Behind the Bastards - How Chiropractic Started as a Ghost Religion

Episode Date: August 27, 2019

Robert is joined by Billy Wayne Davis to discuss the Origins of Chiropractic Medicine.FOOTNOTES: 1. Deaths after chiropractic: a review of published cases2. Conspiracy Meme3. D.D. Palmer's Lifeline4. Herald Journal5. 10 THINGS "THE FOUNDER" D.D. PALMER SAID ABOUT CHIROPRACTIC.6. Chiropractic Antivaccination Arguments7. D.D. Palmer's Religion of Chiropractic8. Murder They Wrote: The Death of D.D. Palmer and Its Aftermath9. The Spiritual Writings of B.J. Palmer10. A Review of the Evidence for the Effectiveness, Safety, and Cost of Acupuncture, Massage Therapy, and Spinal Manipulation for Back Pain11. Chiropractic Manipulation of the Neck Linked to Stroke in a 6-Year-Old Child…12. Chiropractic Care for Infants in St Louis, Mo - Petersmith Family Chiropractic13. CHIROPRACTORS ARE BULLSHIT Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What would you do if a secret cabal of the most powerful folks in the United States told you, hey, let's start a coup? Back in the 1930s, a Marine named Smedley Butler was all that stood between the U.S. and fascism. I'm Ben Bullitt. I'm Alex French. And I'm Smedley Butler. Join us for this sordid tale of ambition, treason, and what happens when evil tycoons have too much time on their hands. Listen to Let's Start a Coup on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you find your favorite shows. Did you know Lance Bass is a Russian trained astronaut? That he went through training in a secret facility outside Moscow, hoping to become the youngest person to go to space? Well, I ought to know because I'm Lance Bass. And I'm hosting a new

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you get your podcasts. What's gift in my three and a half foot long machetes? I'm Robert Evans, host of Behind the Bastards, the podcast where we talk about the worst people in history and where I receive a beautiful heartwarming gift from my co-host today, Billy Wayne Davis. Hey everybody. Yeah. Now, Billy Wayne, I got back from Syria not too long ago and you surprised me with one of the best presents I've ever received, which is essentially a small sword. It is. It's like if they made a baseball bat and a sword. Yeah. It's an unnecessarily large Fiskars machete that's got a two-handed grip, which I love. I love, I'm very excited to hit things with this. I didn't have, like we've had this discussion, we both have multiple machetes.

Too many machetes. And I have, you know, you don't have children or a wife. No. I have those things. Well, that's true that you know about. Any wives you know about. But I found it on Amazon and I was like, I don't have a reason to get this. And then I remembered you went to Syria and I was like, you know what? That's noble as hell. Yeah. Well, noble's not the right way to say, maybe I just did it to justify getting another machete. We didn't know it was coming. I didn't know it was coming. But it was possible. That's purely noble. I like that you're so humble. You're like, I just did it to get a machete. You didn't know I was going to do that. I did not know it was going to do that. But now that I have it, the machete feels like a worthwhile

prize for this work. And I'm excited to find new things to hit with it. There's so many different things to do with it. There were several meetings, I think, that went on designing this Fiskars. A lot. I'm interested in the holes in the back, which I think make it faster. Is that what it did? I don't know. I suspect they make it faster. The grip is really, I have large hands and I like that the grip is the perfect length for both of them on there. I'm excited, Sophie. He lined his knuckles up, too. Yeah, he's got it. Sophie provided me with a bag of chips to cut open, which she threw at me. That was fun. When I'm excited, though, I got this can of Febreze, Billy Wayne Davis. Oh, man. Sophie just put her head in her hands,

covered her eyes, very exasperated. And Gain smells good. Gain smells good. So, I would be improving the room if I have you toss this at me and hit it with the machete bat. I think. Sophie's flipping me off. Should we do that? Let's do that at the end. Yeah, we should do that at the end. As a gift to the next podcast. We can knock it into the poison room. We can just open the door quickly, knock the Febreze can into the poison room. That way, if it sprays everywhere, it doesn't render the room uninhabitable. We can lock it with the poison. That's a great idea. I think that's a plan. All right. Sophie seems to be on board. I think she's proud of me now. No. It's hard to tell which of her size means pride and which doesn't.

Daniel's nodding at me with pride, though. He's happy. He thinks I made a good decision. Yeah, when it showed up, my wife was like, what? Why do we... You don't need... I was like, it's a gift. And she goes, I don't know who you're hanging out with and just walked off. Well, this is one of the most beautiful gifts I've ever received, Billy Wayne. Thank you. This is my new official podcasting machete. Hell yeah. It's not as rusty as my old one. No. But it'll get rust on it. Yes, it will. If I'm doing my job, I'll get some rust on this fucker. That handle will last a lot longer than that blade. Well, we're talking about the founder of chiropractic medicine today.

Oh, wow. So the first dude to be like, hey, honey, come walk on my back. I think the first dude to be like, you're sick. Let me walk on your back. That's okay. Yes, gotcha. Now, Billy Wayne, what is the first word that comes to your mind when you hear the term chiropractor? We're on the script now. I mean scam. We were already in the right headspace for this. Yeah, that's a football coach. So yeah. Yeah, I'm going to guess for most people, it's probably like spine or back or scam. Yeah. Some people might say medicine, depending on whether or not they believe in chiropractic. I'm going to bet almost nobody's first word is religion. Well, I mean, okay. I'm already in it. I'm already in.

You're putting these two together. Go on. Well, today, we're going to talk about how chiropractic medicine or whatever you want to call it started out as a religion or to be more accurate, a cult. So this is that story. Can I predict dude uses it to get laid eventually? You know, I assume he did. Okay. But that was not the focus of the cult. Because usually, from my experience, when a dude starts a cult, it's sex. This seems to have been, you know, the kind of guy we always talk about, Billy, this is a man who wanted very badly to be a doctor. Oh, okay. But who never wanted to actually become a doctor, who just wanted to like know medicine and just assume that whatever his gut told him was medicine. That's a special

type of man who does that is special. We're like, dude, you could just go to school for just go to school for years and just be a shitty doctor. Yeah. No, no. I'm gonna kill some people. I'm just gonna figure it out. Learn as I go. I love it. So this tale starts as all such tales do with a single beautiful grifter, Daniel David Palmer, here to foreknown as D.D. Palmer. He was born on March 7, 1845 in a now non-existent town near Toronto, Canada. At the time, it was known to most people as a way out west. Wow. Yeah. And then it disappeared. Yeah, it's just gone now. Nobody lives in that fucking place anymore. It's just a field. Yeah, just like a field. See them woods? That was a town. Yeah, it was like a little town. And then everyone was

like, living out here is kind of bullshit. Have you been to Toronto? Yeah, have you been to Toronto? It's a city now. Everyone left. It's not just a dead horse and a pond. Yeah, there's the circus came to town and then the town disappeared. Yeah, yeah. Toronto did start as a dead horse and a pond. That checks out. Yeah, that's my new head cannon for Toronto. So D.D. Palmer's family had come over to Canada from England during his grandfather's time. His father was a shoemaker, a grocer, a school director, and a postmaster. Because back in the old days, there were only about 30 people in the world town. Yeah, everybody had to wear a lot of hats. Now D.D. Palmer. Only one pair of shoes. We got one pair of shoes. He's busy. He's only gonna get one. He's busy being the grocer today.

Yeah, he's gonna get one pair. He's running the school tomorrow. He's back on a shoe duty in three days. So you just hop until then. So D.D. Palmer was the oldest of six children, three boys, and three girls. From age four until age 11, he attended a small rural school while his father tried and failed at multiple businesses. Because again, he wasn't actually good at most of the jobs. He was good at left shoes, right shoes. He couldn't do the right shoes. He couldn't do them. He was too busy figuring out how to mail stuff. So yeah, from age four until age 11, D.D. Palmer attended a small rural school. And by the time he was 11, the family's financial situation was bad enough that he had to start working. And so he had to stop going to school.

So his dad made a deal with him. Can I just, yeah. That's like, that means like, nothing. Nothing. It means like, you start owing people. We mean, like, that's how bad things were. We're like, the oldest has to quit working during those times. You're like, this is bad. You're like, what? We're like, I owe people now. Yeah, I owe people now. You're enough of a man at 11. You got to start bringing in some fucking cash. Yeah, let's, let's have it. Whoo. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's poor. Like putting your 11 year old to work. Yeah. Yeah. And now D.D. Palmer, even though like he was his family's super poor and he had to go to work, he still wanted to learn. He loved learning. And so he made a deal with his dad. If he worked hours before

and after the full time schedule that he had to work to keep the family fed, he could keep the money that he made working overtime and apply that money to buying school clothes and school books for himself so he could continue to learn. God. Yeah, that's fucking hard. Well, all right, son, 40 hours a week, that's got to go to feed in the family. But if you work 60, you can buy school books. I mean, what a weird way to, I have to go in like, God, I'm gonna have to negotiate so I can keep learning. Yeah. I know people with versions of that story that started like age 18 or 19. Yes. I don't know anybody with that story starting at 11. 11, we had to figure out like, if I don't know more than this, I'm gonna have to keep doing this. Yeah. That's pretty at yourself.

I do. I do think there's a little bit of this in there where he's just like sees his dad's life and is like, I don't want to be a postmaster. I don't want to be that one. I'm 13. I don't want to be working this dead end job when I'm 15. Your life's over at that point. You're dead. You might as well be dead. I'll have three kids by then. Three quarters of your life is over. Town won't be around then. Yeah. So Palmer worked beyond full time for most of his childhood and was able to slowly afford to finish his education. By age 21, he had the 19th century equivalent of an education. Decades later, DD Palmer would write this in his autobiography about his upbringing. Quote, My mother was one of a pair of twins, one of which died. The one

which lived only weighed one and a half pounds. When a baby I was cradled, but in a piece of hemlock bark, my mother was as full of superstition as an egg is full of meat. But my father was disposed to reason on the subjects pertaining to life. It's like how he opens his autobiography. There's a lot. There's a lot to unpack there. Mainly the expression as an egg is full of meat. That's where I was like, I didn't know where to start or begin, but that's where that the look on my face was at where I was like, what kind of eggs are those? Where'd you get those eggs? I imagine this whole backstory for him where like his dad couldn't afford eggs. So they were like just eating like roadkill and muskrats and he was just lying to his kids and being like,

what's this gross smell in meat? That's an egg. It's an egg. Leave the shell on. Leave the shell on. And the egg is full of meat. You know, meat eggs. What is the doctor talking about? Also cradling a baby in a piece of hemlock bark seems like a bad idea. Like all the things, he just sounds like a folksy guy that got hit on the head where you're like, don't listen to what he's saying, just listen to the rhythm. It's more entertaining. Yeah. And I'll tell you, there's some head injuries in this guy's past. He doesn't write about them, but I can't imagine having this upbringing and not getting hit on the head a few times. All of them. And they're all like, everyone we've talked about came from the middle of nowhere. Yeah. Which I do think there is something

to that where they might be the smartest or the most ambitious in that area. So everyone just calls them doctor. Yeah. And they're like, I'm a doctor. It was easier back then. It was like granny from the Beverly Hillbillies. I do feel like one of the great untold stories of history is how many great men of the past had undiagnosed traumatic brain injuries. Like Andrew Jackson, you hear about sometimes he'd just beat people half to death. Yes. It's like, yeah. He'd just shoot people in the streets in Nashville. They're like, what was it? That was the governor. He probably had brain damage and an inability to control his temper. Yeah. But he made it work for him. He made it work for him. He did. You can make random violence work for you.

If you do it, if it's not as random as people think it is, yes. Or it's like, I've said that too before, is like, a lot of the most successful people male or female make their mental illness really work for them. Well, that's the key. That's the key is finding a way to make your mental illness make you money, which is the subject of my new health book. Think and grow sick. Raid between the lines. My mental health book. You get it. Yeah. Yeah. Just find a way to make a gel with capitalism. That's all it's about. That is really all it's about. That's all it's about. Yeah. That's the only difference between a workaholic and an alcoholic is one of them is functional in our economy. Yeah. An alcoholic.

So, all right. Back to D.D. Palmer. So, D.D. went by Dan to most of his friends and family, but we're just going to call him D.D. He grew up big and strong as a, quote, husky country boy who was widely liked. He had an inquisitive mind, but was particularly interested in anatomy. In the rare hours of free time he got outside of work in school, Dan would collect the bones of animals. Okay. Yeah. It's one of those things. I love collecting bones myself, but I'm not going to pretend it's not a red flag. It's, yeah. Yeah. It's a red flag. Like having a lot of machetes. Well, yeah, there's, yes, it is where the unnecessary red flag, but it's, let's keep an eye on him. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my house

is full of dead animals and machetes, and if that makes people want to keep an eye on me, that's not a bad, that's not a bad reason. But you're from Texas that doesn't run from Texas. No bells are ringing for me at that. He's like, he's got a lot of knives and dead animals in his house, right? Yep. Yeah. It is. It does kind of depend on what region you come from. If I were to hear somebody from, let's say, Boston, you say that, that would worry me more. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Where'd you get that white tail? Okay. So the US civil war was disastrous for the Canadian economy, largely because the nation's labor market became flooded with Americans fleeing the draft. By the time Daniel was in his early 20s, he and

his brother Thomas were forced to head south to the United States in order to seek work. They managed to borrow two dollars from their friends, which at the time was enough to strike out and start a new life. What a day that was. Wow. Yeah. Or that's what they thought. Yeah. That's what they thought. Well, it works out for him. Well, I don't know about his friend. He might have died on the fucking dip somewhere, but it works out for Dee Dee Palmer. So on April 3rd. Dee Dee's getting $4. Yeah. On April 3rd, 1865, they walked 18 miles to the town of Whitby in the United States. Somehow they wound up in Detroit a couple of months later after a winding journey that involved sleeping on grain sacks on a pier and probably hitching lots of rides on trains.

Yeah. We're imagining like a traditional 19th century hobo journey here. Yeah. So Dan and his brother explored a number of jobs, but the line of work that Dee Dee found most appealing was, of course, medicine. Specifically, he became a magnetic healer. Cool. Yeah. Me too. Yeah. You think so, Billy? Yes. You feel better, right? Yeah. It's the magnet. It's a magnet. Get out of here. Magnets have been a popular medical treatment for all sorts of elements for thousands of years, going back to the beginning of civilization itself. They still sell them the golfers and shit. They still sell them to everybody. You get a fucking bracelet. Yes. These magnets will cure your fucking emphysema. Yeah. You got tennis elbow magnets with copper.

With. Oh, you gotta have the copper. The copper helps. Without the copper. I've got a new magnetic copper machete, Billy, when I'm going to start selling. It cures your arthritis. That's for my new book, Machete, Your Way to Better Health. Did you get arthritis cutting through the jungle? Do I have a machete for you? You didn't get one of the arthritis cure in machetes. You did not. I love gesturing with this machete, by the way, Billy. It is powerful. It feels good. It is. How you doing, Sophie? Get people's attention. You love this machete as much as I do? I'm gonna hang it above the door. You have you swung it? Oh, you gotta swing the machete, Sophie. You can't judge it before you. You gotta swung it here. I'll throw this bottle

of water at you. Feel it. And you hit it like a baseball bat, okay? Oh, wow. You made me nervous. Yeah, it's like it. Yeah, you want to get some. Actually, I'm gonna throw this highlighter pen at you. It'll feel better to hit. Okay? Oh, what do we do? I'm gonna overhand it. Oh, come on, Sophie. All right. Yeah, you didn't do bad. I don't play baseball. That's not how you would hit a baseball either, I don't. All right. This is gonna make incredible audio for the podcast. And I'm just gonna keep throwing things at you until you hit them. Sophie. She's pacifist. She can't do it. All right. The recoil. This is gonna make a good one. Anderson, step back. Yeah. Powerful swing, Sophie. Just, oh, that was cool. I mean,

when everywhere it goes. Yeah, it did feel good, right? Just hold on to this for a while. Oh, she took it away. There's throat lozenges all over the floor. Oh, this is a cool break. Through a sack of lozenges. Throw in lozenges. Throw in lozenges. Now, are you still anti? I mean, I like it. It's pretty cool, right? It's great. I don't know if Robert should have free rain. I think I'm looking forward to hitting this for Breeze Cannon into the poison room. I'm not gonna lie. I'm gonna watch it from a safe distance. So magnets have been a popular treatment for all kinds of ailments for thousands of years, going back to the beginning of civilization itself. People have always been aware that certain minerals have magnetic properties,

and the idea of sticking them on sick people to alleviate symptoms just sort of came naturally to folks. By 1600, the idea that magnets might have some sort of serious medical benefit had been thoroughly debunked by a man named William Gilbert. Gilbert published a book, D-Magnete, in which he carried out comprehensive experiments to test popular health claims about magnets and prove that they had zero validity. That's the 1600s. The 1600s. This guy, William Gilbert, is like, let's test to see if everyone's using magnets for pain. Let's test them. Nope, they don't do anything. 500 years ago, humans were like, this doesn't stop it. We're still like... One smart human was like, this doesn't stop it. That's true. No one listened to him.

Yes. Capitalism is like, hey, don't listen. Fuck it. Keep selling magnets. People want to hit their golf ball longer. Yeah. Proof never convinced anyone to not take snake away. That is so true. The fact that we knew 500 years ago that magnets didn't do shit meant nothing. They can't hurt me, though. Yeah, and maybe they'll cure my arthritis. Have you seen how cool this bracelet looks? Look, it turned my skin's green. Finally, one thing about medicine is that the best medicine comes as a bracelet. And I buy it at Dick's Sporting Good. Look, man, I had a doctor named Richard once. Dick's Sporting Goods. Same thing. Same thing. I'm doing the...

The weights. The weights gesture because they're equivalent. Because that's a logical step, right there. So, according to the Skeptical Inquirer, writing on the subject of magnetic healing, quote, In the 18th and 19th centuries, Franz Mesmer dramatically increased the popularity of magnetic healing with his animal magnetism theory. Mesmer thought that animal magnetism was a unique force of nature that flowed like a fluid through living things. He also thought he could manipulate it through a combination of hypnotism and laying on of hands. After a high-profile debunking by a commission led by Benjamin

Franklin, however, Mesmer's fame faded and he died poor and forgotten. Turns out he's just in a bestiality, you guys. He's just fucking animals. All right. I'm gonna go drink beer and be in Franklin. Yeah, but unfortunately, like other debunkers, people didn't really listen to Ben Franklin either because Mesmer has continued to maintain a following even after his death. Wow! Yeah, that's where Mesmerism comes from. Mesmerizing. That's where that word- Yeah, he was like one of the big popularizers of hypnotism and shit. Ah, so he's just charismatic. Yeah, and one of his big followers was DD Palmer.

Now, Palmer was not at all convinced by the debunkings carried out by men like Franklin. For nine years, he used magnets to treat, or rather to fail to treat, all the sundry ailments of his fellow man. As a charismatic guy, his work attracted attention. He received negative write-ups in local newspapers, like this article in the Davenport Leader. Dr. Palmer, a crank on magnetism, has a crazy notion that he can cure the sick and crippled by his magnetic hands. His victims are the weak-willed, ignorant and superstitious, those foolish people who have been sick for years and have become tired of the regular physician and want health by a shortcut method. While many of our educated medical profession

are idle, the above-nave has all he can do. Six years ago, he commenced business in the Ryan Block in three rooms. He is certainly profited by the ignorance of his victims, for his business has increased so that he now uses 42 rooms, which are finally furnished. He did by steam and lighted by 40 electric lights. His laundry work and cooking are done by electricity, and the knowing ones say that his cures are also made by it. He exerts a wonderful magnetic power over his patients, making many of them believe that they are well. So Palmer is doing great. Well, even this guy, he's not a great writer, but first of all, he calls him Doctor, and then he calls him a crank in the same sentence.

And then he uses, he says he has a magnetic power over the people, which is like you're trying to debunk the magnet thing, but you're also saying like he does have a power, so dummies are like, you said he had a power. I'd be willing to bet some people did make that mistake since it's the late 1800s. I'll give them a little bit of credit on the calling him a doctor thing, because pretty much everyone's a doctor or a colonel in the late 1800s. It didn't mean the same thing it does now. There weren't like licensing requirements in a lot of the country. So I get calling him a doctor, like it's one of those things where, and this is the trouble about writing about medical cranks in the late 1800s,

where it's like, it's hard to call someone a fake doctor because even the real doctors are like, the problem's not that I need magnets, the problem's that he's got too much blood. And he needs some heroin. He needs some heroin and less blood. Yes. Yeah, you're exactly right. Well, that's how I call all my friends Reverend. Yeah. So yeah, that's, yeah, it's pretty easy. I can't wait to get that Reverend doctor course with you, Billy. I'm excited. We're going to have an audition tomorrow for the commercial. Feed so many bleach to so many poor people. I figure that commercial tomorrow we're going

down there. We're going down. So Dr. Palmer's time using magnets to cure people would later prove to be critical to his career in inventing chiropractic medicine. He wrote later in his autobiography, quote, During this period, much of that which was necessary to complete the science was worked out. I discovered that many diseases were associated with derangements of the stomach kidneys and other organs. One question was always uppermost in my mind and my search for the cause of the disease. I desired to know why one person was ailing and his associate eating at the same table working in the same shop at the same bench was not. Why? What difference was there in the two persons that caused one to have pneumonia, Katara, typhoid or rheumatism while his partner

similarly situated escaped? Why? This question had worried thousands for centuries and was answered in September 1895. Oh. Yeah, you found the answer. On one day. On one day. You're curious about what the answer that was? I would write that down if you got the answer. Yeah, you might want to take notes on this part here. It's pretty important. But what day was it? September 9th, actually. Oh, shit. Well, I guess he's not lying. Oh, wait, no, no, sorry, that was the date of something else. It was in September of 1895, though. Oh, see? He's not lying. He's got the date down there somewhere. So the story about how he figured out the cause of all human ailments and gave birth to chiropractic is the story of what happened on that September day in 1895.

So Dr. Dee Dee Palmer was working late in his office, practicing mesmerism and trying to advance his understanding of channeling the electrical energy of the human body for magical purposes. And as he was leaving for the night after a long day of this. How do you know you're done? Yeah. When have you reached the end of that? This is figured as much as I can today. Well, people are still dying. I ain't figured it out. So as he was leaving for the night, he ran into the building's janitor, a man named Harvey Lillard. Now, Mr. Lillard was deaf and once Dan Palmer realized that this guy was deaf, he decided that it was his duty to cure Mr. Lillard of this ailment. Man. He is that guy, isn't he? How you doing? Oh, you deaf? I'm gonna fix this.

I got you. I'm gonna fix this. You lucky son of a bitch that I found you. Now, there are a couple of versions of this story because it's a lie. The most because it's a lie. Because it's a lie. Remember how it happened. Because this never happened. And we're going to go into the most detailed version of the story. But first, you know what we're going to go into right now? Mmm. Some ads. Some products? Some products. And the first product I'd like to plug before we break for ads is Fiskars brand unnecessarily large machetes. If you want a machete that's larger than you probably have a use for, but will feel great to hit things with two-handed. I mean, just so good,

you guys. Like. One day delivery. One of my bests. Really? That's the funniest part about it. That's amazing. It was. I ordered on a Saturday. It came out Sunday. Now, people say capitalism's rendering the climate unsustainable and creating an unreasonable wealth disparity. Yeah. And leading to a nightmare future in which the poor and the rich become increasingly separate species due to genetic modification. Experts. But. That's who says it. Experts. What other kind of system could deliver a machete of that quality to your door in a day? Not one that's thinking about everybody. Not one that's thinking about everybody. It is awesome. I've changed my mind on a lot of things. Thanks to this machete. Here's some products. Services.

During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected that the FBI had secretly infiltrated the racial justice demonstrations. And you know what? They were right. I'm Trevor Aronson and I'm hosting a new podcast series, Alphabet Boys. As the FBI sometimes you got to grab the little guy to go after the big guy. Each season will take you inside an undercover investigation. In the first season of Alphabet Boys, we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver. At the center of this story is a raspy voiced cigar smoking man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse was like a lot of guns. He's a shark. And on the gun badass way. And nasty sharks. He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen.

Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Lance Bass and you may know me from a little band called NSYNC. What you may not know is that when I was 23, I traveled to Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space. And when I was there, as you can imagine, I heard some pretty wild stories. But there was this one that really stuck with me about a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. It's 1991 and that man Sergei Krekalev is floating in orbit when he gets a message that down on earth, his beloved country, the Soviet Union, is falling apart. And now he's left defending the Union's last outpost. This is the crazy story of the 313 days he spent in

space, 313 days that changed the world. Listen to the last Soviet on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science? The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system today is that it's an awful lot of forensic and not an awful lot of science. And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences in a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. I'm Molly Herman. Join me as we put forensic science on trial to discover what happens when a match isn't a match and when there's no science in CSI.

How many people have to be wrongly convicted before they realize that this stuff's all bogus, it's all made up? Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back. Sophie has admitted that the machete was fun and that she now approves of me doing anything and everything with it. No, that's what I heard. But enjoy. I will. I'm very much looking forward to seeing what happens with this. I also do really like that the handle is orange, you know, it just has like, it's very aesthetic. So you don't get shot by other hunters. It's very aesthetically pleasing. It is. It is. And it's like just heavy enough where you feel powerful but not too heavy where you feel weighed down. Yeah, you can swing it a bunch of times

without getting tired. It does kind of look like something you would use to flip meat. It does look like you could you could flip the hell out of something with this. Yeah. It's really would work as a spatula because of the way that the blade is shaped. But if we're being honest, if you use it as a weapon, shit has went south. Yeah, yeah. This would not be the first choice. Yeah. You know, what wouldn't be my first choice to do with this? We have these sound boards on the roof that are secured. Secured via. Man, I don't work here. So you do it every when I encourage it. And the one right above Sophie has a whole bunch of paper towel rolls on it. I bet if I cut that thing down, I could rain paper towels on you, Sophie. I've been good to you. You have been.

But man, that wouldn't hurt. It wouldn't hurt. That would probably get that would probably be crossing the line at the office actually cutting the sound boards off the walls. That would probably be going too far. I appreciate it if you didn't. Daniel would appreciate it if I didn't. We will see what happens because there's no guarantees when you've got a Fiskars machete on the table. It's the gift that keeps on giving. It's the gift that keeps on giving until it takes. Let's talk about Dr. Palmer. So we're talking about the day in September, 1895 when he discovered the solution to all human illnesses and ailments. He met his building's janitor and realized he was deaf and decided that he was going to cure him. So I'm going

to read a version of the story of how he did this that I found in a September 9th, 1989 issue of the Herald Journal, a local paper for Spartanburg, South Carolina. What? Yeah, they were covering like the opening of a chiropractic college. Okay, gotcha. They wrote a pretty good synthesis of the different versions of the story. That makes more sense. Yeah. Quote, the building's janitor, Harvey Lillard, was deaf and Palmer became curious about the cause. Stories are different on how Palmer was supposed to have discovered that by adjusting a bump on Lillard's neck. His deafness was cured. One story is that Lillard told Palmer he became deaf after bending over and hearing something crack in his neck and that Palmer cured the deafness after pressing the

bump on Lillard's neck for three consecutive days. Lillard's daughter, Ms. Valdenia Simmons, tells that while Palmer was joking with her father one day, he slapped the man on the back with a book causing the first chiropractic adjustment. Palmer's own writings, the chiropractic suggestor, give this account. Quote, an examination showed a vertebrae racked from its normal position, a reason that if the vertebra was replaced, the man's hearing should be restored. He talked Lillard into allowing him to replace the vertebrae using the spinous process as a lever and soon the man could hear as before. There was nothing crude about this adjustment, Palmer wrote. It was specific, so much so that no chiropractor has equaled it. Bullshit. Well, so yeah, those are the three versions

of the story. One is that he like finds a lump on this guy's neck and like slowly adjust it for three days until he's not deaf. Another is he hits him on the back with a book as a joke. And another is that he gave him a comprehensive examination and then snapped his vertebrae rack in the place. And then he was like, oh, this vertebra is connected to your hearing bone. Yeah, there's a couple of noteworthy things about this. One is that according to Palmer's own writings, the first chiropractic adjustment in all of history was the very best, which is not the way a science is supposed to work. I don't think that's... No. That is how the guy invented dynamite. The first dynamite was real fucking good dynamite. Yes. Same with the first cocaine.

Yes. The other is that if you take Palmer's version of the story, chiropractic medicine started with a non-consensual medical procedure, because while Palmer claimed to have had a conversation with this patient about what he wanted to do, the patient was deaf. And I don't think D.D. Palmer knew sign language. No. I don't even know if there was sign language round at that point. This is the 1895. Was there sign language in 1895, Sophie? I'm sure there's a version of it. He doesn't write a damn thing about knowing sign language, so I'm going to say either way. And he seems like the kind... Sign language was invented in 1620. Oh, shit. Oh, all right. So it's been around the way. But he also seems like the kind of guy that would,

if he knew how to do something, he'd let you know. Yeah, the exact wording is he talked Willard into allowing him to replace the vertebra, which like... You lay on the ground and I'll get behind you and pump you. Yeah, I don't think informed consent. If this was an actual procedure, I do not think informed consent was a part of it. Well, it's easy to sneak up on somebody, too, though, when they can't hear. Yeah, especially a deaf man. Just knock them down. Just pop his fucking back, do whatever you want. Yeah, that's how you start a new medical discipline. And pushing a deaf man from behind. You tackle a deaf guy until he can hear. That's what I did. And that's how I now I'm a doctor.

We all remember how Jonah Salt killed Polio by abducting those kids. Yeah, that's part of Jonah Salt's backstory. Don't look it up. Do not, good boy. It embarrasses him. So, once D.D. Palmer had stumbled onto this new method of healing, he began to work backwards, constructing a brand new theory of how to cure human illness. He started claiming that his research had led him to discover that every human body was filled with enough natural healing power to cure any ailment afflicting it. Any illness or sickness affecting a single organ, limb, or region of the body, then, was caused by a blockage that stopped this healing energy from

reaching its proper destination. Spinal misalignment was the cause of almost all such blockages. All of them. The rest of it has nothing to... I mean, I think clearly there was an exception to like, yeah, if you're shot or something, that's probably not due to a spinal misalignment. You just got shot. Unless you get shot in the back. You got cancer. You got allergies. You got emphysema. You're blind. You're deaf. That's your fucking spine, bro. Oh. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah, yeah. It's all in the spine. Sickness, that is. So, in his work with Lillard, Palmer claimed to have discovered that adjusting the spine properly could fix any health ailment. Thus was the new medical science of chiropractic adjustment born on September 18th, 1895. That's the day. Sorry.

Wow. My notes were a little disordered on this. Over the coming years, D.D. Palmer began teaching his techniques to students around the country. He established the Palmer College of Chiropractic in 1897 out of Davenport, Iowa. The school's original name was Palmer School and Cure, but that name was later changed because it sounds like a scam. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, people know your scam's a scam. Yeah, you gotta change the name called a fucking college. Yeah. Soon, hundreds upon hundreds... They still haven't figured out that that's a scam yet. No, because this college is still in operation. Well, any of them. Yeah. Speaking of which, my back's hurting. Yeah. Got an appointment with my chiropractor. God. He might cure him of deafness, too.

It's what it is. It's just releasing tension. Yeah. Some chiropractors are good at massage. We'll get into that a little bit later. Yeah. We'll get into the research later. Let's get ahead of ourselves here. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Thank you for apologizing. You're welcome. Really, this machete is all the apology you ever need to give me. Okay. That's... Sophie, can I hit the febrize yet? She's saying no. We should probably wait until the end anyway because it might be a real bad idea. What's the scent? Gain. The scent on the febrize is gain. This is a great smelling detergent. It eliminates tough lingering odors. It might be good in the poison room. Yeah. It might clear the poison out of the poison room. That'd be a

neutral room. Sophie looks convinced. Really, Wayne's logic is airtight. Yep. I think that's what we're going to do. Unlike the poison room. Unlike the poison room. Soon, hundreds upon hundreds of chiropractors were plying their trade from sea to shining sea. Now, I wanted to provide everybody with a deep understanding of what kinds of things exactly DD Palmer was claiming that chiropractic adjustment could do as he refined his new science. So, I found the blog of a popular chiropractic motivational speaker, Dr. Ward. Now, Dr. Ward seems to be a grifter even within this field of grifters. And this is a current guy? Yeah, he's a current guy. He's a motivational speaker who I think motivates chiropractors.

Hell yeah. What a niche. Yeah, that's a meta-grift right there, baby. I love that shit. Honey, I found my mark. Yeah. So, he compiled a list of 10 things the founder said about chiropractic medicine. Now, all of these 10 things are direct quotes from various works published by DD Palmer. I'm going to read that whole list to you now, Billy. Okay. I'm fascinating. Yeah, let me know when you got questions. Quote number one, the basic principle and the principles of chiropractic, which have been developed from it, are not new. They are as old as the vertebra. I am not the first person to replace subluxated vertebra for this art has been practiced for thousands of years. Art. Art. Yeah, I keep calling it a science because I don't know what else to call it or

like a branch of medicine. He seems to refer to it more as an art here. So, maybe that's a mistake in my write-up of it. I think modern chiropractors try to make it seem like a science. I would. Yeah, it's better. Yeah, I would. Nobody's like, ah, I'm hurting real bad. Take me to the artist. Yes, exactly. Yeah, where's Banksy? Yeah, where's Banksy? He could fix this shit. Yeah. Number two, do not forget that chiropractors did not treat diseases. They adjust causes, whether acquired, spontaneous, or the result of accident. I mean, yeah, I think that's the root of all disease is finding the cause, but... It's actually the same justification, if you remember, from the bleach drinking guy who was like, oh, this won't...

This doesn't cure anything. It just fixes the causes of the sickness. Which is... Okay. Yeah. Drugs are delusive. They do not adjust anything, which... Are you taking the wrong fucking drugs, buddy? I get adjusted all the damn time. Yeah, the ones I've taken adjusted some stuff that I don't have to take those drugs anymore. I was just in Mexico, where if you learn five or six of the right words, you can get almost anything out of a drugstore, and I got some shit adjusted. Did it adjust itself back? Oh, not yet. Yeah, pro tip for going to Mexico, learn how to say, my friend's dog is sick. I need ketamine. Wow. Yes. Great sentence. And they just smile when you say that, right?

Well, it depends. Yeah. Yeah, it depends. Sometimes you got to go to a couple pharmacies is all insane. You don't have a dog? The philosophy of chiropractic is founded upon the knowledge of the manner in which a vital functions are performed by innate in health and disease. When controlling intelligence is able to transmit mental impulses to all parts of the body, free and unobstructed, we have normal action, which is health. You want to diagram that fucking? Like, look at that. Look at that. It's number four. Look at that fucking sentence to me. And tell me that's not written by a fucking idiot. Can I reread it? The philosophy of chiropractic

is founded upon the knowledge of the manner in which vital functions are performed by innate in health and disease. When the controlling intelligence is able to transmit mental impulses to all parts of the body, free and unobstructed, we have normal action, which is health. I think that that's how Trump would like to sit. I think that's how he thinks he sounds when he talks. It's someone with like an open head wound who's also eloquent. Yeah. I love the idea that normal action is health, which I'm going to. I actually just sent a bunch of emails out to my friends with multiple sclerosis and major depressive disorder. Yes. Good news, the normal action of your body is health. So you're healthy. Yeah, you're healthy. You just got to get your

spine adjusted. That's why that autoimmune disease is fucking with your organs. Yeah. Because you're not walking normal. You got to pop that shit. Yeah. Have you cracked your back? Chiropractors correct abnormalities of the intellect as well as those of the body. He was real focused on the idea that they called them imbeciles, which is like what we call mentally handicapped, what we used to call, I don't know what the exact like terms people use now on it, but like people who had mental disorders, they just called imbeciles. And so he wrote a lot about how, oh no, if your kid's an imbecile, you just got to pop his back. Like that's the problem with babies when they're not thinking right, is you got to pop their backs. We're going to get back

onto that a little bit later. They're going to go back to babies? Why do they always go to babies? Hey, there's, if you want to practice medicine with no education or ability to do so, eventually you're going to start doing it to babies. Because that's where babies don't, babies can't tell you if shit's not working. Fuck. You can pour bleach up a baby all day long and adults eventually going to be like, you know what, I think I've had enough fucking bleach. Yeah. And the babies just, babies are just going to take that bleach all day long. You can bleach a baby from here to Kingdom Come. It's so messed up. So messed up to look at a baby and not want to take care of it. Yeah. Part of me thinks maybe these people think they're taking

care of. Some of them do. Some of them are just narcissists. Yes. Yeah. Purigo. There's purigo where I want to save the baby. And then there's other ones where like, well, I think more than anything we hope that there are humans in there. And it's a little like, I don't want to judge, I think, I don't know if, I honestly don't know if D.D. Palmer is a good guy or a bad guy. I think he's probably a piece of shit. Yeah. I think he's probably a scammer. Medicine was primitive enough in this period where like, you can't totally blame someone for thinking crazy shit. But the ambition he has makes him like to keep going the way he does. Yeah. And it'll get crazier here. But let's finish our list. I assumed. Many patients imagine that they have tried everything. True,

they have used many remedies, but they have never had the cause of their infirmity adjusted. Which is again, this is one of the key aspects of chiropractic is that like, if you just get treated for your AIDS, that's not going to deal with it. You got to pop them fucking vertebra. That's the cause. Oh. Or whatever. I got AIDS in my vertebra. Yeah. You get your fucking smallpox starts in the vertebra, man. Life is but an expression, the expression of spirit through matter to make life manifest requires the union of spirit and body. Wow. Yeah. Okay. So we're into some hippie shit here. Here we go. Here we go. You could sell this in LA. This is, I mean, yeah. You could. I was going to say, it's, it's, they're already here. So he's saying,

oh, it's quite a fucking chiropractic is founded upon different principles than those of medicine, which yeah, I laid the foundation and built there on science doctor of chiropractic. He called it a science. Okay. So yeah, there we go. So, uh, if you're wondering what Palmer meant when he said that chiropractic was founded on different principles than medicine, well, for one thing, he meant ghosts. Yeah, it's time for some fucking ghosts, Billy Wayne. Yeah, go stir, go stir and play now. I'm already, I'm already, he's a bad person. You know what else is in play that machete? That's machete and the one wonderful fine sponsors who make the show possible. I'm going to hit this out to it in 10 with machete and then we're going to go to ads. Oh, that in

products. During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected that the FBI had secretly infiltrated the racial justice demonstrations. And you know what? They were right. I'm Trevor Aronson and I'm hosting a new podcast series, alphabet boys. As the FBI sometimes you got to grab the little guy to go after the big guy. Each season will take you inside an undercover investigation. In the first season of alphabet boys, we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver. At the center of this story is a raspy voiced cigar smoking man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse was like a lot of guns. He's a shark and on the gun badass way. And nasty sharks. He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was

trying to get it to happen. Listen to alphabet boys on the I heart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lance Bass. And you may know me from a little band called in sync. What you may not know is that when I was 23, I traveled to Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space. And when I was there, as you can imagine, I heard some pretty wild stories. But there was this one that really stuck with me about a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. It's 1991. And that man Sergei Krekalev is floating in orbit. When he gets a message that down on earth, his beloved country, the Soviet Union is falling apart. And now he's left defending the Union's last outpost.

This is the crazy story of the 313 days he spent in space, 313 days that changed the world. Listen to the last Soviet on the I heart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science? The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system today is that it's an awful lot of forensic and not an awful lot of science. And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. I'm Molly Herman. Join me as we put forensic science on trial to discover what happens when a match isn't a match. And when there's no science in CSI,

how many people have to be wrongly convicted before they realize that this stuff's all bogus. It's all made up. Listen to CSI on trial on the I heart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back and Sophie and Billy Wayne are just talking about the fact that as Sophie noted, this is the first time we've talked about ghosts in a year and a half of the show. It's been a year and a half. I think it's been closing on a year and a half. Can you think that more of these bastards would believe it goes? Yeah, you think at least more of them maybe, you know, it's also a lot of it's kind of the bastards I've selected. Maybe I just haven't picked as many ghost based grifters. That's true. They've got to be there. I think there's probably, I mean, a lot

of visions come from ghosts. Yeah, a lot of visions. And that's the story we're about to talk about. Because I didn't see ghosts coming. And I don't know why. You never see ghosts coming. Well, you do sometimes if you're looking. If you got the site. But like the thing about... 475 days. Yeah, it's about right. It's in the ballpark. I like that. But like the putting the spirit with medicine and popping your back. I do like that theory. Yeah. Which is like, yeah, I could probably, like you said, it's a label shit. It's like, your energy's aligned. You've got to get your spirit aligned with your body, brah. And your chakras. Your chakras got to be straight, brah. Well, it's like I practice Kodalini yoga and not as much as I used to. But I do like it. It's a lot

of breathing is what it is. Breathing is great. Oh, it's very important. Well, and then I've learned since practicing it, like a lot of cult leaders have used it. Because it's mind-altering. Yes, it is because of all the oxygen and stuff. So people think that these people have powers and are like, oh, that's such a funny thing to do. Yeah, whenever somebody makes you feel something like that, maybe try having that experience without them around. Yes. Test if they're magics first. Exactly. Test it. Test it. Yeah. It's like if you have a really good... You just meet somebody, right? For the first time. And like the first time y'all hang out romantically, you take MDMA together. Maybe go take ecstasy with somebody you hate and see how profound that experience is

before you decide that you're actually in love with that person. Yes. Just... Oh, our chemical go good together. Yeah. Some pro tips. Really, just don't take ecstasy with someone until you've been dating for more than six months. Yeah, and you're in a fight. Oh, man. Now, that's how you have a fight. Well, that's how it was invented. Yeah. Was through psychology, psychiatrists. Well, that was the first use it took. I think it was invented by accident by some Japanese scientists who were just making shit. That's what I mean. But that's when they started applying it to shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was... And it did work for a while. It's great. I feel great. Oh, it's great. You know what? You still suck now. Man, if... I don't like that

thing you do. If therapists all over the country could just prescribe MDMA to people, we wouldn't need fucking chiropractors. I'll tell you that much right now. And Diplo would be way more popular than he already is. Oh, Diplo would be huge. Okay. So, yeah, let's talk about how ghosts helped invent chiropractic medicine. That's what I thought. That's why I came here today. One ghost. Just one. Just one ghost. I don't want to make it sound silly by pretending that there's just like a bunch of ghosts inventing chiropractic. That is noble. There's a single ghost that invented chiropractic. He's like, don't make me sound like a dick. And it's the ghost of a dead doctor. Fuck. Yeah. I mean... That means it's... That means it's credible. They just...

They put it in fifth. A dead doctor wouldn't lie. No. Not a dead doctor that stuck around to pass this information along. Yeah, he'd been dead more than 50 years. Yes. Yeah. It's a mission. So, this doctor, dead doctor, Dr. Jim Atkinson, apparently came to D.D. Palmer during a seance. And that's where he claims he learned most of the rules of chiropractic medicine. Fuck. Yeah. I'm going to read an excerpt from his autobiography, which was published after his death in 1914. I want to interrupt you real quick. Sure. Okay. If you would have... If I was on like one of these shows where it was like, you've never heard of this story, write a version of how you think chiropractic was invented. Yeah. And I'm a comedian. So, I would come up with

something stupid and outrageous. Yeah. I would never say... You would never say ghosts. Never. Yeah. Would that pop in my head? No. This was one of those ones. Like, I started looking into this and, like, it was already pretty baddy. Yeah. Yeah. And then, like, fucking ghosts. It's... That's... Like, I can't... It's like... It's like with Trump, where you're like, well, be funny about it. I can't. I can't be funnier than a ghost-invented medicine where you pop your back. Fuck. Yeah. I'm just going to listen. I'm just going to listen for 15 minutes. Yeah. I'm going to read out from his autobiography. Quote,

The knowledge and philosophy given to me by Dr. Jim Atkinson, who had again been dead by 50 years, an intelligent spiritual being, together with explanations of phenomena, principles resolved from causes, effects, powers, laws, and utility, appealed to my reason. The method by which I obtained an explanation of certain physical phenomena from an intelligence in the spiritual world is known in biblical language as inspiration. In a great measure, the chiropractor's adjuster was written under such spiritual promptings. That's the book that was like the foundational text of chiropractic. Appealed to my reason. Yeah. Appealed to my reason by talking to me as a ghost during a seance. He appealed to my reason. That ghost was pretty full of shit until...

Yeah. I don't think I've ever heard somebody say, like, yeah, a ghost told me to do something, but that ghost was a fucking liar. I mean, it was like, come back with actual reasons, ghost, and then I'll listen to you. I kind of want to see that movie where, like, a ghost starts trying to, like, warn somebody about, like, the future, or, like, like, starts trying to deliver information to a prophet, but he's just dumb as shit. Like, it's just the ghost of a really dumb person. Nate Bargatze's got a great joke. People gotta drink more bleach. He's like, if I went back in time, I couldn't warn people or even explain how the future is like. Well,

look at this phone. They're like, wow, how's it work? He's like, ah, shit. I don't know. It's just pretty cool though, right? He's like, I would just be a guy with cool stuff. I know what I'd do. I'd go back to, like, 1910, and I'd move to Europe and I'd create a cult all about assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Oh. Because then he'd never die. No, he would not. No, he would not have died, and then maybe we could have stopped World War I. And that would have prevented World War II. Probably. Yeah, no Hitler. Yeah. God, you've thought this through. That trip to Mexico was worth it. It was. I figured out how to save the world. I'm just gonna crowdfund a time machine now. And I think in order to make

that time machine, I'm gonna need to spend a lot more time researching in Mexican pharmacies. I think you should. I think that's the only way. You can go to some Guatemalan pharmacies, you can pick up hydrocodone there. A ghost doctor told me that. Yep. So, the founder of chiropractic medicine claimed that a great deal of the discipline was revealed to him by the ghost of a long dead doctor he contacted during a seance. That's the quick summary here. Now, the term chiropractic itself literally means done by hand. Since the whole idea behind the discipline had come from an all-knowing ghost, there was no research or study in D.D. Palmer's early chiropractic medicine. Once he'd identified the cause of all human ailments, the subluxated bones,

there was nothing else to do but teach people how to pop those bones back into place. I'm gonna go chiropractic me an orgasm. That you actually can do. No, I've done it. I know. So, I should note here that subluxation, which is a term that you'll hear a lot from chiropractors today, is in fact a real thing. The actual medical meaning of the term is basically the term for when a joint in your body has popped partly out of its socket. And this can damage tissues around the socket, but it cannot, for example, cause deafness. But chiropractors to this day claim they can fix and feel vertebral subluxations by hand, and that these subluxations

cause roughly 95% of the ailments suffered by people. 95% of all ailments. It depends on the chiropractor. There's different kinds now, some of which reject a lot of this. But yeah, that's the initial idea behind the science, is that 95% or so percent of human ailments are caused by subluxations, which you can just fix by feeling around. I think we would have figured that out. Yeah, it's not that hard. No. As chiropractic medicine and its founder aged, it shifted and morphed. This was helped along by DD Palmer's son, BJ Palmer, who got involved in his father's work near the beginning of the movement. Like his dad, BJ had worked as a mesmerist before getting into back medicine. I, like my father, am also foolish. He'd also worked for the circus.

Hell yeah. He's an accomplished bullshit. He's an accomplished bullshit. It's a whole family of lives. He did the work. According to science-based medicine, quote, he was reported to state, when I saw there was no use for a sympathetic nervous system, I threw it out and then just had to put something better in its place. So I discovered direct mental impulse. BJ also discovered a non-existent duct of Palmer connecting the spleen to the stomach. In 1907, BJ engineered a hostile takeover of his father's school of chiropractic. Amazing. Yeah, different people will say that like it was more amiable or that it was more ugly. Some people say he paid him $2,000. Some people say he's stiffed him out of all the money. It's kind of unclear what

happened. So usually then that means it's not what it wasn't good. It wasn't good. It was very acrimonious. They didn't get along. Yeah. BJ Palmer set the tone that would later dominate the field of chiropractic. He emphasized salesmanship, advertising, and practice building. He was highly critical of medicine, stating that MD stands for more death. He continuously sought new methods for increasing revenue, such as his neurocalcometer, which would pinpoint subluxations by measuring skin temperature. And he decreed that must be rented from him by other practitioners at exorbitant fees. Why is he so against any actual medicine? Because it works. You can't keep bringing people in for the same problem if they're doing stuff that helps. I see. Yeah. But to me,

like even the scam would be like, a smarter scam would be like, you're applying both. Yeah. I think that's what they do now. That is what they do now. Yeah. A lot of them. It's also part of the problem is that like a real honest doctor, sometimes they're just going to tell you, can't do anything. Yeah. You got this problem and it sucks. And it's always going to suck. Yeah. It's like when you get 40. It's like maybe you're someone who's been mitigated, but there's no cure in it. Like why am I sore every day? Because you've been alive for 40 years. Yeah. You've been alive too long, man. Fuck. Nobody's supposed to live more than 20. This isn't getting better. Yeah. Supposed to have your kid at 19 and push him off into the world at two. I had one at 28

and then we just had one, but I do. I do. I should have had two at 28. So under BJ Palmer's reign, chiropractic expanded, growing ever larger and sucking in ever more ambitious young doctors who felt that jabbing around someone's back was a hell of a lot easier than going to actual medical school. You have to remember a lot. You have to learn a lot of stuff about blood and shit. They want you to know it and not just remember it too. Yeah. They want you to actually know things, not just make up. Yep. Feels like that's the cancer part of the back that needs fixing. Pop. You're done. That's what you get. You just got to get good at going. Making that sound. DD Palmer continued to act as a figurehead of the movement

and his writings remained influential, but BJ ran the show from around 1907 on forward. Now, from the beginning of the movement, chiropractors called themselves doctors. And in the 1890s, this was not much of an issue because the difference between doctors and doctors was pretty minimal. In fact, since many legitimate licensed MDs back then fed their patients mercury and heroin cough syrup, many people would have been better off in the hands of a guy who was just going to give them a back massage. But this state of affairs did not persist long. In the early part of the 20th century, medicine began to professionalize quickly, spurred on by developments of things like vaccines and antibiotics. They clearly worked much better than just pushing

on somebody's vertebrae. As you might have expected, DD Palmer railed against many of these developments. He became an early anti-vaccine advocate, writing that quote, It is the very height of absurdity to strive to protect any person from smallpox or any other malady by inoculating them with the filthy animal poison. No one will ever pollute the blood of any member of my family unless he cares to walk over my dead body to perform such an operation. And we had to. Yeah. And we had to. Thankfully, the smallpox got him. His son, BJ, added in 1909, Chiropractors have found in every disease that is supposed to be contagious, a cause in the spine. In the spinal column, we will find a subluxation that corresponds

to every type of disease. If we had 100 cases of smallpox, I can prove to you where in one, you will find a subluxation and you will find the same condition in the other 99. I just won and returned his functions to normal and you could do the same with the other 99. Well, I mean, it is this, it's that scam from where there's like a kernel of truth where there's like the central nervous system is throughout the spine. So there's a lot of pain that you can alleviate certain types of pain because of a slip disc and things like that. Yeah, I'm sure you can make people feel better. Yeah. Disease is not, it doesn't get to you. No, no, smallpox starts in the spine. I'm not even a doctor, but it's just like knowing what you don't know. I think it's so important.

Yeah, but if you're going to be a great grifter, the key is that you just pretend you know everything you don't know and you don't listen to anyone who says otherwise. Seems fun. It does seem fun. It does. It seems if you didn't love anyone, if you were either incapable of that or just like had gotten a point in your life where you're like, fuck it. Yeah. Like if you ever see me hawking brain pills, yeah, that's what's happened is I've just given up on my fellow man and have decided to cash in and I am proud to announce my new job as a columnist for the Daily Wire. And I will have a- Sophie threw a pin at me. Ever expanding church somewhere in the south. Oh man, selling bleach, magnets, just bag rubs. I'm just selling Jesus. That's how you gotta sell.

That really is the king of all grifts. It's, well, what you described when it hit me when you said the son came in and moved out the father, that's Osteen. Is what? That's Joel Osteen. Oh, Joel Osteen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the same thing that happened. He went and learned how to produce television in college and then was that and he was like, dad, move. You're too old. I got this. And he got it. He's good at it. I'm not gonna, not gonna, can't fault the guy on his grifting. No, no, you cannot. He's exceptional. He is. My favorite, if you don't know about Joel Osteen, he's the guy who had tens of thousands of square foot of immaculate space in the city of Houston when a huge chunk of that city flooded and many

people were made refugees. And he made none of it open. Well, they just got a new carpet. So they just, they had just gotten, you don't want people on that carpet. And dirty filthy people. We're not talking about a church, like a big church. We're talking about the arena where the Houston Rockets used to play. Yeah. That's where, yeah. I think Jesus would have done the same thing. That's, yeah. We all remember in the Bible when he came upon some poor person with dirty feet and was like, I'm not gonna wash your feet. They're gross as hell. And I got new carpet. I just, no thanks. This robe is new. Yeah. And I won't have to get, ah, classic Jesus. Prosperity gospel. Really hated dirty people. Prosperity Jesus.

Find out one thing about Jesus. It's he did not like refugees. He's like, ah, it looks like my dad wanted you to be poor. So. Ah, the Sermon on the Mount. That's. Fuck you, got mine. So as medicine grew more professional, more and more states began passing laws that created stricter requirements for licensure as a medical doctor. BJ fought against these requirements politically wherever he could. But his father picked a different tactic for protecting chiropractic from government meddling. He started pushing the claim that rather than medical science, chiropractic was a religion and thus utterly immune from any state oversight. He's not dumb. He's not dumb. No. Smart moves. He's not done. That's a solid play. God. Yeah. I didn't realize

it had started as a religion. That's smart. A ghost religion. Yes. Yeah. Ah, it's like, yeah. I'm not even mad at him. It's damn. Yeah, you got to respect a guy who can zig and zag like that. Well, and he's not, I mean, he is hurting and he's probably promising people. He's hurting a lot of people. Yeah. I was going to say he's not really just popping their back, but he's giving people false hope that are, yeah, that is, damn it. Yeah. I'm mad at him again. Son of a bitch can zag. Yeah. But he's zagging the tip of the hat. Yeah. The earliest evidence we have of this shift towards treating chiropractic as a religion is a letter that D.D. Palmer wrote to a colleague, P.W. Johnson, in April of 1911. I should note before reading this, so it makes sense,

that D.D. Palmer frequently referred to himself in his writings as old dad. So when you hear old dad, he's writing about himself there. O-L-D or O-L-E. O-L-D. Weird. Old dad. I'm old dad. Well, he's from the north. Okay. That makes sense. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yours of April 26th at hand. It contains an interesting and financial question, one which I think old dad hold the key of. Stop right now and read two sections in this enclosed circular on pages two and eight marked and see if you cannot grasp the way out, that which I see we are coming to. I want you to study these two items marked. The same ideas are in my book, although not put out quite so plain as found in these two sections. I occupy in chiropractic a similar

position as did Miss Eddie in Christian Science. Miss Eddie claimed to receive her ideas from the other world and so do I. She founded there on a religion and so may I. I am all caps. The only one in chiropractic who can do so. Ye old dad always has something new to give to his followers. I have much written for another edition when this one is sold. It is all caps. Strange to me why every chiropractor does not want a copy of my book. Now, when you're first to miss Eddie, he's talking about Mary Eddie Baker, the founder of Christian Science, which is another religion that focuses around spiritual healing and refusal to accept basic medical help. Yeah. Yeah. So did he Palmer saying like, I'm just gonna do what that lady did. Yeah. And it's like, it's really

transparent the way he writes it out too. Like he even says she claimed to receive her ideas from the other world. I claim that too. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, I'm gonna claim that. I have that claim ticket as well. Also the idea that he's going to publish the new edition of the book making these claims when the last edition of his book on chiropractic is sold out. But smart. Yeah. He's just fucking grifter. Yeah. Old dad is a folksy. That's a smart mark. All these dudes are just brilliant marketers. Yeah. They call them papakairo sometimes too. Are you from Egypt? What's Egypt? So if you like that one. Didi would go on to write in this letter that rather than pushing for laws to specifically

establish chiropractic medicine as a legitimate branch of medicine, chiropractors suggest seek exemption from any laws based on the fact that chiropractic is a religion. Quote, exemption clauses instead of chiro laws by all means and let that exemption be the right to practice our religion. That's all caps. But we must have a religious head, one who is the founder, as did Christ, Mohammed, Joseph Smith, and Miss Eddie, Martin Luther, and other who have founded religions. I am the fountain head. I am the founder of chiropractic in its science, in its art, in its philosophy, and in its religious phase. Now if chiropractors desire to claim me as their head, their leader, the way is clear. My writings have been gradually steering in that direction until

now it is time to assume that we have the same right to as Christian scientists. I am the prophet. I am the prophet. I'm like Mohammed, but with popping backs. Yep. And I'm here to save the world. That's his. Yeah. That's really what he's going for. I'm with you head injuries. Yeah. I might have a factor, although he's really pretty cunning about this. I kind of think that that letter proves that he actually was seeing this pretty clear headed. No, he knows what he's, well that move to be like this is a religion. Yeah, it's a religion. You're like, oh, okay. Medicine's turning into a real thing now. Yeah, it's a religion. Yeah, where his kids whisper, you know, when we always saw like, like he made the Scientology Pivot like a century, well, not a century, but like 70 years before

Scientology did. But he recognized that real quick. Very quickly that like this is the future for American grifting is just calling whatever crime you commit a religion. So it's fine. Well, I think they've been doing that since the start. Yeah, but in a different way, I think. Or not at the level. Yeah, not quite like this. It's the ambition that sets you apart. Yeah, it's the ambition that sets you apart. Now, I found this note hosted on Cairo.org, which builds itself as a chiropractic research organization. This should key in on the fact that modern day chiropractors do not exactly wholeheartedly reject the idea that their discipline, which is usually just billed as another medical specialization, is actually a religion. In order to make this

case authoritatively and establish a bright future for chiropractic with himself as spine cracking Jesus, Didi Palmer began to work on a book he believed would be his masterpiece, the chiropractor. He finished this work, but before he could edit and publish it, he died, possibly because his son murdered him with a car. We don't actually know. Yeah, yeah. The truth here remains heavily debated to this day. What is beyond debating is that Didi and BJ had not gotten along for years. The father never forgave the son for carrying out a hostile takeover of his chiropractic college. The son seems to have been a dick and maybe a sociopath who was disliked by basically everybody. The BJ murdered his dad side of the story, starts with the annual parade of the

Universal Chiropractors Association, held on August 27th. We know that after the parade, Didi Palmer rapidly sickened and eventually died. Three different witnesses swore affidavits that Didi's illness was caused by his son striking him with a car, probably knocked his back out of whack, give him cancer. That would give you cancer. Yeah. One witness wrote this in accord affidavit. I saw Mr. BJ Palmer coming down the street in his automobile, hitting him Didi and continuing to shove him towards the curbing. It appeared to me that Dr. Didi Palmer was being hit as he was and as hard as he was by the automobile, he must have been thrown to the ground and run over. Dr. Didi Palmer was very excited and stated as he started for his house, I'm going to call up the police

and see if I can have protection as I am afraid of my life. So that's one of the witnesses saying that he was hit by a car, but of the three eyewitness accounts, all are slightly different. Some say he was hit in the back, some say in the leg, and for what it's worth, R.C. Smith, the marshal of the parade, offered the most detailed recitation of events. This recitation does not blame BJ for the murder and it instead makes it look like Didi Palmer was just a catancorous old asshole who insisted marching at the head of the parade and probably kind of walked himself to death. Nice. Yeah, yeah. As I was lining up the marchers, I noticed Dr. Didi Palmer was attempting to lead the parade and I went up to him and taking him by the arm, stopped

him and attempted to lead up the street saying, this will be a long walk before we return and you will be very tired and it will be better for you to go up and get into one of the faculty autos and ride, taking it easy and let us young fellows do the walking or words of similar import. This apparently pleased him for the moment, but in an instant he broke loose from me and said, damn the faculty, I'm going to lead this parade. He became very abusive and I led him over to the sidewalk from the center of the street. In a few minutes he made another effort to lead the parade, but I made him desist and as I stepped up to the band of musicians to start the parade, I noticed that Dr. B.G. Palmer's car was slipping out of line to the left side of the street when I again

saw Didi Palmer in the street lead of the procession and I again ran up to him and taking him by the shoulder started pushing him to the west side of the street and sidewalk and as I looked over my shoulder I discovered that B.J. Palmer's auto was coasting close to us and I gave Didi Palmer a shove and got him out of the way of the car as it slipped by it struck me with a fender before B.J. could stop. The car did not touch said Didi Palmer nor was it closer than four or five feet from him at any time while he was on the street. Governor Morris was in the auto at the time that it happened. Again Didi Palmer hurried to the sidewalk and then entered the Argyle flats and the parade proceeded down Brady Street and on several occasions Didi Palmer attempted to get at

the head of the marchers but returned to the sidewalk whenever I hovered in sight until we arrived at or near Fifth Street when he led the parade for about half a block until it came towards him and then went on the sidewalk and did not attempt to lead again. At third in Brady Street Didi Palmer again went to the center of the streets and talked to the traffic officer who told him to go onto the sidewalk and keep out of the street. I further swear that I invited Dr. Didi Palmer several times to ride in an auto but he persistently refused. He seemed too obsessed to get to the front and lead the marchers. No other place in the parade would answer his ideas as to his place. He was very abusive at the time I escorted him away from the front of the band.

I mean it sounds like yeah it checks out that sounds like his ego the whole time. He's just a dick. Yeah. And it sounds like no I'm the best. No I have to be in charge of this. Yes. Yep. Which is like ah that. It sounds like it was an old man who overstrained himself marching and then some of his followers later blamed his son on the murder. Although his son gave enough reason to be like because he was a piece of shit an asshole and clearly hit someone else with his car that day. So it's not like there's a good guy. Yes. People did get hit by a car at the point you hear that story. I mean it sounds like everyone is probably telling the truth on some level. Yeah. His son was like I did hit him. Yeah. It's like one of those stories when you

hear about like two neo-nazi leaders of an organization one claiming that like the other embezzled and the other claiming that the other embezzled from company funds and it's like yeah you probably both did. I believe you. I believe you both are scum. Yes. Yes. But you know who's not scum Billy Wayne Davis. The advertisers who support this show. It could be. With their dollars. What if it's the Koch brothers. Well yeah then they suck. Yeah. They should probably get some spinal adjustments. I don't know if they have a spine. I think they have a spine. It's the people they buy you don't. That's very true. They definitely have a spine. They make their fucking will know. I was going to say from what I've read about them they're they're very in your

face about what they believe. Yeah. I would I will I will hit them on a number of things but they are not spineless. More as like an alien. Not having an actual spine. Yeah. Alien would be a good. Not like no they're confident and Daniel's looking at us wondering when this ad transition is actually going to turn into ad time. Sorry. At some point. Daniel. At some point. It'll happen. Now. During the summer of twenty twenty some Americans suspected that the FBI had secretly infiltrated the racial justice demonstrations. And you know what they were right. I'm Trevor Aronson and I'm hosting a new podcast series Alphabet Boys. As the FBI sometimes you got to grab the little guy to go after the big guy. Each season will take you inside an undercover

investigation. In the first season of Alphabet Boys we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver. At the center of this story is a raspy voiced cigar smoking man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his heart was like a lot of guns. He's a shark and on the gun badass way. And nasty sharks. He was just waiting for me to set the date the time and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Lance Bass and you may know me from a little band called NSYNC. What you may not know is that when I was 23 I traveled to Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space. And when I was there as you can imagine I heard some pretty wild

stories. But there was this one that really stuck with me about a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. It's 1991 and that man Sergei Krekalev is floating in orbit when he gets a message that down on earth his beloved country the Soviet Union is falling apart. And now he's left defending the Union's last outpost. This is the crazy story of the 313 days he spent in space. 313 days that changed the world. Listen to the last Soviet on the iHeart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science. The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system today is that it's an awful lot of forensic and not an

awful lot of science. And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. I'm Molly Herman. Join me as we put forensic science on trial to discover what happens when a match isn't a match and when there's no science in CSI. How many people have to be wrongly convicted before they realize that this stuff's all bogus. It's all made up. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. What's back my I don't know why I'm opening it that way. We just went out for a break for a minute and I thought it was a second episode but we're just coming back from ads. I have decided what this machete looks like Billy

Wayne Davis. What is it? If the orcs and the Lord of the Rings had won the war and then modernized into a liberal democracy. Yeah. This is what all of their swords would look like. Oh yeah that makes sense. Mass produced them. Mass produced nice little orange grips. They're not trying to be all scary anymore. Stainless steel because it's easier to keep clean. Yep. Fisker sounds like an orc word. Still looks kind of cool. Yep. Yep. You know if they'd wiped out the elves there'd be a bunch of orcs in 500 years who like all dressed up in cosplay diselves and like you know like orc burning man. They'd have a lot of like elf religious wear and stuff that like they wouldn't know they were using it in an offensive way but they'd mean well. Just having fun. Just having fun.

Just having fun. What I'm saying is that America is what happens when the orcs win. I think that's it is what happens when anyone wins and then they keep winning. Yeah. Because of all the all the winning guns. Yeah. It helps. So BJ was never convicted of killing his father and the preponderance of evidence seems to suggest that Dee Dee Palmer's death had nothing to do with his son. It probably had more to do with bad salmon and his refusal to accept basic medical care. I was going to guess that he probably didn't take care of himself health wise. Yeah. He ate some food and he got an infection and then he refused to take actual doctors advice on what he should do. I'll just walk it off.

I'll just give him a back popped. I mean I'll pop my own back. Pop my where's the chair. I just need the hard firm chair and I won't fix this. From a paper published by the Institute of Chiropractic quote Louisa Ladd doctor of chiropractic who acted as nurse to Dee Dee stated that he had proper medical attention and had he followed the instructions of his doctors he would be alive to date. He disobeyed all directions, paid no attention to what they told him to do or not to do. That's good that he died the way he lived. He died the way he lived although because his doctor was a chiropractor it's possible that their suggestions were as bad as what he would have done anyway. Oh for sure. Nobody this was a real blind leading the blind sort of situation.

Literally. And ironically. And he tried to save the blind. If they'd actually been blind he could have just popped my own back into working. I mean that is your fate when you're just teaching poor medicine and then you are in the hands of the people you talked. Yeah it's kind of perfect. Because like we said earlier there is like a sign that he was self-aware of his shit. A little bit yeah. So do you think when he's at the end he's just like fuck son of a this is really if I could admit what I've done this is a really funny thing. Yeah I do hope he enjoyed the cosmic irony of that situation. He's got like fucking a coli or some shit like Salmonella I think is what it got written down as but he's like shitting himself to death in a bed and there's

everyone's talking about which vertebra to pop and like he's like fuck. I did this. I did this. You know what this one's on me. I'm okay with this. Yeah I did this. I died doing what I loved teaching people how not to be healthy. Just the same emotion you have when you you drink yourself into the worst hangover you ever had you just wake up and you're like well this is on me. Feels like I made this happen. I didn't know when there was no guns last night this was on me. Yeah. D.D. Palmer died on October 20th 1913. The next year 1914 his manifesto was published in it he laid out his theory of innate intelligence. Did he call it a manifesto? No he called it the chiropractor. Oh it would have been too good. It was essentially a manifesto. You nailed it.

I was just curious if he knew. No, no, no. Inate is embodied as a personified part of universal intelligence therefore co-eternal with the all creative force. This indwelling portion of the eternal is in our care for improvement. The intellectual expansion of the innate is in proportion to the normal transmission of impulses over the nervous system. For this reason the body function should be kept in the condition of tone. Communication with the eternal spirit, the creator, is the goal of all religions. That paragraph covers some ground. God damn man, that's some impressive bullshitting on a level where lawyers are like. This is part of his effort to reclassify chiropractic as a religion so that's what he starts claiming is that he

starts with being like no there's just healing power built into your body and your back being fucked up stops it from getting to the right places and now he's saying this healing power is like part of the innate intelligence that like you need to like free up to flow around your body and fix it. This innate intelligence is part of God. It's not intelligent enough to pop your spine back into place. It needs some help. It's hindered intelligence. I think I'm understanding his theories right? I bet. They're nonsense so. That's what I was gonna say. There's no way to. You can try to understand what he means. Daniel fell asleep. I'm casually resting my eyes while you guys are having this conversation. You heard him snore, right Sophie? I did. Absolutely

did. Absolutely heard Daniel snore. It's because of his third vertebra if you. It was so cute though. Punches back and his narcolepsy. Just for that, Daniel, the next one we do is gonna be about holocaust doctors. Oh great. Jesus. Fall asleep on that. So yeah, he wrote a bunch of crazy stuff about universal intelligence and innate intelligence. I'll just read one other quote from the manifest day so you can get kind of an idea of like what it's like to read this thing. Let's see where's this I'm gonna this is all one sentence. Of course it is. I believe that this intelligence is segmented into as many parts as there are individual expressions of life. Simicolon. That spirit, whether considered as a whole or individually, is advancing upwards and onward towards perfection.

Simicolon. That in all animated nature, this intelligence, capitalized the eye on intelligence, is expressed through the nervous system, which is the means of communication to and from individualized spirit. Simicolon. That the condition known as tone is the tension of infirmness. The the renitice- what the hell? Yeah. The renitice and elasticity of tissue in a state of health. Normal existence that, Simicolon, that the mental and physical condition known as disease, is a disordered state because of an unusual amount of tension above or below that of tone. Simicolon. That normal and abnormal amounts of strain or laxity are due to the position of the osseous framework, the neuroskeleton, which not only serves as a protector to the nervous system, but also as a

regulator of tension. Simicolon. That universal intelligence, the spirit as a whole or in its segmented parts, is eternal in its existence. Simicolon. That physiological disintegration and somatic death are changes of the material only. Simicolon. That the present and future makeup of individualized spirits depend upon the cumulative mental function which, like all other functions, is modified by the structural condition of the impulse transmitting nervous system. Simicolon. That criminality is but the result of abnormal nervous tension. Simicolon. That our individualized segmented spiritual entities carry with them into the future spiritual state that which has been mentally accumulated during our physical existence. Simicolon. That spiritual

existence like the physical is progressive. Simicolon. That a correct understanding of these principles and the practice of them constitute the religion of chiropractic. Simicolon. That the existence and personal identity of individualized intelligence is continue after the change known as death. Simicolon. That life in this world and the next is continuous. One of eternal progression. Period. Wow. That's, that is the most semicolons I think I fucking run into in a sentence. It's what he's done is he has, that is how you transcribe someone, someone's speech that's on cocaine. Yeah it does sound like he's on blow, right? And well the semicolon is that like, you know, I'm not done talking yet. I'm not done talking yet. Like he's got the main thought

and then like 40 sub thoughts and like he has to address each of the sub thoughts but like by the time he does it's so disconnected by the main thought that you can't figure out what the fuck he was trying to say. No idea. And then instead of letting other people talk he's just saying Simicolon. Simicolon. And putting his hand up. Yeah. Oh man because like while you're reading it because there's also a rhythm to what he's, the way he's written it which is interesting. I just noticed Billy Wayne. This, this is groundbreaking. If you think about how a semicolon looks it kind of looks like a nose because you've got the two holes but then there's that line of cocaine trailing out of one of the nostrils. That's what a semicolon means. That's subconscious. No it is.

Yeah. You're exactly. It is just a rake in a sentence to go. And then that's, that is exactly what it is. I'm not done talking. I'm not done talking. After his dad's death, B.J. Palmer continued to develop this theory of innate intelligence. I'm going to quote now from a Huffington Post article on The Man. According to B.J. Palmer, chiropractic has no use for a quote deity to which we can direct instructions of how to run the universe or a soul to save from heaven or from hell. Asking do chiropractors pray in a book by that title, B.J. answered that no chiropractor would pray on his knees or in supplication to some invisible power because innate intelligence within man is the all wise omnipotent omniscient omnipresent director general who asserts that the only

possible cause in cure are within man. See it is that thing of like I believe on some, on some level of what he's saying, we're, you know, we're all in control of our decisions. And we end the cause and solution of all human problems are held within the human brain, not in a way to which like you can just push someone's spine back in. But like you can ever, we could solve every illness if like people directed their intelligence long enough and unconsciously enough to solve the energy problems, political problems that people just like got their shit together. Sure. Fuck out. And maybe that's a religious belief in a way. Kind of. In the same way that Star Trek the next generation is a religious belief. It is. Yeah. But where he got, where he loses me,

they all lose me is like the general, you're your own general where it's like they, they immediately start pitching. Yeah. Or selling. Or you're just like, no, you can be like, hey, it's like the, the whole point of the book of Judas, you know, they left that out because it was like, supposedly it was just like, I don't know much about this. What Jesus was about was just being like, no, no, you're your own God. You're in control of who you are. No one else can control you. That's like. Is this some Gnostic shit you popping out now? I mean, I don't know if I believe it or what, but if I've always found that theory of what that book is fascinating, because they kept it out, because it's teaching people to control their own thoughts and not listen and be under control.

So they wanted that shit to fuck out there. That makes sense. So that sounds like, yeah, there's a little bit of that in here. And I like, obviously he's not the only one preaching stuff like this, like the 1920s, there's a bunch of kind of esoteric religious traditions going around, some of which were turned into Nazis, some of which turned into Elran Hubbard, like a lot of, a lot of rest was hot yoga. Yeah, the rest just wound up in hot yoga. Now, despite all the work done by BJ and his dad, the government did not buy the line that being a religion meant chiropractors got to call themselves doctors and practices if they were MDs. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, more and more states instituted the licensure requirements for chiropractors.

Many of them were quite fair, simply requiring that chiropractors pass the same basic medical science boards as medical doctors, which seems fair to me. You know, you're saying you're doctors, all right, well, you just got to pass the same test. You know as much about the body as a doctor, you get to call yourself a doctor. That's fair, very fair. That's how it worked for a while. Between 1927 and 1953, 86% of medical students successfully passed these basic board exams. Only 23% of chiropractors could. This created a massive problem for the discipline. They need to unlock that innate intelligence. Yeah, exactly. You didn't pop your fucking spine enough for you to pass that goddamn board test. Idiots. Now, this created a massive problem

for chiropractic because it led to hundreds of unlicensed chiropractors fleeing to states without licensure requirements. And the vast number of non-doctor chiropractors practicing ghost-written religious back medicine caused some people to question whether or not chiropractic was even legitimate. Imagine. The solution that eventually evolved was the Doctor of Chiropractic Degree, or DC. Now, this is not an actual medical degree, or even an actual doctorate. Instead, it's a four-year degree, which you can get at a chiropractic college. It doesn't even require a bachelor's degree first. The Palmer College of Chiropractic in Iowa, which is the school that Dr. D.D. Palmer established, will give you a DC for the low, low price of $34,000 a year.

Jesus. They accept 100% of applicants, like every legitimate medical school. 34 grand? Hey, man, Duke's gonna cost that much. Yeah. And you don't get to call yourself a doctor after four years at Duke. But, whoa. It's not as hard as Duke. No, it's never been not as hard as Duke. I was just thinking, I was like, well, what is the point? You know what percentage of the applicants Duke accepts? Yeah. Not 100%? No, they do not. Not literally anyone with a pocketbook? No, they do not. Wow. Now, it's only fair that I note that modern-day chiropractors are very much mixed up about the

ghostly origins of their trade. I found an article in the Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association by Doctor of Chiropractic, Lawn Morgan, discussing the problems the concept of innate intelligence causes for the field. Lawn writes, quote, Today innate intelligence remains an untestable enigma that isolates chiropractic and impedes its acceptance as a legitimate health science. The concept of innate is derived directly from the occult practices of another era. It carries a high penalty and divisiveness and lack of logical coherence. So, it would be unfair of me to state, to pretend like a lot of chiropractors aren't like, we gotta stop with the magic. Yeah. That's not gonna work in 2019.

However, a profession-wide survey conducted in 2003 called How Chiropractors Think in Practice showed that the majority of chiropractors still believe more or less in Didi Palmer's view of innate intelligence and of subluxations as the cause of much human disease. There is a subset, and a growing subset of chiropractors who argue that they should just stick to treating back-and-spine problems. Yes. Now, this is certainly more defensible than using chiropractic treatments to say cured deafness. But even that is kind of dumb, because there's another 2003 study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine that evaluated studies from 1995 to 2003 on the efficacy of different treatments for back pain. They found that simple massage offered considerably more

therapeutic benefits than the spinal manipulations favored by chiropractors. Yeah. So, even for back pain. It's not. I played baseball for a couple years at junior college, and we had a trainer. Yeah. And the two years, we had a different coach when I got there. But there were the guys the year ahead of us. They had a chiropractor, and they all love the chiropractor. And our trainer was like, you guys, he just makes you feel good for like 10 or 15 minutes. He's like, he never fixed any of you. Yeah. And it was just this constant battle between these 19-year-old dudes who are like, no, he's better. He's doctor. And they're just like, I'm 18. I'm gonna go with the guy that's been to school, you guys. And they're like, no, man, you don't know that chiropractor was great.

Hey, man, he's a four-year doctor. Just like Jesus, you guys. That's junior college. Almost as fast a way of becoming a doctor. That's as going to doctor reference school in Jamaica and pour bleach at people's butts. Well, where was it? It's prettier there. Haiti? It was Haiti. Yeah, Haiti. Good. It's not pretty. Now, it gets worse. See, in D.D. Palmer's opus, the chiropractor, he wrote several times about how supplications in infants and small children were often the cause of lifelong health problems and what he called imbecility. This has led many chiropractors to believe that children should be treated with spinal manipulation. Now, I found a great science-based medicine article that highlights how badly this can go. The title of the article kind of says most

of it. Chiropractic manipulation of the neck linked to stroke in six-year-old child. Fuck. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I'm not a medical doctor, Billy Wayne, but I don't think six-year-olds normally stroke out. Oh. 60-year-olds? Now we're getting to be expected. Yeah. But not six. God. Now, this case started with a young boy presenting with symptoms of a sinus infection. Instead of driving him to a real doctor, his grandfather took him to a chiropractor who fucked up his back so badly that it caused an embolism and a stroke in the six-year-old child. And chiropractors routinely work on even younger children. In a few seconds googling, I found a video of doctor of chiropractic Joshua Pedersmith of Pedersmith Family Chiropractic in Missouri. In the video, he adjusts the spine

of a 12-week-old child. Now, we're gonna watch this. It's a bad mammogram. I'm not sure how much of it will watch, Billy, but you got to see this guy listening. Y'all have to hear this kid. So if you want to describe what you're watching in the video up until the kid starts making the noises the kid's gonna make, I think that'll make for a solid podcasting experience. Nope. No, I'm not ready. He's got a little baby. 12 weeks old. Is it his baby? No. Holding it up by one leg upside down and just sort of bouncing the baby upside down being held by a single leg. Now he's holding it by two legs. No, now he's holding it by one hand. Just holding it upside down. He's trying to figure out where it has to be adjusted and now he's manipulating the baby's spine.

So a little Naomi here is a little over 11 weeks old and her spine is no different than anyone else's. So the top bone of her neck is actually slid to the left. How I adjust her is a little different than anyone else, but the grand scheme of things. I'm doing the exact same thing. All I do is pushing that bone right back to the middle, letting the body do whatever it needs to do, put it exactly where it needs to be. So it's a little, it's a lot less forceful. It's very, very gentle with her. And I'm going to hear how gentle it is in a second. All these colic issues go away. That's where our colic's going to go away. Don't do it, you stupid fuck. Baby's thrashing.

Stop. Yeah, it's probably enough, Sophie. It's pretty obvious to me, not being a doctor of chiropractic, but being a person who's watched babies before, that what he's doing to that baby isn't good. Well, no, I have a six month old. Like their body is constantly forming and evolving every single day. So to go in there and be like, oh, this vertebra is a little off. That's why he's colic-y. Like that's not how that works. Also to say that an 11 and a half week old baby's spine is the same as an adult. It's like they don't have all their bones yet. I don't know when they get all their bones or wouldn't they come in, but I know they don't have their bones yet. They don't have the top of their skull yet. It's an infant. Fuck. Oh, just like, I mean, I think it's the dad in me

watching that video is like, get your hands off that baby. It really, like there was like a violent part of me that was like alarming, whereas like, stop doing what you're doing, or I'm gonna have to kick you. Yeah. Yeah. Like, because he's down on the ground at one point, like, I'm gonna kick you till you let go of that baby. Yeah. That's what I'm gonna do. It's not okay. Oh, God. Not okay. Now, the article that initially inspired this episode was a piece I found in a website I quite like called The Outline titled Chiropractors Are Bullshit. It discusses a charlatan named Josh Axe, and I'm gonna quote from that piece now. On his Facebook page, Axe, a self-described board certified doctor of natural medicine who earned his doctorate in chiropractic from good

old Palmer College of Chiropractic tells you which sunscreens are safe and dispenses snack suggestions. Need a sweet snack that won't unravel your health goals? We have you covered, he writes, leaking to a dark chocolate almond butter recipe that contains, by my estimate, more than 1,900 calories, depending on how much coconut sugar you use. The posts on Axe's page run the gamut from minor bullshit like healthy recipes to major bullshit like the pernicious claims that you can reverse cavities. You can't. And why was this guy giving dental advice? And that you can treat some painful and potentially dangerous bacterial infections like UTIs and staff with essential oils and antiviral herbs. Again, not so much.

He also writes that living a life of purpose can lower dementia risk. Wouldn't that be nice? While it might not concern you that a physician with nearly 2 million followers on Facebook is spending his time posting recipes for face wash, it should pique your curiosity, these telling people he's never met they should purchase his products to support any number of conditions. From leaky gut syndrome, not real, to aging, his bone broth collagen formula, now available in chocolate, will set you back $37. That's a funny word, support. It's legal to speak for, this product is bullshit. Beyond his line of snake oils, it should absolutely scare you that Axe has written articles espousing his anti-vaccine

views while speaking glowingly of anti-vax queen Ginny McCarthy's pediatrician. Oh, everything you said. Yeah, that's real bad, right? It's, it's like you, like there's so many, I can't even, it's just levels of bullshit. I, I try to picture what they do every day when they wake up. You know, like you and I knew what we're gonna do today. Yeah, we're gonna talk about chiropractic, and I didn't know I was gonna be swinging the Shetty around. No, you didn't know. And that, that has been a healthy welcome surprise. I knew that was gonna happen. But we knew what we're gonna, there's like substance to what we're doing today.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Theirs is like, how can I come up with more horseshit? More horseshit for money. But where does it, because they've made so much, theoretically. Theoretically. Where does it, it's not about money. And that, that Dr. Axe guy seems like a grifter to me. I don't know, this Dr. Peter Smith, the guy who's adjusting the baby, you look at his face in there, like, is he just a fucking sociopath, or is he someone who really thinks he's a doctor? Well, I think it's, it's the same, like, because it's based in religion. Yeah, it is a religion, yeah. It's susceptible to people who think that

everything they do is for the Lord. Yeah. And for this bet, you know, it's the same Westboro Baptist. Yeah, for innate intelligence. Those people think they're doing everything for the right reasons, like the, the God hates fags people. Yeah, yeah. So, the human brain is fascinating. It's just a playground. Yeah, just a playground. Now, that Outline article also covers the sad story of Playboy model Katie May. In 2018, she died of a stroke after visiting her chiropractor. A 2007 study established- You can't pop in my boobs.

Yeah, well, that's actually, that would have been a lot healthier. Yeah. Yeah, because a 2007 study established a strong link between chiropractic manipulation and the risk of strokes caused by what's called vertebral artery dissection, which is what happened to that little kid. You, like, pop someone's back forcefully enough that it severs an artery. Fuck. Then they stroke out. Now, it's hard to say what the annual death told you to chiropractic medicine actually is. I found a 2010 study in the National Institutes of Health studying all the deaths they could find that immediately followed spinal manipulation by a chiropractor.

The abstract notes under results. 26 fatalities were published in the medical literature, and many more might have remained unpublished. The alleged pathology usually was a vascular accident involving the dissection of a vertebral artery, which is again the most common fatal side effect of chiropractic. The article's conclusion states, numerous deaths have occurred after chiropractic manipulations. The risks of this treatment by far outweigh its benefit. Are there any good reasons to do it? Makes me feel good. I mean, I go to, there's a Thai lady that walks on my back, but then she rubbed it. That's fine. It's frog hair. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I think a lot of it is that a lot of the chiropractors, it's the same

problem you have with, like, a lot of the anti-vax doctors, where, like, they're the most charismatic doctors. Yeah. Like, that guy who was popping that baby's back, good-looking young guy, I'm sure he has an incredible bedside manner. Well, and he has a deep voice in the cadence he spoke in. That was the first thing I noticed was this very confident, I know what I'm talking. Confident, calm. And this is what you're going to do. I'm a cool dude. A lot of real doctors, because they're actually practicing medicine. Yeah. They're very busy. They're very stressed out. They don't sleep enough. A lot of them have substance abuse problems because they have very stressful, difficult jobs. They can be less than friendly because, say, they're working at an ER or something

like that. They're dealing with too much of a workload because there aren't enough real doctors. And then the insurance on top of that. Insurance, filing stuff with the government. Whereas this guy is just a liar. So he gets to be calm all the time. So your real doctor's like, you got one of two things. You got to do this test or this test. I got to go on to do something like this. Like, go take this and get this next test. And I'll tell you what you need to do next. And he's like, it's scary because you're already sick and he's not really taking the time to help you because he's got other shit to do. And this guy sits down with you and he talks with you and he explains how, no, I can fix your baby's colic. Just let me pop its spine. And you're like, cool.

Yeah, sounds great. Yeah. You calm me down and you wear a nice turtleneck. It's like when I got my weed card when I first moved to LA. The guy had a wrinkled lab cut. That does not evoke confidence from a medical professional. It's the only time I've ever seen it. I can't make it. It's just more funny in conversation. I tried to make it funny on stage. I didn't know that doctor. It was just like I walked in. I was like, huh, I've never seen that before. The best thing about the old way we used to work in Los Angeles is that it was clearly like a retirement program for doctors who either were on the edge of getting disbarred from like killing somebody on the operating table or who were just too old to work anymore.

I had both of those. I had a younger dude where I was like, what did you do? You killed somebody, didn't you? You got a fucking baby. He was wrinkled lab cut. Yeah. And then there's the old guy who's just barely awake. I had one doctor where he had a picture on the wall where he couldn't even focus long enough for the picture. He looked like he was falling asleep for it. And then his assistant tried to Skype us in to talk with him. And he didn't pick up Skype twice. So she just forged a signature. So I got my weed card. Beautiful. Oh, I miss it, Billy. It is so much easier. I got one. I lived in Seattle, Washington, had a Seattle ID. I was

just down here doing sets, meeting with some people, walked with my friend who had lived down here for two years. We were on Venice and I was like, I'm gonna try to go get a weed card in this place. You could see the ocean from the doctor's office. I've been there. I just heard a place you're talking about. And the lady, she started, she was being kind of shitty to me at first because I had some out-of-state ID. And she was like, what are you here for? And I was like, oh, I'm gonna stand up. And she was like, oh, I just started doing open mic and then just started checking stuff without even looking. Once she figured out I could help her, I told her where to go to do some comedy stuff. And I walked out and my friend was like, what the hell?

I lived here for two years. I was like, I've been here for a day, dude. Let's go get some weight. One of the first guys I met in LA is a friend of a friend. And he was in the Marines and he got shot in the leg. And he legitimately was using pot at the time in part to deal with pain. And he had his medical examination with the doctor. And the doctor just looped him in with another patient who happened to be in the room at the time who was just like, I don't know, anxiety. Yes. It's like, you're both the same to me. That's it. Gunshot wound, anxiety, as much pot as you can carry. I prescribe it to you both. The old man I went to, like you were talking about, it was pure retirement. I was like, I just wanted to be like,

how much are they paying you to do this? Oh, they made bank. He had a poster on the wall that had all the ailments. So he was like, and he was so lazy, he was like, which one is it? He just pointed at it. Pick on the window what your problem is. I was like, man, America is pretty fun. And that's the kind of quack medicine I like where you just pay $50 to have a doctor say literally any problem. The prescription is however much pot you can pay for. Yes, that's it. Great. Not let's pop a 12 year old spine or 12 week old spine. Yes. Well, Billy, that was fun. The episode's over. You know what that means. We're going to pop that for breeze. I'm going to hit this for breeze. Now, Billy, I'm going to want you to,

I'm going to want you to open the poison room, and then I'm going to want you to duck to the side as quick as you can. So again, now, now, Sophie, is there an outside wall or is this going to go sailing into the parking lot? No, there's double glass. Fantastic. Oh, okay. This is officially safe. Sophie approves. I don't approve fucking hell. No. Wait, it fell that time. Oh, shit. I'm going to need third try. I'm going to throw it horizontally. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that word. It's hard to do that. It's hard to do that. I think that's what we're doing. You really got to serve it up yourself a nice lob and slash. This one's going to be the charm. Oh, got it. Yeah, I got you. Just kick it in there. Kick it in there, Billy.

I do think that I would be fun with it. That worked. Basically. In times. Let me have explosives. I don't understand. I feel like that worked out well. I thought it worked out better than chiropractic medicine does. It's still going. I should try to start selling machete medicine. Machetison. Machetison. Machete your way to health. What's sad is that any of these griffs you and I would try, we would be way more successful than any of our other endeavors in our life. Absolutely. Look, what happened? How'd you get successful? Oh, we just started lying. Here we go. Here we go. I figured out my manifesto for machetison. Now, we've all seen 2001, A Space Odyssey, the documentary film that shows us how human tool use started. Yes. Watched

from that movie. There was a monkey picks up a large bone and starts swinging it. Yes. Human beings evolved to swing large, heavy things with one arm. The problem with modern society, you never have a large, heavy thing in your arm. The answer to that, the machete. If you're always carrying a machete, Billy Wayne, and always swinging it, then your vertebra aligned properly, which clears the wound chakras out and removes the sickness subluxations from inside your gall bladder. The germ spirits. The germ spirits. The machete scares away the germ spirits by balancing your body. So for just $499.95, you can receive an official machetison licensed medical machete. It is a lot, but we need you to be serious. We need you to be serious. We need you to take

its medicine. It's an investment. It's an investment in your health. In your health. And you know what, Billy? I'm in a good mood today. So along with that machete for $499.95, I'm going to throw in a book. Hack your way to better health. How much? For free. Free. That's just coming on there. For free. So we get the machete. You get the machete. And then we get a book that says. Hack your way to better health. That tells us how to use the machete. You heard about body hacking. I heard about it. This is just straight up machete hacking. And it'll cure your cancer. Oh, it's like botox. Sorry. It'll support your cancer treatment. Support it. Support it. I like supporting. Supporting. That feels better than treat. Support. I like to feel supported. We all

like to feel supported. It's a bra for your cancer. It's a bra. Let this machete be a bra for your cancer or whatever else it is. We do have them available in Spanish and they are called machetes. They are. And we have them available for infants. Yes. For an extra $49.95, you can get our special baby's machete, which is the same as our adult machete. Please just stop. You don't like doing her? Well, I think we've sold two or three already. I think we've got people trying to find the website. That's why you're upset with this. Yeah. Because we're doing a pretty good job this evening. You know I'm going to get yacht money and leave this podcast behind. I'm not upset. I'm just disappointed. Just want to turn the channel. We're on three channels right now.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, Bill, you want to plug your plugable? The president just made me the director of health and human services. I mean, that's not even funny. I feel like you just came your way into a cabinet position. I feel like I could at this point. 100%. I mean, since I've been holding this machete virtually the whole episode. You sent that to him. You might be the secretary of defense. He'll be like, orange. I see something I like here. Billy Wayne. I just, I'm about to, I'm working on putting together a tour for the fall and the winter. So, bwdtour.com and I worked on the new season of Squidbillies, which is on Adult Swim right now. So, check that out. That's such a perfect show for you to be working on. It was a dream. It was great. It did not feel like

work. Yeah. Well, I did not work on the new season of Squidbillies. I did once have an altercation with a squid, but that's a tale for another day. The website for this podcast, the sources for all of this episode are on BehindTheBastards.com. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at AtBastardsPod. You can buy t-shirts at T-Public, Behind the Bastards. And of course, you can machete your way to better health by going to www.clondike545388machettison today. And again, machettison is of course spelled like it sounds. What would you do if a secret cabal of the most powerful folks in the United States told you, hey, let's start a coup? Back in the 1930s, a marine named Smedley Butler was all that stood between the U.S. and fascism. I'm Ben Bullitt.

I'm Alex French. And I'm Smedley Butler. Join us for this sordid tale of ambition, treason, and what happens when evil tycoons have too much time on their hands. Listen to Let's Start a Coup on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you find your favorite shows. Did you know Lance Bass is a Russian-trained astronaut? That he went through training in a secret facility outside Moscow, hoping to become the youngest person to go to space? Well, I ought to know, because I'm Lance Bass. And I'm hosting a new podcast that tells my crazy story and an even crazier story about a Russian astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. With the Soviet Union collapsing around him, he orbited the Earth for 313 days that changed

the world. Listen to The Last Soviet on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science and the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price? Two death sentences in a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.