Behind the Bastards - Part Two: Wim Hof's Surprisingly Deadly Story

Episode Date: September 14, 2023

Robert is joined again by James Stout to continue to discuss the bloody tale of Wim Hof.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Earn the points, share the journey, with the TD Aeroplane Visa Infinite Card. Earn up to 50,000 bonus aeroplane points. Conditions apply, offer ends January 3rd, 2024. Visit TD Aeroplane.com for details. Sometimes the pop culture we love just teens hits differently in retrospect. Maybe it's a tabloid story we couldn't get enough of, or an illicit student teacher relationship on our favorite show. We're Suzy Bannakarim and Jessica Bennett, posts of the new podcast in retrospect. We're each week we'll revisit a cultural moment from the past that shaped us and probably

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Forty years later, we dive into that music scene and the mystery of his passing. Listen to Peter and the Asset King on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Everyone in our country has a voice. It's something that says not just where you come from, but who you are. Welcome to MPR's Black Stories, Black Truths, a collection of podcasts and a celebration of the host and journalism who've always spoken truth to power. Our voices are as varied, nuanced, and dynamic

as the Black experience. And stories should never be about us without us. Find MPR Black Stories, Black Truths on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. for these black truths on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. What's a dangerous con man, my this fucking dude, went off James, guest, happy, how are you? Wonderful, good, yeah, thriving, ready for it, learning more about pock animus. Very happy to hear that, James.

I, you know, speaking of animus, what is it about animus? Why are some people fucking obsessed with this is like the key to all health? Does seem to have a captivating power of the human spirit. Yeah. Doesn't it, the anima? Yeah.

Yeah, there's a kind of person, ana guys and anima girls who are just like obsessed with the fucking animas is the answer to all health problems. Guys, I don't know. It's a lost thread throughout human history. Someone should do a PhD on it. Yeah, I think it may have something to do with the fact that it's like an intense experience that a mansion. Yeah, creates like powerful physical sensations and some people just flip out over it. I don't know. Yeah, I think it seems to their life. Yeah. Yeah. In a way that it's

not if you inject pot water into your coat on. Yeah. you got to like, I don't know. Like, there are like, obviously sometimes animals are a useful tool for healthcare people to give. Sometimes people need it. It must, but it should never be like a regular part of your day to day, right? No, I think you just like giving yourself animals for fun. Yes. Yeah.

Under medical supervision only, I think it's my stance on animals for fun. Yes, yeah, yeah. Undermedical supervision only, I think, is my thoughts on animals. Yeah. Look at us, animal cops, both of us. Yeah, animal cops. Yeah, that's my job. I'm going to make sure people's assholes are nice and dry. Mm-hmm. I've broken with the anarchist, I'll be becoming one of those really annoying

stylists on Twitter. You're an asshole authoritarian. because I'm going to be becoming one of those really annoying Stalinists on Twitter. You're an asshole authoritarian. We know who's not an asshole authoritarian is Wim Hof. He thinks, you know, if you live in a state with public health care, you should just cut your guts to ribbons with a sprinkler head. And you know, your fellow citizens can pay for that because you're a drifter who abandoned your family for a decade. That's what socialism does to, to, to a motherfucker. Yeah. Yeah. Every time. Yeah. Can't not do it. Happen everywhere.

So James, when we left Wim, he had just shattered his guts by taking a public innima from a water fountain to avoid acknowledging that he'd abandoned his family. That said, he does eventually come back to the picture. His book, The Way of the Ice Man, gives us very little detail on the long gap between Olaia suicide and his rise to prominence right after Wim, later Wimry married and had another son. We just get this line. The children grew up and hoff looked for more challenges. Yeah, they grew up more or less without you, buddy. Yeah,

he looked for challenges. He did not include parenting, I guess. Yeah, not a challenge. He was that interested in. So at this point, his story jumps ahead to the mid-awts. There are not any particularly good or objective sources about the reality of his life in this period. So we're gonna have to rely on some bad ones. I found an article with IrishNews.com that features heavily in interview with Laura Hough. Now, today, Laura is involved in her father's business in her fire, so not an unbiased source

without a financial interest in how women have seen. And her interview does not acknowledge some of the unpleasant stories that Scott talks about. But I think her claims about what it was like being raised by Wim are still worthy of analysis because at the very least, if this is not accurate to reality, it does show how his kids who are affiliated with his business think it is advantageous for their

father to be seen, right? Yeah. Yeah. Sure. If this is not an accurate recitation of reality, and we do not objectively know what happened with women as kids, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Quote, on a cold winter's day in Amsterdam many years ago, while other parents were wrapped up warm to collect their kids from school. Laura Hoff for calls her dad turning up in a t-shirt, shorts, and sandals, and then doing a bit of yoga in the school yard. I think I was raised by a very special man, which I only understood later, says Laura 36, agreeing that the childhood that she shared with her three siblings was absolutely different than that of her friends. We always used to play outside, if it was cold, it didn't really matter. The weatherman never dictated what we needed to wear. Now, that could be also go with whims

basically abandoning them to a squat. The fact that like, no one was there to make sure they would dress properly. So we didn't have any clothes. Yeah. So we didn't have any clothes. Laura gives us little detail on what whims life was like after Olaia suicide and his eventual return to his family, which she of course has no obligation to do. But it does mean that this next period of his life is a bit of a black box when it comes to hard facts. This is as much as she says about being raised by Wim. We were very free, I don't think there were any rules.

Sometimes you would think, okay kids need some rules, but it was also the best time in my life. My father used to play more than we did. So we always wanted to go outside with us and that was great. So I don't know, that's another version of the story. Believe what you want. We're either juxtaposed. Yeah.

So Wim claims that after his wife's suicide and his return to his family, he traveled around the world doing what a normal person would call extreme stunts, summarized in his autobiography this way. His breathing techniques, yoga and cold training, gave him enormous strength and he liked to share it with others. The media got him in their sights, encouraged by the attention and the effect it had on other people, Wimbruc record after record. He took the longest path in ice. He climbed snow-covered mountain peaks, wearing shorts. He ran a marathon on in Lapland at negative 30 degrees Celsius. He swam hundreds of meters under ice. His records were reported on television

in Japan, Germany, Poland, Spain, and many other countries. The BBC made a documentary about him and millions of people watched his feats on the internet. And again, the way he's talking about his early activities is almost as if they like the fame that he received, the media coverage was an accident, right? The media got him in their sights as opposed to he was kind of a fame hound and he deliberately went out of his way to get covered by the media. Yeah, he actively pursued being in the media at any opportunity. Yeah, it was like, oh, he just wound up getting famous somehow. Real gratitude.

There's some dude over there climbing mountain in boxes shorts. Maybe we should know a story. Yeah. Now, all of these records, the 26 Guinness World Records that he claims to have set are in reality somewhat less than accurate. And we'll cover that shortly. But for right now, I want to return to another one of WIMS claims. He says frequently that after years of groundbreaking athletic success, he grew frustrated, quote, possibly because he was still coming to terms with Olehya's suicide.

Quote from his book, he felt the need to share his knowledge and the possibilities of his body with more people. Could other people do what he can do? In 2007, the renowned fine-stine institute New York studied off. The result showed that he was able to control his autonomic nervous system. people. Could other people do what he can do? In 2007, the renowned fine-stine institute New York studied Hough. The results showed that he was able to control his autonomic nervous system. For WIM, the results were logical. After all, he had trained to do it for many years, but the researchers thought he was a medical wonder. From then on, Hough put himself at the disposal of science. His main aim was to show others that they could also train to do what he does. It was the start of a very special time in Wim's life.

He attracted more and more attention, and those who started using his method were wildly enthusiastic. Now, James, I'm an admit to a potential failure as a researcher here. I have definitely found evidence of the Feinstein Center and Dr. Tracy, who runs at commenting in articles that feature Wim Hof. They seem to be connected. I have not come across any publication from the Feinstein Center about Wim from 2007. But 2007 is the year that he claims

to have run the world's fastest half marathon while barefoot on ice or snow in two hours and 16 minutes. Yeah. How much competition is there for that? For a time. I don't think there's a lot. I don't think there's a lot. What's our previous record? First, it is important you remember the qualifier here is this is the fastest half marathon

barefoot on ice or snow, right? Not the fastest half marathon, not even the fastest half marathon barefoot. Now, this is his only legitimate Guinness world record. He did do this. This was verified by Guinness. He doesness world record. He did do this. This was verified by Guinness. He does hold this record. I do want to note here that Wim's time, if you are not using the qualifier,

that's the fastest half marathon barefoot on ice or snow, is not particularly historic, right? As a half marathon time. The current fastest half marathon is 59 minutes and 47 seconds, which is insane. For 13.1 miles. It would be record breaking as a marathon time. Yeah, it would be good to be very impressive.

Yeah, two hours is great marathon. Yeah, but to two and a quarter hours, it's lessened and fast people are running for fast marathon. So, the first hard evidence of scientific analysis of WIM's claims that I have is from 2011. WIM had, by this point, turned his experiments in cold weather endurance into a lifestyle. He was well known for going on long barefoot runs in the snow and submerging himself in ice for long periods of time without shivering. A 2011 article published by Radboud University's Medical Center is the first example I found

of him being tested by a reputable scientific source. It is notable that this early article describes him as the Iceman Wim Hof. Radbound's researchers were specifically testing Wim's claims that he could influence his autonomic nervous system and immune response through concentration and meditation. And in that, they are talking about what people now call Wim Hof breathing. That is a version of G-Tomo breathing. And I'm going to quote from this study here. To investigate this, Hof was administered endotoxin while practicing his concentration and meditation technique. During this experiment, various measurements were performed, including

brain activity, autonomic nervous system activity, and inflammatory mediators in the blood. One of the researchers said, after Indotoxin administration, the increase of the stress hormone cortisol in Hough was much more pronounced compared to other healthy volunteers. We know that this hormone is released in response to increased autonomic nervous system activity and that it suppresses the immune response. In accordance, the levels of inflammatory mediators and hofs blood were much lower. On average, hofs' immune response was decreased by 50% compared to other healthy volunteers. In addition, hardly any flu-like symptoms were observed.

These results are definitely remarkable. So that makes it sound like hofs was able to basically control his immune system to reduce his immune response to being mildly poisoned in a way that reduced his symptoms, which is very impressive sounding, right? That's a thing he was able to do that is impressive. That's interesting. But the paper went on to caution. Those results were only obtained from a single person, and thus could not serve as evidence

for claims that Hough's techniques could influence the immune system in meaningful ways. Sure. He could just have immune system in meaningful ways. Sure. He could just have a weird response. Like, yeah, we will refer. There's follow-ups to this study. So we will talk about that in a little bit. The year before that 2011 study, 2010, Hof and his eldest son, Enom, had set up a company

called Inner Fire to capitalize on the growing fascination with Wim and his claims of superhuman abilities granted through breathing techniques. to capitalize on the growing fascination with WIM and his claims of superhuman abilities granted through breathing techniques. They started organizing workshops, first in the Netherlands, but then all over the world. Several other of his children joined the organization, which grew rapidly as WIM became a bona fide celebrity. Now, if you don't recall, the period from 2010 to 2013

was the birth of commodified viral content online. Journalists and writers for culture websites like my old employer, Crack.com, had a voracious appetite for so weird it must be true stories, and Wim Hof was perfectly situated to go viral in this area. The number one reason for his success was his embrace of mainstream scientific studies of his techniques. Hof could do this because G. Tumbo breathing, which is the basis of all of his claims, does work in measurable ways.

In 2012, researchers from Radboud performed that follow-up study, comparing volunteers trained by Hof and a control group. Testes were poisoned lightly, and the immune activation of the different groups was studied. An analysis of various studies on Wim Hof breathing by the medical journal temperature notes, the trained group had significantly increased epinephrine levels, increased levels of anti-inflammatory cytokine, decreased levels of pro-inflammatory mediators, and less pronounced fever.

Also, flu-like symptoms were lower in the trained group compared with the untrained group. And you will find this cited constantly on Wim's website and in news articles about WIM. Usually the study results are summed up as the people who WIM trained were able to control their immune systems and avoid sickness. That is not what happened. And that journal article continues. The setup of the research, however, did not allow discrimination between the acute and

the acquired responses, because during the experiment itself, the volunteers from the intervention group were allowed to hyperventilate and the control group was not. Therefore, the investigators included that hyperventilation can temporarily activate the sympathetic nervous system and suppress the innate immune response.

A long-term. Yeah, long-term training effects were not addressed. Therefore, it still needs to be sorted out if the training itself, hyperventilation, cold and or meditation, caused the observed effects. This study also notes that the trainees were not just given cyclic hyperventilation training. They were immersed in ice cold water, while the control group was not. This matters more than you might think." Quote. Finally, cold may exert health effects.

First of all, cold may increase energy expenditure by shivering, but also by non-shivering thermogenesis, as mentioned above. In the recent past, quite a few studies from several laboratories showed that humans are able to increase their non-shivering thermogenesis capacity due to cold acclimation. This mirrors numerous studies in rodents. However, the effects and humans are of a smaller magnitude compared with these animals. So number one, it's very debatable. There's no evidence that there's significant health benefit to this.

These people had mildly less symptoms than the control group, right? Of this mild poisoning in a controlled situation. And number two, there are too many variables that we're not isolated for that you can't say, oh, it was because of the breathing or the meditation or it may have just been, yeah, there's health benefits to being immersed in cold water, like potentially, at least short term ones.

That body was freaking out because it's drowning. Yes, you can't say the kinds of things that are claimed. Yeah. Yeah. That was like for people who were on the internet back then, that was the whole genre of like a health viral influencer, right? It was taking a solid scientific claim and then building gradually less and less solid claims on top of that and then grifting off that and telling people you can make them healthy and healthy and see their lives and such. Yeah. So anyway, that gives you an idea

and you can find other studies about WIM. They all have breakdowns like that when you actually get into what is being studied. Anyway, we will talk a little bit more about this later. So that's 2012 that that follow-up study is conducted by Radboud, and it is the very next year that our ethically questionable friend Scott Carney comes onto the scene. 2013 is the year that he met Wim Hof, and he's working on this book called The Enlightenment Trap, and he thinks Wim might be an interesting subject for it.

He kind of wants to expose him as a grifter. So he talks Playboy magazine and to letting him go like hang out and take one of one of Hoff's classes. So yeah, and he specifically writes in his more recent article that he wanted to quote, debunk him as a charlatan trying to sell fake superpowers to the masses.

Which is, I think, a reasonable way to describe Wim Hawking. Yes, he's done he started out just fine. So, Karney describes Wim in 2013 as, quote, at Merce Most A Circus Act. He wore a green hat and had a red nose and ruddy skin that made him appear a little nomish. He was bursting with energy, talked loudly and smelled like an onion.

To the extent that he was known at all, it was for performing death-defying stunts in ice water and for a stint, shilling battery-heated jackets for Columbia sportswear, not for possessing valuable insights on the mind-body connection. Yeah, real, yeah, I didn't know. I didn't know if he really did a fallout.

Yeah, yeah, that's something happened here. It is interesting because like he describes him in this period, is Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's something happened here. It is interesting because like he describes him in this period is like, yeah, he was like a big media figure in this party Europe, but he was kind of like, you know, a little bit of a carny, you know, someone who you would to show these gimmick jackets. Yeah, he's like a Joe Exotic of like doing this stuff, you know, like he's famous but not necessarily respected, I guess. Yeah, I would say that. So Scott gets to work studying whim and listening to his classes.

And he finds himself, as he says, flabbergasted by the fact that whim's techniques really do work. There's powerful benefits to this stuff. That's how Scott describes it. Quote, within a few days, I learned to hold my breath for several minutes at a stretch and heat my body in the snow. An autoimmune illness that had plagued me for 30 years went away. A few years later, I climbed shirtless up Mount Kilimanjaro with hoff. When the temperature dipped into minus 30 degrees, there was no doubt about it. I was a convert. Soon I became

his chief of angiolist, not only writing the book What Doesn't Kill Us, which spent a few months on the New York Times bestseller list, but also appearing from more than 300 media engagements from TV shows and news articles to radio programs and podcasts where I preached the good news. That's a weird, I don't know, man, I've written about some people I admire and I've written about some people I hate, but I've never done 300 podcasts interviews about how great anyone is. Like it, he kind of seems to have moved from journalism to part of this half grift at this point. Yeah.

So it's at this point that we should probably talk about Mount Kilimanjaro James, because Kilimanjaro is central to Wim's claims of supernatural ability. It features heavily in all of his stories. And I'm going to quote first from how his conquest of that infamous mountain is described by Rolling Stone article Eric Hedegard in a 2017 article. He attempted to scale Mount Everest wearing nothing but shorts and shoes, but was thwarted

by a foot injury. He tackled Mount Kilimanjaro next, wearing only shorts and shoes, but was thwarted by a foot injury. He tackled Mount Kilimanjaro next, wearing only shorts and shoes and reached the top in less than two days, an unheard of feat. So James, that's not it. Thankfully, he has given us some stuff to dig into here. So the first question we should ask ourselves, is it an unheard of feat to reach Kilimanjaro and the top of Kilimanjaro in less than two days, right? Is that exceptionally rare? No. The current world record, and this

is fucking nuts, by the way, the current world record for an individual climb and descent of Kilimanjaro is six hours and 42 minutes. That is false. That is fucking nuts. That is mountain running. That is fucking impressive. That is wild. I don't, I actually don't know how that's physically possible, but it apparently has been, yeah. The altitude change, like I've been up the other two

highest mountains in Africa, at the high atlas and Mount Kenya, but yeah. I've never done higher than 14k for a peak. And like, that is a thing, you know, like fucking, and this is like, so by the way, Carl Eggloff of Switzerland is the guy who did that, obviously, he'd be swiss dude, not surprised. Yeah.

I had it down for being someone from like Townsendero, okay, Nero, somewhere. Yeah. I mean, and it is like, when we are talking about Kilimanjaro, the peak of Kilimanjaro is 19,000 feet above sea level. It is 16,000 feet above its base plateau. That's the topographical prominence, which is a commonly used measure

for the difficulty of climbing amount. And basically, it's like, because you have a lot of peaks that might be like 16,000 feet, maybe they're only like a 2,000 foot hike or whatever, a kind of the ridge or whatever. So yeah, Kilimanjaro has the fourth highest topographical prominence of any peak on earth, which makes it, you know, by any widely accepted mountaineering metric, one of the harder mountains out there to climb. So hey, Wim is bullshitting about his time

up to the top of Kilimanjaro being particularly exceptional, but hiking to the top of Kilimanjaro, being particularly exceptional, but hiking to the top of Kilimanjaro in shorts and shoes does seem impressive. And it's certainly not a bad time, but he generally fails to note that he didn't actually summit Kilimanjaro. He didn't actually reach the top summit of Kilimanjaro. And I'm gonna quote here from a write-up by Peppision von Erp, a mathematician

from Radboud University, which is the same school that carried out the experiments and I'm going to quote here from a write-up by Peppesian von Erp, a mathematician from Radboud University which is the same school that carried out the experiments that initially seemed to verify Hoff's incredible claims. Quote, Wim Hof and the group of pioneers started on January 14th at an altitude of 1800 meters. From there they marched onto a camp at 3700 meters. They stayed there during the night and went early in the morning to break through the top at 5,685 meters. Gilman's point. This tempo would normally not have been possible because of the acclimation time used to prevent altitude sickness. But wait a second, Gilman's point. That's not the actual summit of Kilimanjaro. Is it

Wim Hof? And it is, in fact, one of three official summit points on the mountain, but not the actual peak, which is a Huru peak, which is where the dude who made the trek in less than seven hours reached and then made it back down. So again, you can get some insight into the nature of WIMS personal sort of like PR tactics here, right? Any normal person would consider reaching Gilman's peak with a group of largely untrained hikers and getting back down in two days or less to be impressive and doing it in shorts extra impressive, but that's not going to go viral, right? Because you're not breaking any records, you know, you're doing a pretty good time and a pretty impressive

thing, but you're not doing anything that's like going to win you an award. And so you've got to kind of jink the truth in order to get something that's gonna be real easy to like go viral in an article or whatever. And like choosing Kilimanjaro is a choice, right? Like it's a big ass mountain. It's a great achievement to climb it. But it's not a technical climb.

No, it's, you know, like it's something you could, like people do Kilimanjaro in their retirement. If that's the kind of thing they enjoy, and you could spend a lot of money and have someone carry all your stuff. Like, for something that sounds super impressive, like it's not Everest, and he compares them in the same paragraph in that piece you read

so I could go, like it's very, I don't know. He's taken like one point of truth and extrapolated. Exactly, exactly. And the way that he phrases things, he's always got to defense if people call him out, because if someone's like, well, what you didn't actually do it this way, he can always be like, well, no, what I meant is that no one else hiked up at this time without a shirt or wearing shorts or with an untrained group of hikers, right? So it's the shortest time for someone doing all those things, because like, no one keeps

track of that shit. Yeah, it's like if I were to climb up Kilimanjaro in like five days and be like, yeah, but I did it the fastest anyone's ever done in a head full of cocaine. I was like, well, nobody's really keeping track of that. You know, fastest guy named Robert Evans. He was doing coke at the time.

Yeah, exactly. I beat that other Robert Evans. He didn't even make it up to Kilimanjaro when he was on coke. Okay, guy. I beat that other Robert Evans. He didn't even make it up to kill him in Jarrow when he was on cocaine. No, I don't do cocaine, folks. Just good old fashioned gas station at-or-all. You know, that's the healthy thing to do. Is that the stuff that's by when you check out? It's called the coinoch. Giant trucker pills, and I mix them with crat, and we call that a 7-11 speed ball. Buddy, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You'll suppress some positive your body's natural responses when you do that, let me tell you. You sure will, way better than Wim can. We're gonna line you up with some Dutch scientists, buddy, this could be a whole thing. Yeah, so it's when you read Wim's book that it becomes clear he wants his followers to believe no one else can manage the hike

in the time that he did. Quote, off-decided, he would climb Mount Kilimanjaro with a group of people. Kilimanjaro was a 5,895 meter, 3.66 mile high mountain in Tanzania. It's a very popular expedition for mountaineers and hikers. Well-trained climbers can get to the top in six days. To make the challenge even greater, Hoff wanted to climb Kilimanjaro in 48 hours with a group of 26 people. Hoff wanted to show that we'rearo in 48 hours with a group of 26 people. Hoff wanted to show that we're all capable of doing much more than most people think is

even possible. With excess, this expedition too, everyone said it was impossible to get up to the top in 48 hours with such a large group. As if that wasn't enough, some of the people in the group were suffering from diseases, like multiple sclerosis, rheumatism, Crohn's disease, and cancer. They also had no climbing experience. The date was set for January 2014, and the run-up to the expedition was chaotic. Dr. Geert Bougees of the Atmester Dam Medical Center wanted to accompany the expedition

in a personal capacity to help the group. The local guides thought the whole thing was a bad idea. At the last moment, the guides decided not to go. However, Hopper's Resolute, this group was capable of reaching the top by focusing on their breathing, and because they had prepared with cold training. So they went. When the group arrived at Herombohut, a small huddle of climbing huts at an altitude of 3,705 meters, the temperature had fallen to 3 degrees Celsius, 37 degrees Fahrenheit.

As of climbing to the top of Kilimanjaro in 48 hours to 26 people, many of whom were ill was not enough, Wim suggested they walk bare-chested and then shorts, breathing and cold training were the secrets. And again, if that is the way that it actually went, that's impressive enough, but again, Wim's dumb. It's dumb though, but Wim's got a lie, and it's not like superhuman. Again, he's lying about like, it's almost well-trained, well-trained climbers can get to the top in less than six days. No, man, people are up and down that thing. Someone has done it in less than seven hours. Yeah.

It's not to say like everyone can do that. Obviously, that's an extreme thing, but like six days, it's not like impossible to do in less than six days. Yes. And you're like, you're doing that out to that. You're doing that out to that. Yeah. Like when you're doing that six, seven, ten day, whatever you're doing, you're taking

time to acclimate to different altitudes. Yeah, I don't know why this one upsets me so much. I think having done some walking up mountains, like if your guide says, nah, fuck it, I'm not going that dumb, like don't go, because that same guide is gonna be able to search and rescue team finding your dumb ass

and risking their life to try and help you. And that's not okay. Yeah, he's being really reckless here. And I've been reckless doing a mountain climb before that was ill-advised, but not with 26 people I was responsible for. Like again, it's about who you you in danger and like, yeah, and I shouldn't have done the the the climb that I did, but it was a it's it's like it's like this.

Yeah, it's it's this claiming that like what you're doing is somehow like impossible. No one thought we could do it. It's like, no, man, like people have done much more impressive things on Kilimanjaro than what you did. Rooting it not in like, oh, I'm just a grifter or I just wanted to see if I could do it even. I wanted to do something hard, but being like, oh, I did it for everyone. So everyone could see what they're capable of. Like, though you didn't. Yeah, I'm glad no one died this time, but that may be evidence of the fact that like,

Kilimanjaro is a mountain that you can get away with that on as opposed to Everest. Yes. Yes, someone would die or a K2 or whatever. Oh, Ab, yeah. Send him up K2. That's a challenge we're throwing. Yeah. We're talking to shirtless.

Yeah. Yeah. You think you're hard. From 2000, actually, you know, first off, James, you know who is hard? People who buy the products from these, yeah, because we've got dick pills. That's right. We do have dick pills, God willing, you know. God willing, we'll get more dick pills.

Yeah, hopefully. Yeah, grab some dick pills, grab some trucker amphetamines and grab some gas station, create a mix them all together, see what happens. Yeah, run up and down. That's how I did it. And six hours, man. Yeah. You know how weightlift was talking about muscle confusion?

Confuse all of your organs, you know, what, just take every pill in the gas station and see what it does to you. That's the key to the health. Some road records for sure. You sure will. Highest hot raid by you. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Have you ever felt like your thoughts start racing

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Yeah, and I don't think that's a bad thing. I'm Jessica Bennett, a New York Times writer and bestselling author. I'm Susie Bette-Kerrem, an award-winning TV producer and filmmaker. Every week, we'll revisit a moment in cultural history that we just can't stop thinking about. From tabloid headlines to illicit student-teacher relationships, and one, very memorable red swimsuits. I found myself in Pamela Anderson's attic, as you do. I put that red swimsuit in a safe because it seemed everybody wanted it.

We're digging deep to better understand with these moments taught us about the world and our place in it. I want you to really smell the axe body spray that emanated during this time. It was presented more as kind of like a crime topic. Okay, not a love story. It had been branded on the uterus of every single woman from C to shining C. Listen to In Retrospect on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Penelope Spheras. I'm a film director.

I want to tell you a story about a friend of mine. Back in the 70s, Peter Ivers moved to LA to start his music career. He scored Ron Howard's directorial debut. I didn't know one thing about Peter Ivers. I just said, okay, let's meet him. And even hosted LA Night Cable TV show. It showcased LA punk bands in all their glory. The crowd started getting bigger and bigger, and then there was Beverly Danzeline. There was John Baloofti. But then it all went to hell.

It was murdered. Peter Ivers was murdered on March 3rd, 1983. And it raised a question that 40 years later, we still don't know the answer to. Who killed Peter Ivers? Listen to Peter and the Asad King on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. you get your podcasts. So from 2014 on, Wim's fame picked up by leaps and bounds. Inner fire became a popular lifestyle wellness brand for celebrities, interested in pushing the extremes of human capacity.

Harrison Ford bragged about taking his classes on a life talk show appearance. He was far from the a lot of celebrities are into Wim Hof breathing, have done his stuff. Wim was a regular guest on the Tim Ferris show. That's one of the big things that made him huge. Tim Ferris is the four hour work week and the four hour body. He does all of these like hacking, like body hacking and productivity hacking.

Is he the bulletproof coffee guy? No, no, no, that's a different guy. That's it. But I think that guy's been on Tim Ferriss's show. Okay. Yeah. And one of the claims that Wim made on Tim's show was that he could speak 10 languages fluently, which is an impress.

I've known some people who are that kind of polyglot. I've had some fixers who were that kind of polyglot, you know, Victor Bout, famous multiple language guy. Yeah. My, my, my Arabic teacher, like learned Mandarin over the course of a year is like a side hobby, like the way some people get into like basketball or something casual.

I made talking things out of wood. Yeah, because he's a language genius. Some people are like that. So that's an enviable skill. It is a beautiful. It's the most enviable skill in my opinion. But I can't say that Wim can't do this. I don't know if Wim can speak 10 languages fluently.

I do know that Wim stretches the truth about a lot, and he's probably stretching the truth about this. But because Tim Ferris is also one fan describes him as a language hacker, he asks, Wim, how did you learn 10 languages? And whim answers, just be open and love to learn. And that's it.

I had no real teachers, you know, people in the street and sometimes I had to look for a teacher like a Japanese teacher here in Amsterdam and a Hindu teacher. So yeah, I was just interested. If you are interested in life and you get to know

and you never stop learning because you love it. I don't think he speaks English fluently. That's not a coherent statement. Yeah. I think he meant Hindi and not Gensu. I was wondering what was going on there. Yeah.

Anyway, but that's understandable, right? If he's like, if he's not, his language English isn't perfect, maybe we might mess that up. So appearances with Joe Rogan and other extreme sports affiliated media personalities followed. And Wim's portfolio of Brigadotio expanded too. Kilimanjaro was always one of his chief claims to fame, but he soon added the claim that he had broken

26 world records. This is again untrue. He currently holds one Guinness world record for that half marathon. But it is easily Wim's most boring lie because there's not even a fun story here. He's just full of shit. But papers, including like,

that's because he doesn't end him in a while, buddy. Yeah, he's, yeah, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's gonna get a shit out. That'll clean the truth up here. But like a lot I found like Rolling Stone and Guardian articles, all sorts of articles that will just repeat the 26 world records thing. Sometimes they hedge their bets being like, he claims to have won this, but rarely do they actually dig into the fact that like, no, we didn't.

He just didn't do this. Yeah. Now, many major outlets have often been willing to lend credence to Wim's claims. By far the greatest ally he's had as a grifter are the podcasts of guys like Joe Rogan. Probably my favorite example of this is quite mild by comparison, but I found it funny. And one talk with Rogan, he was making his usual bold claims and I've engaged control of his immune system. And Joe asked, you're able to deal with malaria and Wim responded, yes, he was. And further, he would be willing to get infected with malaria for science, previous resilience and all I got to say is, please, let's do this.

Yes, give us the best of all of our area. Yeah, do it in the most future, babe. Do it in the most future, babe. Wim, get the number one killer of human beings across the, the aons of time that we've existed in infect yourself as a bit. Jesus Christ. As someone who's had, you do not want to do that. As a bit or not, that will.

It's like fucking with Mount Everest. Like you just don't want to do that, right? Yeah. You can fuck around with like, you know, when they're doing these studies, they'll inject them with a little bit of poison, right? That induce basically a mild flu. You don't fuck around with malaria.

Yeah. Like, you don't't fuck around with malaria. Yeah. Like, you're even fucking around with malaria pills. Like with the medicine that you take to avoid getting it, has pretty serious side effects. Yes, it does. That stuff is, I have seen some sunburns. Yeah. But yeah.

Yeah. Where did Rogen plug that word from? It guys like, oh yeah, I can control my immune system. He's just like, yeah, you want to do malaria? Yeah. You want to take some malaria with me. So God the good that would do to the world if we get both of those men to malaria challenge Yeah, both get them to take it. No, man. If you really want to DMT is pussy shit

If you really want to like learn some stuff about yourself, bra You're gonna take malaria homes like that's how you fucking learn your tough Ah self-brought you got to take malaria homes like that's how you fucking learn your tough ah I really I really fucking hated that It's good and the listeners don't get the the horrifying visual of you do with that coming from your face It's just yeah, oh, it's beautiful It's a good thing, okay, so yeah, you've ruined malaria rub it Yeah, you've ruined malaria, Robert.

Yeah, you. I've seen that. Malaria is going to get canceled now. Yeah, I took and gun you. It's right there wanting to take it spot the whole time. Mm-hmm. I was going to go with the sleeping sickness. That hurt me.

Yeah. So much of WIM's success with Shady Journalists and Podcast hosts lies in the low level of scientific literacy in this country and his skill at pulling out techno babble that would make a Star Trek writer blush. One of Wim's favorite claims is that his hyperventilation techniques allow someone to reach levels of oxygen saturation above 100% in their blood. Neither of us are doctors here, but can you pick out where the scientific irregularity might be there? Neither of us are doctors here, but can you pick out where the scientific irregularity

might be there? Yeah, I think it's, it's running around in the notion of the notion of percentage use as a thing. I think in this next section, we should have James read the part of Wim. You're right, you're right, James. We're going to read a transcript from that October 2016 interview on the Joe Rogan podcast, where he makes this claim and Joe questions them.

I'm going to be Joe Rogan. Okay. Oh, I love that for you. Okay. And you'll be whim. All right. So Sophie's going to send this over to you. Am I going to do my Dutch accent?

Yeah. Do you? No, be real offensive with it. Yeah. I'll do my offensive Joe Rogan accent. Yeah. I'll just say what does he do? It's called from a chimney, yeah.

People who don't understand the Dutch tradition of Shuaute people, not understand that joke. Here we go. Here's me as Joe Rogan. But there is nothing more than a hundred percent. They had a level that they thought was a hundred percent and then they said nobody had reached a higher level than this so it must be what what 100% saturation looks like.

Yeah, exactly. It's not that you got more than 100% saturation. It's that you achieved higher levels of saturation than they thought possible. Yeah, exactly. They did it with a laser on the chest and then they were able to measure the mitochondria oxygen tension. They were able to receive more oxygen. That's a great finding. It shows we canrary oxygen tension. They're able to receive more oxygen. That's a great finding.

It shows we can have more oxygen inside. Suddenly, we're able to get into the cell and influence the energy production. If it is anaerobic, it is like two molecules able to produce. When it becomes anaerobic, then it's 38 molecules they can produce. What happens?

What happens with a cell that is deprived for 48 hours of 35% less oxygen? It becomes cancerous, as simple as that. Have you ever worked with cancer patients? I want to, but it's very complicated. Thank God for that. Now look, I got to tell you, none of that means anything. That's bullshit.

Yeah, that is not like that. It's not science. They that is not like that. That is not science. They have talked to medical experts. They have talked to doctors, uh, fucking Scott Carney had to try to get this like translated. It's nonsense. Those are two people using words that that they think mean something that don't mean what they think they mean, but they, they've properly learned how to pronounce them and are just using them in ways that don't actually make sense.

And it's just... Yeah, princess brideing is what would be cool. Yes, it's inconceivable and nonsensical. Well, Joanne and Joanne is even a little worse there because he recognizes as soon as when makes his first set of claims that they've achieved, he says like we had oxygen saturation of 103 percent, Jo knows that's impossible. So he's like, you meant this, right? And then when, like, just goes off on a limb using techno babble, that like, again, does not, is not accurate. This

is not what is happening. It's not what happens with people who do his breathing techniques. But it does show kind of the degree of, I would say, like, collusion that Rogan has to try to protect his guests. Yeah, he's trying to insert a narrative being like, no, we have to make this credible. Like in a steering this direction. Yeah. And but hofffist is resolutely sticking to his absolute bullshit, fucking nonsense.

Yeah, absolutely not being made credible. No, Wim's dedication to this bullshit has caused consternation to some of the honest researchers who studied his techniques for years because they were impressed with some of the benefits that those techniques might have had. Scott Carney quotes Brian McKinsey, a breathwork expert who worked with WIM for years before being turned off by his pseudoscientific claims. McKinsey says that, in his opinion, no person at inner fire has a meaningful grasp of the physiology behind their techniques.

Wooder van Marken-Lichtenbelt, a professor of health at Maastricht University who has studied Hoth, terms his scientific vocabulary, galomatius, a rare word for nonsense. Quote, he mixes in a nonsensical way, scientific terms as irrefutable evidence. That's literally what I just said, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wooder just uses a fancier word. Yeah, so he's been cited by Wooder. That's literally what I just said. I'm a professor of absolutely nothing. You're welcome. That's right. Now Wooter wrote that article in the journal of temperature that I quoted from earlier.

And he has explained scientifically how some of Wim's most apparently impressive accomplishments are less than what they seem. A good example is his famous ability to remain submerged in ice water for significant periods of time without shivering. Wouter notes that upon exiting the ice, he does shiver like anyone else. And that while he has adapted to the cold to a degree most of us would find impressive, many other people have shown similar capacity without following his methods. Quote, the conclusion must be that nothing miraculous occurred. Although a non-severing thermogenesis of 40% is considered as high, it is not that extreme.

I think Wim Hof with stands the cold in the ice cubes through a combination of several factors. An increased heat production, non-severing thermogenesis, brown-fat activation, contraction respiratory muscles. Efficiently increasing body tissue insulation, face-o-construction, thereby reducing heat loss and conserving the body core heat content. And finally, perhaps not unimportantly, he used his well-trained mental ability

to endure the cold, change of mindset as he calls it. As soon as he steps out of the ice, he starts shivering just as everyone else, due to the redistribution of the cooled blood from his limbs to the body core, also known as the aftardrop effect. Now, one of the things we will note is that there is evidence in some of these studies that the people who train with whims show benefits beyond those normally associated with

g-tomo breathing. Those benefits though are in line with the fact that he is very good at motivating people. He is a good teacher in his ability to make people excited and feel both comfortable and safe and good about themselves so that they will explore pushing the limits of their bodies beyond what they might normally do. And that is to the extent that there's anything extra going on with Wim's training, it's that he's really good at making people feel comfortable experimenting and taking risks they might not otherwise take.

And on the level of that where it doesn't go badly, it has a pretty profound impact on people, right? When you are convinced to try something you didn't think you can do, that is difficult and uncomfortable and a little scary. And then you succeed. You feel great, right? Yes. Super empowering.

It's very empowering. When you do it with a group of people, you can become very close to those people. Right? And if there's someone who leads you through it, like that person can become a guru, right? It can engender an almost religious mania. This is why a lot of we talk about like all these different kind of cults and stuff that have, they'll get people in a group and have them like yelling and insulting and attacking each other, or they're all focused on like abusing one person, which is a lot less healthy than kind of the way Wim does it, but the goal is the same, right? To have an intense extreme experience

that pushes people beyond some limit they had set for themselves, and that can cause them to have a degree of like almost religious faith in the person who led them through it, right? It's guru syndrome, you know? Yeah, yeah, you see it in all kinds of things. Again, it's why it can be so empowering.

Like, it's why we run like outward bound programs for people with disabilities or people with injuries. Like, I've worked on some of those. And it's one of the coolest things to do. If you've just dropped before you turn it to a total piece of shit. Yeah. And that's the problem with whim, right?

Because, you know, a lot of aspects of what he's doing are certainly healthier than, I don't know, the kinds of like training that some of these like weird drug abuse cults and stuff would do where they'd have everyone shouting at each other in a circle. Sure, a lot less toxic than that. But there is an alleged body count

to the way Hof's training works. Before we get to that, we are building to that. There are a couple of other lies I want to bust of his first. One involves the claim sometimes made that he's summited or at least got close to summoning Mount Everest in shorts. Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, you'll hear that sometimes. He aborted his attempt at Everest slightly past base camp because he got frostbite. He's again, he tried to do the shit he's done other places. You can't fuck around with Everest. It's Mount Everest. It kills you. It kills people all the shitties, done other places. You can't fuck around with Everest. It's Mount Everest.

It kills you. It kills people all the time. It doesn't give a fuck. The other is his claim that he holds the world record for longest swim underneath an ice flow without breathing equipment. Here is a segment of his response to a 2022 Guardian interview that gives you an idea of how that one tends to sound. There was a moment swimming under the ice when I found myself.

I lost my way because my corny is froze under water. I had no goggles on, just shorts, holding my breath. I was under a meter thick layer of ice in Finland, lost in blind, but I never felt like I was drowning. No panic or pain, I felt at peace and in control. That experience brought me so much, and the end of safety diver brought me back by pulling me by the ankles to the exit hole which I'd passed long ago. I did a huge gas per air when I came up and that moment I conquered the fear of death. Now I'm not afraid of dying.

I'm afraid not to live. Fuck me. Of course, first off, you didn't need to do that. Second, like every other fantastic claim whim makes, his recollections here do not jive with the record, and it's here that I'm going to return to Scott Carney's Mia Culpa right up. Always not as it seemed that day, in the 2011 book Becoming the Ice Man, Hoff wrote that he almost died on his first attempt under the ice. On that try, he ignored his own safety protocols and tried to sprint twice the planned distance

without telling anyone on the crew. Afterwards, Hoff claims his eyes froze under the water and he lost his way, and that he was lucky a rescue diver found him after he blacked out and brought him to the surface. His brother, Marcel, who was standing on the ice above him that day remembers it differently. He took it too far and blacked out, Marcel says. He recalls Hoff performing his staple breathing exercise of his method, deliberately hyperventilating just before his underwater swim. According to Marcel, it's just as likely that a half experienced shallow water blackout as his failure was to frozen eyeballs. There's no reason it couldn't have been both.

Yeah, that's, I mean, if, like, I don't know if this is so spoiler, but like high-preventilating will cause you to have shallow water blackout and so will sprinting underwater. Yeah, which is why you shouldn't do it. Yeah, absolutely do not do this shit. Yeah, be again, the water, a lot like Mount Everest deserves your respect. We're not supposed to be there. Yeah, we are particularly not supposed to be underneath ice sheets. It's very alien to us. You

must be extremely careful. Yeah, I've watched Avatar 2 wave the water and I understand that I understand a lot more now, but yeah, you are not welcome. Well, the water's a lovely place and people should go underneath it, but like, don't be pushing your limits and hyperventilating. I take a course from someone who's actually qualified. Take training, go with the group, have rescue equipment available, lots of safe ways to be in the water. Lots of ways to mitigate risk in the water.

Yeah. Yes, if he hadn't had not just a buddy, a whole team of people with significant equipment, like a diver in gear underneath ready, right? Yeah. And he still very nearly died. Yeah, this is where people, I don't know if he took a rope, but like people traditionally free diving for records, a rope dive down.

Yeah. And then they have safety divers at every height to accompany them in case they pick out. Because it's so dangerous. Because it's so dangerous. It's the fucking distance. I don't know whether he did that or not. Like, yeah, you will die. Yeah.

So this and numerous videos of him enduring ice water baths, spending time fully submerge in ice water, all that kind of shit, this is all critical to the Wim Hof legend and also the deadliest part of it. And introduce this segment. I'm going to quote from an article by outside online. August 10, 2022, a Southern California lawyer

named Rafael Metzger was at his home in Long Beach with his 17-year-old daughter, Madeleine Rose Metzger. After a busy afternoon of phone calls and work, Rafael left his home office to start dinner. He searched the house for Madeleine, eventually walking to the backyard to see if she was taking a dip in the family swimming pool. He saw her laying face down in the water, motionless. Rafael attempted CPR but to no avail. Paramedics later arrived

at the house and also tried to resuscitate her, but she was gone. Two days after the accident, a medical examiner from the Los Angeles County Coroner's office told Rafael that Madeline had died of accidental drowning. Her toxicology tests were clean, they said, and there was no sign of physical abnormality, like a heart arrhythmia. Madeline put on her bathing suit, went to the pool to cool off, and to reduce anxiety, following an argument with Tammy Metzger, and she did Wim Hof breathing the suit states. She became hypoxic, and they're upon drowned in the shallow water, despite being an excellent swimmer. The lawsuit from the Metzger family accuses Tammy and Hof of negligence and Madeline's

death. It also levies charges of fraudulent concealment, unfair business practices, and false advertisement against Hoff and Interfire. Defendants were either aware of or culpably indifferent to unnecessary risks of injury. Rafael Metzger is seeking $67 million in damages and also asking courts to require Hoff to post warnings on his website and promotional materials that the method is dangerous and should never be done in water to do the risk of drowning in death.

We were shocked to hear that such a young girl drowned. And in Ham Hoff told outside, shocked by the allegations, which don't make any sense to us. I mean, yeah, it's going to, it's going to kill you. It, yeah, it's somewhat remarkable, that I know he has a body count. I guess it's very hard to tell how many people have died high-preventilating in water, right? Yeah, yeah.

People died swimming and free diving, but often. Yeah, and it's hard to know the exact potential body count. I think there are something like 14 or 15 people alleged in lawsuits against Hoff's organization currently. You'll hear numbers between like 12 and 15. We're going to have read one more story. But first, you know, what never gets anyone killed, James? I don't think we can safely say that. Well, it's a dick pills again, because they've got a body count. I mean, look, can you call it living if you don't have dick pills?

And that's a good question. You know, you gotta, sometimes it's better to have lived the day so you did have. Yeah, yeah. Which is why again, go to the nearest truck stop by every pill they have. And just mix them with like some ever clear and some some some some some high C you know see what happens. Yeah. You'll learn a lesson

about yourself or someone else will. Yes, someone will learn a lesson one hopes. Lesson will be learned. Yeah. You'll contribute to humanity's knowledge. Here's ads. History meets excitement at Sennaq Buffalo Creek Casino walking distance from all of Buffalo's Manatees knowledge. Here's ads. at one of our lively happy hours and take in the stunning cityscape from our patio with incredible sunset views. Plan your visit at Seneca Buffalo Creek Casino.com. Seneca Buffalo Creek Casino, nothing else comes close. This is In Retrospect, a podcast about pop culture from the 80s and 90s that shaped us. I'm very much a product of the pop culture I consumed.

And I don't think that's a bad thing. I'm Jessica Bennett, a New York Times writer and bestselling author. I'm Susie Bette Karam, an award-winning TV producer and filmmaker. Every week, we'll revisit a moment in cultural history that we just can't stop thinking about. From tabloid headlines to illicit student teacher

relationships, and one, very memorable red swimsuits. I found myself in Pamela Anderson's attic, as you do. I put that red swimsuit in a safe because it seemed everybody wanted it. We're digging deep to better understand with these moments taught us about the world and our place in it. I want you to really smell the axe body spray that emanated during this time.

It was presented more as kind of like a crime topic. Okay, not a love story. You're not a love story. It was presented more as kind of like a crime topic. Okay, and that's not a love story. Not a love story. It had been branded on the uteruses of every single woman from C to shining C. Listen to In Retrospect on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Penelope Sferas. I'm a film director.

I want to tell you a story about a friend of mine. Back in the 70s, Peter Ivers moved to LA to start his music career. He scored Ron Howard's directorial debut. I didn't know one thing about Peter Ivers. I just said, okay. Let's meet him. And even hosted a late night cable TV show. It showcased LA punk bands in all their glory. The crowd started getting bigger and bigger and then there was Beverly Danzelow.

There was John Baloozy. But then it all went to hell. Peter Ivers was murdered on March 3rd, 1983. And it raised a question that 40 years later, we still don't know the answer to. Who killed Peter Ivers? Listen to Peter and the Asset King on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Hillary Clinton back with a new season of my podcast, You and Me Both.

On this show, I'll be talking to people I admire about many things including one of my favorite subjects, getting Things Done. We'll hear from folks and positions of power, like Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries, but also writers and actors, community organizers, really anyone who shows up every day and keeps doing the work. There's so much out there to distract us,

but all of my guests bring tremendous passion and commitment, an ability to block out the noise, and I should probably warn you lots of sports metaphors. You stay calm and focused on releasing the ball, getting it to a receiver, and hopefully getting it into the end zone on behalf of the American people. So join me for this conversation and more. Listen to you and me both on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back. So I'm going to read one other story of an alleged

Wim Hof training victim. And this is from a Scott Carney's article. On Labor Day in 2019, Andrew Insinus, a 27-year-old social media entrepreneur, shuddled back and forth between his new office to set up his desk with a fleet of new computer monitors, and the party at his brother's house in Anaheim Hills, California, like his business idol Gary Vaynerchuk. Insinus thrived on the challenge of starting a new business, and constantly looked for ways to optimize his performance. His favorite technique for dealing with stress was a breathwork and ice immersion protocol called the Wim Hof Method. Around 630 in the evening, Insinus

made his last trip back from the office. His brother Adam invited him in for ice cream in a football game on TV. Sure, he said, but first I want to do my Wim Hof in the pool. He asked to borrow a pair of swim trunks. This wasn't unusual. Over the years, Insinus had learned that the Wim Hof method had an almost miraculous calming effect on his nervous system. He watched videos of Hof swimming under Arctic sea ice and teaching influential social media stars to hyperventilate to the point of passing out. Insinus preferred to practice alone and often did four or five rounds of breathing in

a single day. Video of Andrew doing the breath work in the water a few months earlier focused on the peaceful expression on his face. He texted his friends that the method works really well in the cold. A few minutes after Andrew went in the pool, Adam started to wonder when he would finish up and rejoin the family. Then, according to the coroner's port report, filled in Los Angeles County, children at the party noticed Andrew appeared to be sleeping in the shallow end of the pool.

Adam ran outside to find his brother in a meditative position under water, with his hands clasped in front of his chest and unresponsive. Adam dragged Andrew out of the water and performed CPR to get his heart beating again. But when we got to the hospital, there was no brain activity. He was already a goner, says Adam and Sinus. So don't do this stuff. Yeah, do not do this. Be very careful. Don't do it anywhere near water. If you're going to experience with like these tummo breathing techniques, do them nowhere near water and put a lot of time in between doing them

and getting in the water. Yeah, yeah, don't even do them. Like if you said, if you scuba dive, right? Like you shouldn't be doing any of this within a couple of days, scuba diving. No, take care. So, care. Take care. So Wim does warn on his site and in videos, these two techniques, the breathing and the cold water immersion, which make up the majority of his teachings, should never be combined.

But he also shows off video of himself submerged in water or swimming constantly, and both water and g-tomo breathing are key components of his stick. This is a big part of why reputable scientists and quasi reputable reporters like Scott have backed away. I don't have a lot of respect for Karney after the role he played granting credibility to Hof. But I will note that his article on the man is about as complete a bottle of him as you are going to find.

And it does a good job of showing how Hof's claims that inner fire warns students away from mixing techniques together, do not hold well water. And I'm going to quote from that article again. Hoffs website and YouTube videos do in fact include prominent warnings against performing the breathing method in water. One typical example, a YouTube video that

gives hoffs basic breathing instructions and has 66 million views, includes this warning in its description. Exclamation point, exclamation point. Don't do the breathing exercises in a swimming pool before going underwater, beneath the shower or piloting any vehicle. Always practice sitting or lying down in a safe environment. And Ham Hof, Wim Hof's son in the CEO of Interfire is adamant over email.

Wim Hof doesn't teach hyperventilation techniques. Within the Wim Hof method, we never teach people to do our specific breathing exercises before submerging in water. We are very careful and protective in teaching people the Wim Hof method, so they practice in a safe environment. Now, even in places where warnings exist, Hof simultaneously teaches a veritable recipe for blacking out in water. In numerous instances, he conflates water work and breath work and abandon safety protocols that he explicitly states are necessary. According to a Wim Hof Method instructor, the training center that inner fire operates in Poland lacks even basic safety gear, like AEDs, in case someone's heart stops during

his intensive workshops. The disconnect between what the Hof organization says and its official capacity, and the actual teachings Hof gives can be jarring. Take for instance, the eighth week of his $99 class 10-week video course. After almost two months of training in breathwork and cold exposure, which work up from very mild practices to ever more intense variations, Wim Hof stands in front of an icy waterfall alongside an eager, shirtless student and gives some simple instructions. Go into the water, he says in the video, keep going with the breathing, keep on being focused. Then you sit.

Then you immersed. Focused. And you stay in the water. Hof gives similar sets of instructions, various ways, three times over the course of the lesson. Ultimately hyperventilating in his own characteristic way and then dunking his own head under the water and staying for about a minute. A strange disclaimer in the comment section next to the video appears to contradict what

Hof is doing on screen. It reads, The guy in the video was guided by Wim to learn to deal with the cold. He's not doing the breathing retention and then putting his head under the water. At the very least, the juxtaposition between the written warning and Hoth's own words is confusing. At worst, it's a dramatic acknowledgement of the sort of negligence that could get someone killed. And that's the Wim Hoth story, James.

Magnificent. Wonderful stuff. Yeah, don't be doing this. Yeah. Yeah, good times. Man, it's just so like, it's such a sad condemnation of this whole industry, right? Like here's a guy who will teach you how to breathe.

And people have paid for that. And sadly, people have died. Yeah. It does, it is very calming. I like to free dive. It is the closest, yeah, I just do a bit of whim-hoffing and then off I go. It's the closest human being is going to ever get to flying.

I think, but no, I do not whim-hoff. It is bad. It's like a joke. It's a standing joke. If you go free diving with someone new for the first time, you like go out there and you still go, just what to do to look at you like, like what if I got myself in for you know. So James, I wanted to end by reading a couple little things I found in this listicle about Wim Hof fans.

Oh, there's some fun ones in here. So wait. Number one is the claim that Wim learned to control his heart rate in university. Quote, and it wasn't even part of his curriculum. Here's a quote from this very reputable article, James, when the Reddit user, Futtbucker, 24, 24, that's DREAM. What do you learn? Asked Wim when he learn to control his heart rate,

when replied in university by measurement? Can you picture it when most students were desperately trying to make their way through an economics textbook or recover from a grueling hangover, when was spending his days learning to control his heart rate? Fuck. Very impressive.

Fuck, fucker, or fuck, fuck, fucker. Yeah, fuck, fuck, fucker. Thank you, yeah. Thank you for that question. Number 13 is, Wim doesn't need psychedelics because he can trigger his own DMD gland. Oh, no, the end of it.

And Wim's AMA, he was asked, hi Wim, do you or have you ever used any kind of drug to find deeper consciousness in order to control your autonomic nervous system? His response, no, not at all. I can trigger my own DMT, a hormone driven from the pineal gland. I know how to get there and can do that all the time. You have better control over the hormonal system. You don't need drugs to be drugged out by yourself in a natural way. Fuck me. Wim all. I will take DMT with you

and I guarantee it will fuck you up in a way that you cannot fuck yourself up. I will take DMT with you and I guarantee it will fuck you up in a way that you cannot fuck yourself up. I will promise you that, my friend. Why do you think the DMT comes from, bro? But you got to obviously it from the gland. That's right. That's how I get it. Yeah.

From the gland of a gerat. Yeah. I like you. You get it from gerat. I'll still kill a Dutchman instead. Yeah. Much more ethical than a gerat. There's plenty of Dutchman.

They know it or not a rare species. So yeah. No shortage. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, author of that stupid article, John Brooks. I do want to read you his bio. I'll believe it. No, it's a little bit of an aside. John Brooks is a stoic system teacher and crucially practitioner. Historic meditations have accumulated thousands of listens and he has created his own stoic training program for modern day stoics. Well, it's one of the things about stoic issues. They really thrive on how many people download their podcast. Very stoic. Nothing more stoic than noting your thousands of listens.

Yeah. You're getting the ad revenue. I've never seen stoic use more in a sentence. Three times. Yeah, we got to get the SEO up to another big element of stoic system. It's one of those things. Like stoicism, you want to read like ancient Greek stoics, perfectly fine. People who talk about being stoics, 100% of the time, very frustrating human things. Yeah, it's just like people who talk about reading Infinite Just, yes, yes, yes, yes, or people who like call themselves utilitarians like, oh, yeah, that's a balance. Someone says that to you, that is a prick. You are not talking about the actual attempt to determine

the greatest good for the greatest number of people. You are trying to justify cheating on your girlfriend. That is what's going on in this story. Yeah. Hopefully someone plays football with your head too, as they did to Johnny Bentham. Yeah. Anyway, James, anything to plug? Well, after that, buddy, I'm not holding your breath under water. Yeah.

Don't hold your breath under water. Don't hyperventilate, you know. Yeah, you can hold your breath under water sometimes if you do it the right way. It takes you classes. Yeah, there's a Fina, Fina Office One, Hadi Office One, FFI Office One, Free Diving Classes, you can take them.

Yeah. What else do I have to plug? Yes, I have a book already, and you can find it by going to the library and saying, let's do James Starter for it in a book. It's called The Popular Front in 1936. Popular Olympics, and they will order it for you and you will have to pay. And yeah, and it could happen here. You can hear in a few weeks, I will do a podcast, which involves me talking about holding

my breath underwater in a non-fatal way. Yeah. I'm going to the Marshall Islands to do it. Yeah. And you can find me when I eventually have my fist fight with Wim Hof in Mark Zuckerberg's Garden. In Mark Zuckerberg's Garden. Yeah.

I'm betting on you, Robert. Thank you. Yeah. Betlon, you, Robert. Thank you. Yeah, we all are. I'm betting on malaria to be the real one. Yeah. That might be, and he gets infected, you know, that might be me too. I know. I've seen how you deal with someone who's in the grips of gastrointestinal distress, Robert.

I think you just, you can't. Yeah. Robert and I have had some times. You should have bought that second charm James. Yeah, I should have done man. I didn't have enough of me to your right to leave that day. That's our result. Yeah.

One of the most days of my life. Yeah. That was funny. That's right. Robert. Those are not for the end. Robert and I went on a reporting trip to Thailand to cover the Civil War. And after like two weeks, I was like, you know what,

I'm gonna get us a nice night at a very nice hotel. I'm already in Bangkok. You know, we'll have like a little bit of luxury on our way out. James gets sick on the way in and just hurls in the parking lot of one of the nicest hotels in Bangkok. And you both were separately messaging me about it and let's just say the tone. The tone was.

It was like, to have such a chance, it's like, I don't think I'm gonna die. And Robert's like, he fucking did it, he made it. It was, it was nice and so proud of him. It was beautiful. And then Nalji, in waiting for them to give us our room, it was so funny. I'll give it up to them.

The La Meridian staff must have seen some shit because they didn't, Nala, Nala, I didn't blink. It was back in the day. Yeah. And then I think the best part of this was that Rubber had thought we got a suite with two rooms. In fact, it was one big room with a frosted glass bathroom. So he got to watch my shadow early. That's karma for you being so obnoxious.

Yeah, shout out to the old lady who gave me a shopping bag because I showed up all the vomit flags on the flight. Yeah. One of G's. Right. Yeah. Things we do for journalism. The things we do for journalism. The things we do for journalism. Anyway, like and subscribe. Yeah, you can go to Cooler Zone Media to get this without ads. You can buy my book after the revolution.

It's wherever books are. Or you can get it free at a library. Or you can find it free at at atrbook.com. Whatever. Live your life, motherfuckers. Behind the bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, CoolZoneMedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

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