And they kept going back to where, yes, used to be. They were going to where they remembered it being so clearly it wasn't spirits doing it, but we'll get into why and how that works in just a second. So I'm guessing the Ouija board also became popular along the time of The Exorcist, because wasn't that was it it involved in that movie or was it? Yeah, sort of run that. Just so there was a book in 1971 called The Exorcist, and then in 73, they released the movie. And basically, the storyline is a young girl becomes possessed after using a Ouija board, and they say that it was based on a true story of a kid in 1949 whose aunt died gave him some kind of talking board or Ouija board. And then she died recently after she gave it to him, and then he became possessed and ended up actually going through an exorcism. Now, of course, the possession not true, but they did exorcise this kid, and I don't mean jumping jacks. They did, and it's on record, and it was a real thing. I mean, I personally think exorcisms are just abusive. It's just sheer. It's horrific making someone think there's a literal demon inside them and doing things to them, but they did it to this kid. And then the movie The Exorcist was built on that. So yeah, she uses a Ouija board in the movie and then becomes possessed by a demon from the Ouija board. I just remember the green bar projectile green vomit. Oh yeah, yeah, there was pea soup was what they used for that, I think, Oh, OK, it does look like these. But then immediately after that, like every teenager in the 70s and 80s were just convinced they could summon demons. At least they made their little brothers believe they could in the 80s. So thanks, Tammy. Tammy is your sister. Yeah, you get you. OK, I'll be all right. I'm fine. So according I, I'll talk to someone else about this. Yeah, I'm like your therapist, maybe, or the Ouija board. Christmas is going to be awkward. Sorry. So, according to the Smithsonian, the Ouija board was very popular almost immediately after it was released, and this is what they say in the Smithsonian. This is by 1892, the Kinnaird novelty company went from one factory in Baltimore to two in Baltimore to in New York, two in Chicago and one in London. Wow. Then a man named William Ford worked for Cunard, and he eventually took over the business and then he renamed the company, the Ford Company. The Smithsonian goes on to say that during the Great Depression, the Ford company opened new factories to meet demand for the boards. So over five months in 1944, a single New York department store sold 50000 Ouija boards. And in 1967, a year after the Parker brothers bought the game from the Ford company, two million boards were sold and they actually outsold Monopoly. Wow. So even during the Great Depression, Americans were like, I guess, food and clothes for the kids are going to have to wait. I got to reserve a little money for talking to dead people. Pretty much that is sad and I can definitely. See, lottery tickets being the new Ouija board in tough times, which is kind of depressing, yeah, but it's pretty spot on. You're right, it's it's sad. And reality was so damned depressing that breaking the monotony and reaching out to a spirit world kind of made sense for the times. Oh man. Maybe they were cheap, too. I don't know. It's just a board, right? For sure. Yeah, I think right now they're only like 12 bucks, so you know, it could have been too bad. The Smithsonian lists a few crazy stories over the years about Ouija boards, and so I've got a couple of these quick stories for you. So in 1921, the New York Times reported that a Chicago woman was being sent to a psychiatric hospital, but she tried to explain to doctors that she wasn't suffering from mental illness, but that the Weegee spirits had told her to leave her mother's dead body in the living room for 15 days before burying her in the backyard. It's so easy for the Ouija board to say because it doesn't have fingerprints or have to deal with the smell. Unlike her neighbor, right? That is grim, right? It's like, Just do it. Tell him. I said it was cool. They'll totally understand. It's like a perfect scapegoat. The board made me do it. In 1930, there were accounts of two women in Buffalo, New York, who murdered another woman, supposedly because of the encouragement of Ouija board messages. Again, the perfect crime. No accountability, except of course, the police and the prosecutor are having none of that, I would imagine. It reminds me of Slenderman. Have you heard about this? I know that there was some sort of like stabbing or like a teenage stabbing. I don't know the details of it, but I know some, some girl or a group of girls killed somebody over it. What? I don't know the details. Yeah, they tried to. What happened was, and this is very brief, but there's this character, this slender man, and it was just a like a comic book character type thing and the guy who wrote it, who drew it. He feels awful about this whole thing, but I guess the Slenderman became this thing, and these mentally ill girls were like, Oh, if we want to get in with the Slenderman, we have to sacrifice someone. So they lured this like, I guess, nerdy girl to the forest, and they attacked her and stabbed her, and she somehow got away and crawled to a road. And I think his lifelong injuries from it but is alive. The other girls are in prison, are one of them, at least was in prison. It's a horrific thing because none of it was real and it's back then it was like, Oh, this is evil. But now, of course, 20 20. Hindsight is just mental illness. This girl was schizophrenic or something and psychologically unstable and imagined that the character was talking to her right? And that's the problem with these types of things we can say it's for entertainment. We can say it's for fun. But there are people who are more susceptible and more vulnerable to believing this type of thing, and those people may act on those on those beliefs. Yeah, it is a little bit of a dangerous game. In 1941, a 23 year old gas station attendant from New York told The New York Times that he joined the army because the Ouija board told him to. So I guess it's not all bad. Yeah, I got my life together because the Ouija board made me do it. Ouija board said. Put down the whiskey. Go to college. My favorite story. In 1958, a Connecticut court decided not to honor the Ouija board will of Mrs. Helen Dale Peck, who left only a thousand dollars to two former servants but an insane one hundred and fifty two thousand dollars to Mr. John Gale Forbes, a lucky but body spirit who contacted her via the Ouija board. Oh, weird. You know what's? Probably not a scam that takes advantage of your belief in superstitious nonsense? The products and services that support this show, we'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Peloton. I take my health seriously and invest time into making sure I stay active. I always try to get 10000 steps a day. May OK, maybe a thousand, but I needed a better way to build muscle and improve cardiovascular health, and I wanted to switch things up a little. Plus, it's tricky for my schedule. I'm often on back to back calls. I'm reading, I'm researching, I'm preparing for my next interviews. I don't want to get in the car and get dressed and changed and look for parking and then get athlete's foot in some communal shower. Plus, with two kids, I can't just wake up and get out of the house that Trane has sailed. Working out at home before they're awake or during their naps has just been a key to staying active, staying healthy. Many people understandably fall off the wagon when they have these responsibilities, but you don't have to now with Peloton. There's many reasons why I love Peloton. First of all, one membership is good for the whole family. They're not under this delusion that every person should be charged in the house. I think that's just insulting somehow when companies do that. Peloton makes top notch machines. The classes are taught by world class instructors. Peloton bikes and treadmills also are great, but they've got the rower, which I honestly prefer out of all three. As typical with Peloton, the row is a well-made piece of equipment you can tell. A lot of thought went into the design. The handles are comfortable grip to seat as plush. My butt doesn't hurt when I'm on there for a while. Rowing is great for a full body workout and good for improving your cardiovascular endurance gives you a little bit of a burn, right? And all the right places doesn't mess up your joints when you're rowing correctly. And I love that I get my heart pumping in the morning before the kids wake up. I can get in a quick class if somebody cancels a Zoom meeting or whatever, and what's unique about the. Is it gives you real time form feedback I mentioned earlier, if you're doing it right, it doesn't have impact on your joints. The seat and handle contains sensors and during setup you go through this sort of five minute calibration process that enables a feature called Form Assist, which I fell in love with kind of right away. It's a little collapsible window on the left hand side of the screen where you can monitor your technique in real time, and it kind of gives you a grade and shows you highlights of areas that are bending or aren't bending correctly correct rowing form. It's not as intuitive as I thought it was going to be, and doing it correctly is actually harder than it sounds, especially once you start getting tired. Pharmacist shows you a figure of yourself as you row and when you screw up. Like I said, it highlights you and shows you, Hey, you've got to avoid doing this and you're going to get super injured. If you do this, you can tweak something. If you do that, you don't want that because then you can't work out, which stops a lot of people who I, you know, dive in for the first time or getting back into it after a long time, you don't fall off the wagon because of an avoidable injury. At the end of the workout, you get a readout of how well you did and a breakdown of your most common mistakes, which is cool because then you're kind of competing against yourself a little bit of self creating never hurt anyone. The classes are also top notch. There's also scenic row workouts as well. I loved this on the bike you could bike through, you know, Taipei, Taiwan or whatever. Definitely go try it out. Right now is a great time to get rolling with Peloton Row you've definitely never experienced. I've used many rowers. You haven't seen one like this before. At least I haven't. Peloton Row offers a variety of classes for all levels and game changing features that help you get rowing or advance what you can already do. Explore Peloton row and financing options at one Peloton.com/ row. Again, thank you for listening and supporting the show. All deals, discount codes and the like ways to support the show. Jordan Harbinger.com/ deals or use the chat bot to find a promo code and support the show now for the rest of Skeptical Sun. She left her money to nobody, so the court had a problem with that, primarily, I would imagine. Yeah, and her sound mind. They're like, OK, she thought she was talking to spirits. We're going to go ahead and and nullify this document. Yeah, yeah. So according to the Ouija board, she was supposed to leave it to the spirit or whoever convinced her. And perhaps there was a person who opened a bank account under the name John Gale Forbes. But I guess we'll never know because the court threw it out. Yeah, that's $3 million in today's money. So if those servants ended up getting it instead, they probably weren't servants after that. You have to wonder how much of this is actually because they believe it versus how much is intentional manipulation. Sometimes it's impossible to tell the difference. So like, all right, we said this. We were saying bulls**t with Penn and Teller on Showtime. They reveal how this works, right? They do. And yes, I even fact checked Penn and Teller, as I'm sure they would appreciate it. I also replicated their results, by the way, with my own group of people a few years ago, my podcast. So if you've ever used a Ouija board and the planchette moved, but you swear it wasn't you? It doesn't mean the other person is lying. Originally, when I started looking into this, I was like, Oh, my sister was doing it the whole time, and she was intentionally yadda yadda or my friends as teenagers or whatever. It's likely that both of you were telling the truth as far as you're aware. So the short answer is you're both actually moving it. You just don't realize it on bulls**t. They have a psychologist named Lauren Pancreas who describes it this way. He says ordinarily, when you move a hand, you're consciously aware that the hand is moving. But with the Ouija board, you're not. Now, that may seem strange to people, but it's a response known as the ideal motor effect. In 1852, physician and psychologist William Benjamin Carpenter published a report for the Royal Institution of Great Britain, explaining what he called automatic muscular movements that take place without the conscious will of the volition of the individual, like crying during a sad movie. It's not like you have a thought and make it happen. It just happens to you. Even though it's your biology doing it, it's the same principle that makes dowsing look like a real thing. It's those copper rods people use to find water in scams. Back in the day, people get on Tik Tok or Instagram Live now, and they do, and they call them answer rods. They're just holding these two rods and they're just answering questions from people in the comments like, Well, I'll get married soon and the rods will spin. I'll be like, Yes. And then people throw $5 at the biggest game ever. But yeah, it's crazy, by the way, that's also the science behind table tourney. So those sweet elderly ladies on YouTube may actually not be fully aware that they're moving the table, although I have my doubts about that one because it takes away more pressure and purposeful muscular strength to move a table than it does to slide a planchette a few inches. Yeah, especially if you're 70 plus year old woman doing this on YouTube, you know you're pushing the table enough so that people can see it on camera. I just don't buy it. So your hands are moving the plant, Chad, how can you not realize this has happened? Is it all subconscious? Basically, then, so belief has a lot to do with it. Sure. So when we talk about how that belief is powerful, I've never argued that I think belief is very powerful but not actually doing things but convincing yourself of things. So I have a Ouija board. I bought it several years ago to do the test on video for the podcast audience, but my daughter and I are both aware of the video motor effect. She's seen me cover this before and I was reading this to her, so we tried it last night. We actually pulled it out. We set it down. We said some stuff to spirits and we ended up just sitting there staring at the jet with nothing happening. And so it moved a few centimeters and she was like, Is that you? I was like, No, that you. And she's like, No. And we just looked at each other. It stopped. We waited a few minutes in silence, and then we just looked at each other and started laughing because we felt like idiots share their fingers on this planet. Yet, so we just put it away. But if you believe in things like the Ouija board and spirits and you're totally convinced that there's a spirit around you and there's someone you're trying to contact and you really think this is a real thing, your subconscious mind wants there to be an answer and expects there to be an answer. And therefore your body begins responding and your eyes are necessary to hit those marks. That's why Penn and Teller blindfolded those people and got the result they did by flipping the board around. Those people were still doing it, but swearing up and down that they weren't moving it. And I believe them when they say they weren't intentionally doing it. Now, remember, there's not one person who's in charge of the movement. So when you get gibberish or nonsense, people start trying to interpret what's going on. It's a collective failure of each idiom motor effect, fighting each other. And sometimes I don't. If you've ever done it before, you ever played with the Ouija board, maybe a long time ago, but not any time, seriously, ever, because I always thought it was silly. So this happened when we were in studio doing this. This is my first time of hearing about this special demon that contacts people who use a Ouija board. This thing started happening. The participants were I wasn't a part of it. The participants were sliding back and forth. And if you look at a Ouija board, you've got Z at the end of one side, and I believe it's end at the end of the other side. But oh, is right next to it. So sliding back and forth. To one extreme to the next just ends up being zero zero zero. And so people have come up with this evil spirit named Zozo, who gets really pissed when you use the Ouija board and laugh and don't take her seriously. And so everybody says, Oh my God, Zozo came while we use the the Ouija board. And then people who really believe this stuff can actually get themselves worked up and believe they get, you know, they're possessed if they feel weird or their fear gets the best of them or whatever. But it's all mental and it's all biological. So does the idiom motor effect? Does it happen in other aspects of our lives? Because I'm I'm never wasting a cent on a Ouija board, but I want to feel like this conversation with you was not just a complete waste of time for me and hundreds of thousands of other people as well. Yeah, so there is a way to literally feel it right now. I can do it with you right now. If you're not driving, please don't do this if you're driving. But if you can safely follow along with me, I want you to do this. So. Jordan, I want you to do it with me. OK, I'm going to show you exactly how you can experience it. So understand that your body and your eyes are going to be connected here, but you really have to focus on to make this happen. So hold your hands up in front of your face. About four inches apart, three maybe three inch eyes get a little bit closer, so I'm making like an 11 with my hands close together. Like, I'm almost clapping. But but not really. So I hold them about two and a half three inches apart, and then we're going to clap slowly four times. So one. To. Three four. Now hold your hands together. Back to the little gap and just hold them right there. Now what's going to start happening in just a second? It's already happening. You'll start feeling the rippling in the palm of your hands. It'll start as a ripple in the bottom palm of your hand and then slowly start to move your hands back and forth like you're rolling a tiny ball in the palm of your hand and you'll feel a little bit of a ball in your hand a little bit. That's your or your programming needed to feel this. No, no, no. It's real. Your body is feeling it, but it also my hands are sort of moving on their own because it's really hard to hold them still, right? I know, but you can just kind of wobble them around each other. And there's this effect of a little ball in between your hands. That is very bizarre. Yeah, I don't know if I would notice it if you weren't telling me it was there when it happened to me the first time I saw this, the person didn't tell me what I would feel. They just did it and they said, Now hold them still and see if you feel anything. And I started to feel it felt like a rippling waves coming up from my wrist through the palm of my hand here. And just as I was feeling it, they said you should feel a rippling sensation soon. But I felt it before they said I just felt my hands kept moving further and further apart, even though I felt like I was pressing them together, which is probably part of that same thing. You can also try it on your own without like a microphone in for me, because the way we're doing this, we have to stretch weird. I do have to stretch without the microphones in front. Try it later and you'll see what I mean. It's when you're more relaxed and you're not on camera and you're not dealing with a mic in front of you. The sensation is actually better spoken like a true psychic huckster. Oh, it didn't work because a mic in front of you. But normally, normally, actually. If you venmo me $75, it works instantly. The problem is you didn't believe enough that it would work, so the spirits decided they weren't going to help you. That's what happened. Look, just remember anybody out because there are people who are terrified to use this thing. I mean, I say it's a waste of time as well, but if you're freaked out, you're super scared. You think that this thing is going to change your life for the worse, there's going to be something terrible. Just remember that Ouija board is a trademark owned by Hasbro. It's literally a toy. Thanks, David. Here's a sample of my interview with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. We talk about why an interest in science serves every field of expertise, from law to art. What our education should ideally train us for. Here's a quick look inside Walt Whitman When I heard the learned astronomer when the proofs, the figures were ranged in columns before me, when I was shown the charts and diagrams to air divide and measure them. When I heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture room, how soon unaccountable I became tired and sick to rising and gliding out. I wondered off by myself into the mystical, moist night air and from time to time looked up in perfect silence and the stars. It's the same curiosity you have as a kid. But I just have it as an adult. I've had it since childhood. You don't have to maintain it. You just have to make sure nothing interferes with it. So the counterpart to this would be a Serb leader in one. Why ruin what something looks like by describing it with words? What? I can see it fully with my eyes. Your words just get in the way. I'd rather my mind float freely. As I gaze upon something of interest and have the writer step in between me and interpose his or her own interpretation. You don't know the thoughts that you're not having. What keeps me awake is wondering what questions I don't yet know to ask because they would only become available to me after we discover what dark matter and dark energy is. I mean, because think about it, the fact that we even know how to ask that question. That's almost half the way there. But I want to know the question that I can't know yet. What is the profound level of ignorance that will manifest after we answer the profound questions we've been smart enough to pose this far? For more, including how science denial has gained a global foothold, what it will take for the US to get to Mars before China and why it's dangerous for people to claim the Earth is flat. Check out episode 327 of The Jordan Harbinger Show with Neil deGrasse Tyson. All right, all right. Many of you have gotten back to me with something that's way off or a topic suggestion, I welcome it all. Jordan at Jordan Harbinger dot com giving your thoughts, especially on new skeptical Sunday ideas. A link to the show notes can be found at Jordan Harbinger. Accom transcripts in the show notes I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. You can find David Smalley at David C. Smalley on all social media platforms at David S. Somali dot com, or better yet, on his podcast, The David S. Smiley Show links to all that in the show notes as well. The show is created in association with PodcastOne. My team is Jenn Harbinger, Jay Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Millie Ocampo and Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own, and I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer to do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. In fact, if you want legal advice, you're better off asking a friggin Ouija board, honestly. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love it. If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who needs to hear it. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen and we'll see you next time. Special thanks to Peloton for sponsoring this episode of The Jordan Harbinger Show. This episode is sponsored in part by Priceline. One of the greatest joys I have in life is traveling. That's when I'm in my happy place. It's the time I get to relax, experience something new. It's what I look forward to in life in many ways. I've traveled to all kinds of places, most recently Morocco, the Amazon Jungle, Istanbul, Bhutan. My happy place is now sometimes being oceanfront, watching and listening to the waves crashing while enjoying a cup of good coffee. We're headed to Monterey Bay with the family soon to get a dose of our happy place there. I get excited whenever I make a little getaway plan. And now think of your happy place, the sun, the sand, the slopes, whatever it is, the big city or town that you just explored. We all have one. Priceline wants to get you there and help you travel to your happy place for a happy price with deals that you really can't find anywhere else. From Miami, Vegas, Cancun, Paris and beyond, Priceline can save you up to 60 percent on select hotels, along with flights, rental cars, cruises and more all around the world. It's easy. You just search, book and go use the savings you get from Priceline on a fancy meal or fun to see for yourself why millions of people trust Priceline with getting them to their happy place at a happy price. Go to Priceline.com. Slash Jordan to get to your happy place and as a special offer for our listeners, Priceline is giving you 15 percent off Hotel Express deals with Code Jordan 23 when you book before May 1st.

Past Episodes

Karma & Chaos with Kail Lowry & Becky Hayter
FOR THE HAYTERS S2E7 - Weight Loss is More Than A Physical Journey

Listen in to James talk about his journey with weight loss. The mental take it took on his childhood, and how he takes control today.

To hear the full episode visit For The Hayters on Spotify or Apple Podcasts 

Share your story at forthehayters.com
Follow us on Instagram and Tiktok @forthehayters
Listen to season 1 of For The Hayters - https://www.podcastone.com/pd/For-The-Hayters



Karma & Chaos with Kail Lowry & Becky Hayter
It's Over For WaWa

This week the girls are coming to you from NYC and this might be the most unhinged episode yet! We kick off the episode with Kail sharing a very special gift with Becky. On a little more of a serious note Becky talks about working through how she will do the "taking your younger self out for coffee" trend and she gives us an update on what life post birth looks like for her and Leah. Don't worry though things don't stay serious for too long with Kail sharing her new commercial idea! 

Follow Becky at instagram.com/hayter25 and subscribe to For The Hayters 

To keep up with Kail subscribe to her newsletter at kaillowry.com 

To join Becky for the Onyx Storm Live Book Club 2/28 at 7:30 pm head to patreon.com/kaillowry 

To support the show please check out our sponsors!

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Branch Basics: Right now, our listeners get 15% off the Premium Starter Kit by using code Karma at BranchBasics.com. 



Karma & Chaos with Kail Lowry & Becky Hayter
FOR THE HAYTERS S2E6 - A Life With Chronic Pain

Listen in as AJ talks about his struggle with chronic pain. The way that his daily life and future goals had to be altered after an injury sustained from a car accident.

To hear the full episode visit For The Hayters on Spotify or Apple Podcasts 

Share your story at forthehayters.com
Follow us on Instagram and Tiktok @forthehayters
Listen to season 1 of For The Hayters - https://www.podcastone.com/pd/For-The-Hayters



Karma & Chaos with Kail Lowry & Becky Hayter
Kail VS The Roo

This week Kail and Becky are in a silly goofy mood and amongst the giggles Kail shares some news with Becky that leaves her speechless! Becky talks about her and Leah's discussions about what life looks like after baby Becks arrives. Kail is ready to fight everyone including a kangaroo? There's something for everyone in this week's episode!

Follow Becky at instagram.com/hayter25 and subscribe to For The Hayters 

To keep up with Kail subscribe to her newsletter at kaillowry.com 

To join Becky for the Onyx Storm Live Book Club 2/10 at 7:30 pm head to patreon.com/kaillowry 

To support the show please check out our sponsors!

BetterHelp: Visit betterhelp.com/KARMA to get 10% off your f irst month.

Hiya: For 50% off their best selling children's vitamins head to hiyahealth.com/KARMA. 

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HERS: start your free online visit today at forhers.com/karma 

Tempo: for 60% off your first box head to tempomeals.com/karma 



Karma & Chaos with Kail Lowry & Becky Hayter
FOR THE HAYTERS S2E5 - Relationships: From Making it Down The Aisle, To Breaking Them Off

Listen in as Jess & Devin talk about their reasons for starting DIY breakups. From canceled weddings, engagements, and dealing with societal pressures of what you should do, rather than what you want.

To hear the full episode visit For The Hayters on Spotify or Apple Podcasts 

Share your story at forthehayters.com
Follow us on Instagram and Tiktok @forthehayters
Listen to season 1 of For The Hayters - https://www.podcastone.com/pd/For-The-Hayters



Karma & Chaos with Kail Lowry & Becky Hayter
Still Learning Life Lessons

This week Kail and Becky are back; catching up after a little time apart. The ladies discuss the challenges Kail faces as her family continues to grow, like tackling dentist appointments. Becky talks about celebrating her dad's birthday for the first time since he passed and how hard that was on her, more so than she expected. To end the episode on a light note the ladies go over their anti-bucket lists, things they would NEVER do.

For the list of books Kail mentions head here Children Books List  

To keep up with Becky head to beckyhayter.com and subscribe to For The Hayters 

As always to keep up with Kail check out kaillowry.com and subscribe to her newsletter.

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Draft Kings: New players can play five bucks to get a spin on the mystery wheel for a shot at up to 2k in Casino Credits! Download the app and sign up with code KARMA



Karma & Chaos with Kail Lowry & Becky Hayter
FOR THE HAYTERS S2E4 - The Selfless Act of Surrogacy

Listen in as Shawna talks about her experience being a surrogate and the path that led her there. A true selfless act with the happiest of endings.

To hear the full episode visit For The Hayters on Spotify or Apple Podcasts 

Share your story at forthehayters.com
Follow us on Instagram and Tiktok @forthehayters
Listen to season 1 of For The Hayters - https://www.podcastone.com/pd/For-The-Hayters



Karma & Chaos with Kail Lowry & Becky Hayter
Is It Karma Or Is It Chaos

This week Kail and Becky are answering your questions about sports as a mom and a coach! The ladies give insight into how to manage schedules and Becky's perspective as a coach. The new segment Is It Karma Or Is It Chaos starts this week and Kail and Becky want to know if you think the listener got her karma or her chaos! Let them know how you felt about this episode by joining the facebook group!

Check out Becky on IG @hayter25 and her blog on beckyhayter.com.

As always, keep up to date with Kail by checking out kaillowry.com & subscribe to the newsletter!

Thank you for supporting our sponsors!

Branch Basics: Right now, ourl isteners get 15% off their entire order by using code Karma at BranchBasics.com.

O Positiv: Take proactive care of your vaginal health and head to OPositiv.com/KARMA 

or enter KARMA at checkout for 25% off your first purchase.

Draft Kings: New players can play five bucks to get a spin on the mystery wheel for a shot at up to TWO THOUSAND in Casino Credits! Download the app and sign up with code KARMA.

 



Karma & Chaos with Kail Lowry & Becky Hayter
FOR THE HAYTERS S2E3 - Heroin Addict to Self-Made Millionaire

Listen as Josh recounts his journey through addiction, his battle to recovery and finds success in the real estate world.

To hear the full episode go to: https://www.podcastone.com/pd/For-The-Hayters

Share your story at forthehayters.com
Follow us on Instagram and Tiktok @forthehayters
Listen to season 1 of For The Hayters - https://www.podcastone.com/pd/For-The-Hayters



Karma & Chaos with Kail Lowry & Becky Hayter
This Is A Business Podcast Now

This week Kail and Becky are catching up in NYC! We get some insight into Kail's latest business idea, Becky talks about her most recent podcast appearance and the question she was asked that left her guessing. Kail and Becky ponder over how Karma actually works, is it selective to each person or are there set standards kama abides by?

Check out Becky on IG @hayter25 and don't foret to listen to For The Hayters here!  

As always, keep up to date with Kail by checking out kaillowry.com & subscribe to the newsletter! 

Thank you for supporting our sponsors!

Happy Mammoth: Get 15% off on your entire first order at happymammoth.com using code KARMA at checkout 

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