Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 256: Woo Call In Show

Episode Date: October 22, 2015

No notes. Call in show,

Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. recording totally not the same day just coming to you later from glory hole studios in chicago this man behind the curtain oh god you've totally ruined it for everyone i've ruined now that you've told them about our production secrets of recording the exact same fucking day as before this is totally not totes not the same day yo but this is cognitive distance 12 30 in the morning it is i'm I'm so tired. I'm, yeah. But I'm just. Here's the nice thing, though.

Yeah. When we're done, at least you get to drive back home. Yeah, I get to go home. Yeah. Yeah, it's only like an hour. Here's the thing, though. You will probably get more and better sleep because I will go upstairs and sleep next to a baby that will wake up approximately 150 times between now and seven in the morning. You just got to start shaking them to sleep.

What I do is I neglect them. That's my option. You know what you can do is just put pillows really firmly against them, and they're quiet for a real long all the time. I was going to say you could get some earplugs in one of those things, but I guess if you pile enough pillows on them, you won't even hear them. Right, you can't even hear them. Yeah, it's fine.

I mean, they squirm, but only for a few minutes. It's like magic, the baby's gone. Hey, before we start, did I tell you the story about what happened in our town this week? Happened yesterday in our town with the relics that came to town? No, you didn't mention it. So here in town, we have a pretty sizable Catholic church, just right down the street, right off the main street down here. And they had the relics. Like the fucking relics were on tour.

Sure, yeah. They fucking put them in the Popemobile and sent them all over the United States. So they had the relics of St. Maria Goretti came to Plainfield. They had big fucking signs like, come see the fucking relics. So what they are is wax encased bones of an 11-year-old girl who died in 1890. 1890, huh? She is the patron saint of chastity and forgiveness. Okay.

And here's the story. And tell me if this isn't fucking appalling to be the patron saint of chastity. She was a poor 11-year-old girl whose family was kicked out of their home, moved in with another family. She wasn't able to attend school because she had to supervise the other children. The fucking father died. They were dirt fucking poor. Sounds a little Dickensian so far.

Right? Yeah. So then the 20-year-old boy who lived on the property. All right. I shouldn't say boy. It's a 20-year-old man. Was his name Slingblade? Mm-hmm.

I like that chastity. Mm-hmm. I'm going to take that chastity. Oh, no. So he tries to rape this little girl, this 11-year-old girl. Okay. So he tries to rape this little girl, this 11-year-old girl. Okay.

Failing that, he strangles her and then stabs her 14 times with an awl. Okay. She doesn't die right away. Not an owl. An awl. An owl, it's harder to do? It's harder to stab. Absolutely. But you really got to want it.

Yeah. Absolutely. But sometimes if the owl wants it, then you just do it. Then it's just like, yeah, whatever. whatever in for a penny in for a pound it'll cut you and then also deliver something from hogwarts at the same time yeah talons yeah fucking so so then she dies later from the infection that sounds horrible right yeah no yeah yeah right that's old-timey too 1890s i mean right out of it yeah it's like i would like a not infection is like all of my body is all of the pain. Oh, I'm sorry.

She's going to go. She's got the pus. She's got the stabbies. The stabbies. Oh, no. She's got a bad case of the punctured body. Oh, no. But before she dies, she forgives her attacker.

Okay. Right? Who then later gets out of prison and becomes a friar or something for the church. Like he becomes a church person. I don't know what kind. That's great. That's heartwarming. So then they canonize her. They dig her

fucking bones up, cover them in wax, and because she had the good grace to die before being raped, to be penetrated by the all before she was penetrated by the perpetrator sure she becomes the patron saint of chastity it's a it's really a feel-good story oh my god yeah and then the patron saint of forgiveness okay right because like of all the people worthy of forgiveness right child raping murderers yeah right yeah who then go on no shit to work for

the church well the are you kidding the thing is though with that is that you're sort of you know it's it's like killing her was like undergrad shit doing your post-grad work right in the church later on right that's where it's at you know it's like a gang in a shirt and then when they send you down to south america that's your post doc that's that's it right now that's like that's what you know you've hit it sure now that's the well yeah you got tenure they can't kick you out you know what i mean you're fucking you fuck whatever you want whatever you want yeah anything grab little kids by their hair follow them around yeah that's weird and people thronged they sure by the hundreds that's weird that first relics relic shit is weird as fuck that's weird as fuck that's that is witchcraft and that's fucking witchcraft you're fucking worshiping the bones of a dead human right weird as shit um

but you know that's whatever you know it's just weird it's just fucking super weird and the traveling bones like let's put the bones on tour sure maybe somebody needs to maybe this will inspire young girls to be murdered instead of raped and then to forgive when they're dying of fucking infected wounds. What is the takeaway here? The takeaway is so unspeakably awful. Sure. But they fucking thronged. And I honestly.

Can you see, though? I mean, I'm going to try to play a little devil's advocate. Can you see, though, from their point of view that this person is someone who should be emulated for their forgiveness in that situation because something so horrible happened to them. And even in the face of something so unbelievably awful, this person found it within their heart and soul to forgive someone of this heinous, heinous act that is completely unforgivable. But they were the ones who did it. Yeah. Well, but here's – yes. So it's someone to be emulated is what I'm saying.

Right. I hear that and I posted something on my Facebook and a couple of people chimed in and said, oh, forgiveness isn't for the person forgiven. It's for the forgiver. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No, it's – Because it's hate.

I mean you want to let go of hate if you can because it's just going to eat you up on the inside, right? So why not let go of it? Yeah, I guess. But here's the problem that I have with that. I have a couple of problems with that. I'm not convinced that forgiveness is a blanket moral good. I'm not sure I buy that.

It seems to me that you can live in a space that is between forgiveness and hatred, that those that those that there's a continuum there with hatred on one side of the scale and forgive is real forgiveness where I genuinely don't harbor any ill will toward the person who, you know, let's say hypothetically somebody were to murder my son. I can't imagine an ethical stance that compels me to forgive that person. And if it's a moral good, I would have to be compelled to do what's moral. See, the thing I don't know that it's a moral good. I think it's a good for your own sanity.

I think it's a good for your own being able to move past this particular thing. I don't know that that's moral because it's not between – it's not a thing that you're doing so that you are good. It's a thing that you're doing for your own good. You know what I mean? I hear what you're saying and I think that's the best way that distinction's ever been described to me, but I still feel like there has to be space that you can live in that is not forgiveness,

but is not hatred either. Sure. Ambivalence. That is... That's ambivalence was still a little bit of, you know, fuck that guy. Sure. You know? It doesn't eat me up. It doesn't keep me up at night, that's ambivalence was still a little bit of, you know, fuck that guy. Sure.

You know, it doesn't eat me up. It doesn't keep me up at night, but, but I don't know, man. Like, and I also think that if, if I really internalize this,

this, uh, this kind of this, I don't want to say ethic. Cause I think you're right. That maybe it's not an ethic. It's not a moral stance, but if I really internalize

this lesson that it is my christian duty to forgive or it is i don't like that right i don't like that if if i internalize that and somebody commits a heinous act and wrongs me and takes away someone i love and then i can't forgive yeah now i have the guilt you know you're doing a bad thing right now you're doing a bad thing but you. Now you're doing a bad thing. But also, I mean, again, I'm going to play advocate here. You're being human. It's going above and beyond to not be human and to forgive. That's why she was – that's why I would imagine they would say she's a saint is because she did something that is extra human. That is – it's beyond what a normal human could do, which is why she's a saint.

Does that make sense? It does. I mean, only in a weird sort of backward 2,000-year-old religion way. Right. But I'm not – again, I guess I just – I struggle with the idea that forgiveness is always appropriate. Yeah. I don't know that it is either.

And I'll tell you, I'm in the same boat. If someone were to do something horrible to someone i love my first thought would be revenge and i know that that's a terrible thing to think right it's a terrible thing to think um and it's also a terrible like we're talking about in the last podcast talking about the death penalty and fucking revenge and how that's a terrible idea in a way to legislate but as a person first, first thing I think would be like, okay, somebody just killed your wife and they're being held and they're being... Yeah, you want to destroy them.

I would figure out a way to get a thing in there to kill them. I'd be like, I can get in the courtroom and kill them. I'll figure it out. I'll fucking make a prison shank. I'll figure that shit out. I'm ingenious. I'll figure that out. Can you imagine? I mean, and I ask you this truly and genuinely.

Can you imagine if somebody took someone from you that you loved through violence? Yeah. Can you imagine truly ever forgiving them? There's videos. In the honest sense of the word, where you're just like, what else, dude? We're totes cool now, bro. Bizbo! Yeah, no, I can't.

I can't. At the very, I think at the very fucking best, the best I can imagine is not seething with loathing at every moment. I mean, really? I know. Yeah. I'm with you. I'm in the same emotional bag.

I know how I feel about that stuff. I'm with you. I'm in the same emotional bag. I know how I feel about that stuff. And I would be the type of person who – I'm the type of guy who responds to shitty comments on Facebook for crying out loud. What do you think? I'm going to like not respond to somebody who does something horrible to me? Of course I will. There's too much there that I would – I just couldn't let it go. But I would think that for my own sanity, it would be better if I did because – I just think it's – I don't – I think it's weird if you are so aggrieved. I think it's weird if you're so aggrieved. If somebody murders your kid or your wife i mean like the most important person in your world and they murder that person if you genuinely forgive them like that doesn't seem right to me yeah that seems like it either seems

dishonest you know i just it seems either dishonest or or or somehow pathological in another way. Yeah. You know. Yeah. I can't imagine. And then to make this girl the patron saint of chastity because she had the fucking good graces to die before being raped is so appallingly misogynistic. It's so awful. It is so awful.

How do you bring your kids to go see these wax-covered bones and explain the story? I don't understand the fucking—I just don't get, like, the puppetry of the fucking skeletons that they do. Wait a minute. There's puppetry involved? No, I'm saying— Because I would go see that. Yeah, no. Tinkity, tinkity, tinkity, tinkity.

They're, like, weak and a burning. And they, like, play it out like a Punch and Judy show. No, they just stand her up against the wall and you get to throw alls at her. Alls at her? It's all or nothing, oh nicely done all right so let's get started we want to do this episode tom we set out a question to the audience and the question was tell us about your past experiences with Woo. Right. And so what we're going to present is some of the calls, people sent in voicemails and such. Some of those voicemails.

And then we're also going to read several emails that people sent in. So we're going to get started right away. This is Bobby. And Bobby sent in a voice message to us. Hey, Tom and Cecil. This is Bobby, and Bobby sent in a voice message to us. Hey, Tom and Cecil. This is Bobby from central Illinois. And I don't know if this counts as woo, but growing up, I used to be scared shitless of the Ouija boards. My parents used to fucking say they're not allowed in the house, and that stuff scared the shit out of me.

So I don't know if that counts, but that's my contribution to the conversation. I also was terrified of Ouija boards as a kid. And right now I have a Ouija board sitting on my dining room table. Do you really? And you know, I was looking at the Ouija board recently, right? So I flipped the Ouija board over.

My wife did a video project with a Ouija board in it. And so she bought a Ouija board online from Amazon or whatever they delivered it she also bought a creepy doll and like some fucking fake holy water and a fucking candle she bought a bunch of stuff but sure right yeah two things she also bought sage like a bundle of sage yeah she burned it in the in one of the scenes it smells so bad it smells so bad it smells like the long island medium i mean it just smells uh but but the ouija board i flipped it over because the first thing i thought it was like okay when i was a kid they build this shit as spirits now i never read a ouija board when i was a kid so i don't know but i flipped this board over to see like what how do you explain this right

how do you like what's your pitch on the back of this board? I bet it explains the ideomotor effect. No, it doesn't even do that. It just says ask it a question and wait for an answer and it will give you an answer. It never tells you the method in which it does the things. Sure, yeah, which is clever. Yeah. From a marketing standpoint, very clever because it lets the owner of the Ouija board fill in the blank.

Sure, you get to decide which one it is. Right. I love that it's a Parker Brothers product. Yeah. You know, it's a toy. And everybody's like, I was scared of them too when I was a kid. I had a babysitter who we drew one on a piece of cardboard. You had a babysitter that did the Ouija board with you?

Yeah, didn't I tell you this? I never told you this story. We had this crazy a babysitter that did the ouija board with you yeah i didn't i tell you this story we had this we had this crazy fucking babysitter we were like 12 11 or 12 my dad was a single dad the absolute worst age for this right and so and we had this like teenage babysitter who was like a senior in high school right and she just fucked with us constantly she was super crazy and she didn't last we had a lot of like super crazy babysitters i don't think my dad vetted them very well but like it was busy yeah single dad whatever i'm not blaze i thought it was great fun so she helped us we watched this movie called witch board did you ever watch that movie you watch this shit i may have seen witch

board so we watched it we're like that's awesome and she's like well we can make a ouija board right now and so we got a piece of white cardboard with you dude and we drew one out with markers and everything we made a planchette out of cardboard yeah like out of a mayonnaise lid or something we made it out of the same cardboard okay and then she would play it with us and like she invented this it was fucking her she invented this character that lived in our house and like it fucking was scary and shit. And like and then my brother got in on it because I was a gullible little shit. And so like she and I would be doing the Ouija board. My brother go down and flip the fucking breakers.

Oh, your brother is such a dick. I was fucking terrified. We made a whole thing about burning it, saying fucking words. And so when I was a kid, we did a Ouija board in this kid's garage, right? So this kid had a detached garage. So he had a house, this house that was on the part of the hill that was in his lawn area up there in the front. Then there was a driveway that went to the back of his property down this hill, and there was a garage down there. to the back of his property down this hill and there was a garage down there and uh so we were there's like four of us and and we wanted to do a seance we're like let's do a seance let's figure

this out so we started doing it we started you know like playing i think we had a ouija board or something like that we might have had candles there was something going on and we had one light on and we had the candles or whatever this the lights go off during the middle of it and we had one light on, and we had the candles or whatever. The lights go off during the middle of it, and we hear banging on the outside. We also hear running around the outside, and it sounded like when you're a kid. I remember one of the kids saying, it sounded like a hoof thing was out there. We freaked the fuck out. It was the fucking kid's dad and his fucking older brother came down to fucking fuck with us when we were kids. That's awesome.

Scared the ever-loving Christ out of us. We were so afraid. We just were like, what is that sound? And then the banging, they were both banging on both sides. And they were fucking with us. They were so mean. Dude, they Blair Witched you. Oh, they totally Blair Witched us.

It was awesome. That's awesome. It was super awesome. I told you a story about the office building where the dentist had sage burnt through the building. Oh, God. Yeah, you mentioned this. He paid overtime on a Sunday, double time for the security guard to open the building and open the floor and turn off the sprinkler system because they fired an employee and she had such bad energy. Bad mojo, baby.

They had someone come in and do a fucking witchy witch. It smells terrible. I love sage in a fucking butter sauce in a fucking, in a burning form. Not a thing. Stinky, stinky. Oh, God. It smells like a fucking hippie. So the next one we got was from Randy.

And so we're going to play Randy's message. Hey, Tom and Cecil. This is Randy from Florida. My woo that I was seriously into was the ancient astronaut thing. Seriously, seriously into that. Wanted them to come down and get me because I knew that I didn't belong here on Earth. Used to stand out in my yard and pray that they would come get me. I actually even went and dug looking for a spaceship.

Glory to the old guys. That's amazing looking for a spaceship. Glory hole, guys. That's amazing. That is awesome. That is so great. You got spaceships wrong, though. You don't have to dig to get them. They're coming from the top. They do. They go through the stuff that's up there.

The thing is, watch those ancient alien shows, and they're very convincing. Those guys, they just spout off shit that isn't true. Right. They'll say a bunch of stuff that's true, but they say it so convincingly. Right. That it's hard not to watch those and think, well, that's interesting.

Because, I mean, watch one of those shows. Sit down and watch a show with no internet or anything and watch what they have to say and listen to what they have to say and think you know there's a few things in there where they say there's nothing else that could be like this yada yada yada why are these things there whatever etc if you don't fact check it if you can't if you don't fax check it and you also don't you know you take out other motivations because they talk about you know the fucking landing fucking we like what the fuck do you need a landing strip for you're're fucking... You fucking flew here. I love that you would fly here, make the landing strip,

then land. That's the best part. What did they do the first time? They just crash landed? Show up. They crash land and there's a volleyball like Wilson sitting around. I like a good landing strip like the next day now

you know of course yeah as long as it doesn't have any dairy products on it i'm with you need some room to work yeah did you buy into the alien stuff when you were a kid did you believe in aliens i don't know that i ever really did believe in aliens growing up i used to read the whitley striber books like communion i don't know if you ever read those or not um they were like horror books that he wrote purporting them to be true accounts of his own experiences yeah and so they straddled this weird line where they were fiction but he was sort of pretending that they were non-fiction and they were all about you know the grays coming down sure yeah that's all that gray stuff yeah and so i remember reading that shit and then being very confused like is this

did this really is this this reads he's a horror writer i've read his other horror novels but he's saying this is true and he's writing it you know without blinking at the camera he's got yeah he's got yeah i i i never throughout my i don't remember ever thinking that aliens were a thing i remember seeing a couple things in the sky as a kid and as a young adult that I thought were spaceships or something. I thought, well, that's not anything I can explain. And then later on was able to explain. I remember specifically one time I was driving with a friend in the car and I saw this thing

that looked like it was, you know, in the distance, but it looked like it was spinning like this. And I thought, and I'm moving, you can't see this, the audience can't see this, but I'm moving my finger in a way that it looks like it's oblong sort of spin. It's like a spin, almost like that, that a Frisbee would do if it was off like a wobbly Frisbee or something. And so I saw it and my heart started racing immediately i saw it and i thought oh my god and then we got 50 yards closer and it was a stork it was a stork was a stork flying and the way it was moving with its wings yeah it just it just had this weird look to it but the way the sun hit and where we were but it it's i mean it stopped me i'm driving i said what the fuck is that and and the person looked they said i don't know and then

we got a little closer like oh it's fucking bird fucking bird it's like a big fucking whatever the whatever the local long-legged big long neck bird is whatever crane or whatever the fucking thing is yeah i remember reading like the project blue book mean, I got into that alien shit for a little while. Yeah, I didn't. I don't know if I ever believed it, but I was real interested in it. So we want to play Matt's voicemail. Matt left us a message.

Matt is from the Atheism 101 podcast, and we will be on the Atheism 101 podcast very soon in the near future. We will indeed. So we're going to play Matt's message. Hey, guys. This is Matt from the Atheism 101 podcast. I'm going to tell you the quick version of how I became a skeptic. About 10 years ago, I was going through a particularly hard breakup and I sort of lost my shit. I was

already an atheist at this point, but my reasons were emotional ones. As proof that atheism doesn't guard against holding other ridiculous beliefs, I was the kind of person who really, really wanted magic to be true. With nothing else to do but mope around, I set out on my first skeptical endeavor. I systematically attempted to recreate any method I could find for using magic. Chants, postures, meditation, prayers, whatever. I did stop short of potions, though, to my credit. After months of attempts, I had proven to myself that even though there might be someone out there who could do magic,

I was not one of them. I then used the same research techniques to learn how the people who were doing this magic were faking it. And after that, fuck it, I started looking into religion. Eventually, I'd uncovered so much bullshit that my co-host and I had no choice but to start a podcast. This is a side note for any of your listeners who don't like your laughing. Why don't you come give us a try?

We're two humorous bastards, and you might just fit in perfectly. Anyway, glory hole, motherfuckers. That's awesome. Yeah, I don't know. I never really went for magic either. I don't remember doing that. Tarot? No, Tarot's different, I think.

Tarot's a little different. I did think Tarot was a thing for a little while. But I didn't think Tarot was a magical thing. I thought Tarot was a subconscious thing. You look at the cards, you shuffle the cards, and your brain subconsciously puts them in a position that will... Fucking well done, brain. Yeah, I know. That's awesome.

Yeah, my brain is smarter than me, it turns out. I remember a friend of mine read my tarot. She was like into that shit. She did a tarot reading. And I had known her for like 10 years. So like she knew me very well. And she read the tarot thing and I thought like, wow, that's pretty insightful. And she read the tarot thing and I thought like, wow, that's pretty insightful.

And then I was like, well, yeah, but she's known me for 10 years. How hard is it to be insightful about somebody you've known for a decade? God, could you imagine the readings you can give to people? Right. The amount of – especially if you know someone is uncomfortable in their job or all those little things. Oh, they, you know, you're going to, you know, if they did, if they wanted kids and they couldn't have kids, could you imagine the things you could do? Absolutely. You could wreak fucking havoc on their psyche with that shit. And the thing is, is like all those things are about getting to know the person, you know. So, Tom, we got a message from Daryl.

Why don't you read Daryl's message? We got a message from Daryl. Why don't you read Daryl's message? He says, I'd asked our pastor, fundamentalist Mennonite cult, to carry a marriage proposal for me. Mennonite cult must propose. Mennonite? Isn't that a type of deodorant? Bye, Mennonite.

Costanza. Men in that cult must propose via the pastors so they can vet the marriage. What? Do you have to do it via semaphore? Right. Sign it at someone? You have to put it on the bat signal and send it up into a cloud? You have to take your message, put it in a bottle.

And hurl it into the ocean. Hurl it at your pastor. Yeah. He's just walking by. You got it in a bottle. Hurl it into the ocean. Hurl it at your pastor. He's just walking by. You got to buy a kitten, tie it to a kitten's neck, and then set it free. If it comes back, your love was meant to be. You just tie it real tight so the kitten can't run real far. And at the wedding, they don't throw the bouquet. They throw the kitten. They throw the kids throw the kid

yeah there you go yeah that's a rough one several weeks later as as i several weeks later as i was waiting for my answer god god a fucking tension would be fucking tragic awful here you are desperately growing an enormous mennonite, waiting weeks for someone to marry. I was waiting for my answer to come from the girl via her pastor and mine. I had Chinese takeout with my parents and siblings. My fortune cookie read, good news is coming from afar. An hour later, my pastor called me with the news that she had agreed to marry me. I'm sure this insistence contributed to my staying in

that cult for another nine years that's fucking wow and it's you know that's the thing though right is that when you're seeking for an answer when you're looking for you know you have questions and you're just hoping that something happens if if you pray during that hope, you'll count the hits and forget the misses. Sure. And you just forget all the misses. Plus you're looking. I don't remember what it's called, but it's that thing where it's like, well, if you look for the number 15, you find it everywhere.

Yeah, like pattern seeking. Right, yeah. So, you know, of course, it's like my fucking fortune cookie said it. Well, that's how fortune cookies are written. Yeah. All fortune cookies talk about something like that. You could basically take 10 fortunes and three of them would be similar. Right.

We got a message from Carolyn, Tom, and Carolyn talks about some conspiracy stuff. She said, my dad believes in just about every crazy conspiracy theory there was, and I was young and impressionable, and his daughter. So did I. He even told us that the government was trying to kill him for knowing too much then he died mysteriously at age 49 i was 14 that's sad so for years i believe that the government killed my dad along with all the conspiracy theories he shared with me before he passed away when i went off to university discovered the internet yes i'm that old i'd spend hours Googling my dad's name and come up with the craziest shit about him and how he was taken into questioning by the CIA and poisoned because he knew too much.

When September the 11th happened, my first thought was that the Bush administration orchestrated it. Then a few years later, I met the woman my dad spent the majority of his time with during the last two years of life, and she was so overtly crazy, she swore she knew she had been taken to Mars. Oh, no! And she woke up with red dirt in her bed. Wouldn't it be more plausible she was taken to Georgia? You know?

Look, I'll only believe she went to Mars if she wakes up with a fucking lander in her bed. Like, you wake up with a fucking rover in your bed? Fair enough. Fair enough, right? You went to fucking the fucking mars you wake up there's curiosities right yeah you're riding like fucking urban cowboy i'm with you you know i'm with you coming with a little fucking dirt in your bed i need a little more substantial evidence than that i think it made me question everything my dad had said and slowly i became a skeptic uh funny enough i had always an atheist, even though my crazy dad was a Methodist preacher. Wow.

That's tremendous. Did you ever believe in conspiracy theories? I don't think I can think of one that I believed in. I wasn't above them. I don't think I believed in one, though. Did you? Now, when we were in junior college, this is when we met years ago, We had a mutual friend and he had a book of conspiracy theories. He had a book of the subgenius that he was giving around to people.

And I remember reading that. And then he had a book on conspiracy theories. It was a graphic novel type book, like a big sort of comic book. Illustrated version of fucking conspiracies. And there's dozens of these conspiracies in there. And I started reading it and it freaked me the fuck out as an adult and i was a full-on adult at that point i mean i went to college late so i was in my 20s my early 20s at the time and i remember reading this thing and

it freaked my shit out i couldn't believe i thought i i was just gullible i just i was just i remember reading it and thinking holy shit shit, this Martin Luther King killing thing. This is crazy, all these things that they've picked out. This JFK thing. This is crazy. Why haven't they released this information? Yada, yada, yada, all this stuff. And I remember really freaking out about it.

I don't remember. Those are the two main ones. What about the Masons? I think I believe the Masons. The Masons won, too. There was a Masons conspiracy that they controlled. I didn't really know what I believed about it. i just thought it was like like what are you people doing in there yeah i was just curious like secret society what's going on in there guys

fucking moose lodged whatever it's fucking old guys want to drink together right you know i know but i was real curious like all these were Masons and all the fucking astronauts were Masons and whatever. Whatever. They were also white males. What I definitely had some conspiracy thoughts, though, and I I definitely growing up, I think, you know, I think that that's that stuff wasn't out of the realm of possibility. Growing up, I think that stuff wasn't out of the realm of possibility. And I think early on, even into adult – even into like late adulthood until I started becoming a skeptic, I probably – I was susceptible to them. I just thought I was.

And I remember hearing about this one doctor. This was later on after I was married. I heard about this doctor and this doctor was uh he was a doctor who was doing alternative therapies and the person the reason why he gained uh he had some sort of credibility in this other person's eyes was that because he was uh he was so dangerous the ama wanted to kill him and i remember that was the thing that they said yeah and i thought to myself you know because this is a trusted person and i thought sure geez why would they want to do that and then i thought you know it takes a while for you to get back to the source

you know this is what happened with carolyn she trusted the source of her father and you trust these sources in your life as like wow this person knows a lot about this stuff this person is a trusted source this is someone who i trust and then you realize well where did you hear it from oh and then suddenly everything starts to unravel oh you heard it from him right well fucking where's your proof bro you got a proof that they that they fucking you know get fucking guido out to get like a lay a hit on you right where. Where's your proof? Yeah. Instead, what we're doing is just trusting this person. And I just don't. And this is that this is, you know, this classic skepticism. It's not that it's not that I don't want to trust you. It's that I want to trust you after you've provided me with some evidence other than you

saying this is a thing. I guess I did believe in like the super left wing anti-corporate kind of conspiracies for a while like i was pretty anti i don't know if they were conspiracy theories but i sort of i sort of bought into that whole like hyper left-wing um uh you know anti-corporate every corporation is evil all corporations oh yeah yeah like like a guy would vote for a bar Barack Obama or something. Yeah, something like that. A Bernie Sanders supporter. A Green Party kind of a guy, you know. We got a message from Selena. And Selena says, years ago, I was a pagan and my father wasn't wearing a helmet, was drinking.

And as can be easily predicted, got into an accident on his quad. I performed one spell. And shortly after that, got a phone call that the pressure in his brain went down. A while later, I performed another spell, which was followed by another phone call sometime after with another improvement. Therefore, magic. Magic. That's great. I love that. I remember when my dog was sick, I prayed. I remember praying really hard. My dog was dying and I was super sad and I wanted it. I just wanted the dog to be better. So I remember crying and praying and we took the dog to the vet.

We didn't just fucking pray, right? Sure, right. And the vet was skilled enough to bring the dog back from the brink and it was four or five days in his care and the dog was – the dog got better. Sure. And I remember attributing that to God for a very long time. I remember doing that. And I could see where doing this with magic would be just as easy. Oh, absolutely, right?

Yeah. Because it's a wish. It's a genie thing. Sure. Yeah. And the thing is like if your dad had passed, you would have blamed it on the drinking and the quad apps. Sure, yeah. You wouldn't have said it.

You would have been like, my fucking spell didn't work. Jeez, I fucking asked. I asked. I totally did the spell wrong. I wound up killing him. Yeah, that would be the other thing you might think. Is it right? Like, oh, I did the spell wrong or I didn't fucking burn enough sage or whatever.

We got another message. This one is from Orlando. We're going to play it. Hi, guys. I'm Glory Holt. Thanks for the opportunity to tell the story. Long time ago, when I was a teenager,

I used to deliver the newspaper and I earned a couple of bucks like that, which allowed me to buy comic books, go to the movies, see concerts. And yet, uh, my mother visited a psychic. I don't know why she was Catholic.

And this person told her that I was going to die in a bike accident. She saw my red candy apple, shrieking majestic bike destroyed by a vehicle. And my mom came home extremely upset, even crying, and she told me that I was not to work anymore as a newspaper

boy, delivery guy. And, well, that's it lost my income there you go oh orlando feel bad for you man that sucks yeah right like your kid you gotta fucking it's like it's like your dad not letting you borrow the lawnmower to go cut other people's lawns my dad would have done that shit he'd be like what if my lawnmower breaks my dad wouldn't let me uh get a driver's license because he's like well you can't how are you gonna learn to drive i'm like well you can teach me in your car he's like i'm not letting you drive my car

and so i was like oh yeah i had to buy a car and learn on the car i bought i bought a car without a license and i didn't know how to drive isn't that illegal to buy a car without a license i don't know i bought it from a friend oh there, there you go. I bought it from a friend's parents. There you go. And it was a stick, and I couldn't drive. I couldn't drive stick. But my dad would have done that shit. Figured that out. Yeah, he'd have been like,

sounds a lot like your problem, son. What about prophecy? Was there any prophecy for you at all? No, I don't think I ever got into prophecy or knew any. I don't think I ever was exposed to that world. Yeah, no prophetic dreams or any of that stuff and this is this in particular is fortune telling right so that's prophetic in some way now my my brother got into dream interpretation i remember that like he would

get like all into that and he would like he had the books were like the symbols meant this and that and the other thing and i'd rather watch people masturbate. Well, I'd rather – yeah. That's really just it. I mean that's all the dream interpretation is in my opinion. I don't think that stuff has anything. But I did in the day. I'll watch a movie.

I'll watch a movie with a thing in it and then have a dream about the exact same thing later on. It's just a different context. I'll be like, yeah, I watched a movie with that in it. Yeah. I mean I don't think that – I don't think I i did i did think at one point that there were certain symbols in dreams that meant things and then i later read a science book that was like yeah it's almost certainly not the case it's just like random shit happening in your brain it's just a firing attempt to make it you know to make meaning out of nonsense it is

nonsense it's like my dreams are always right sense once in a while they'll make sense but i think they only make sense in the sense that i tried to make sense of them yeah right you're you're putting the meaning there yeah we get a message from k in kentucky tom from some more woo i've got an odd belief that stems from when i was a newborn. I was born with a layer of skin covering the opening from my stomach to my intestines. My parents still tell the story of me starving to death while awaiting surgery. What? What? Wait, what?

Terrible story. What a horrible thing. What a fucking asshole that little piece of skin is, right? Jeez, yeah. Like, that's a death sentence for, like, most of all of human history. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. You know, it's like, I got a baby. It looks great. Don't know why. Doesn't get any bigger. Just dies for no reason. yeah like that's a death sentence for like most of all of human history oh yeah absolutely you know it's like i got a baby looks great don't know why doesn't get any bigger just dies for

no reason oh you would have no idea why it happened yeah you know for almost the entirety of human history but my dad was a praying man god heard his prayer and he healed me the day before my surgery huh huh imagine so the surgery still took place then is what you're saying. I'm guessing it did. Or was it the day before your surgery and poof, you were healed? You know, I would be more sympathetic to that argument if the doctor did the surgery. He's like, hey, totes no need for it now. Yeah, no, he opens you up and be like, huh.

The skin flap's just gone. I totally thought there was a skin flap in here yesterday. That's why you were starving. Man, I shouldn't be opening up newborns like this. Some willy nilly open newborns. huh skin flaps just gone i totally thought there was a skin flap in here yesterday i should be open up newborns like this willy nilly open newborns hang on a minute your baby looks a little uh peaking let's cut them open see if there's a skin flap is there a skin flap in there but the best part is since then i was told if i ever lost my faith god would do the same thing to my children isn't god great great? That's so mean.

So mean. Yeah, that's why I never had kids, because my mom said I would wind up like me. Yeah, right? So I was like, there's no way I'm going to do that. There's physically not enough room. Yeah. Wait, wait, there's only so much resources on the planet. Come on. Are you kidding me?

Talking about sustainability here, mom. Sustainability. Eight billion people or two Cecil's. This next message, this next recorded message is from Kyle. Hey, Tom and Cecil. This is Kyle from Fullerton, California. Fullerton, California. Not your major kind of woo,

but I used to try and flick my quarters into the soda machine because the thing is just so freaking unreliable at getting the coins to be accepted that I thought, oh, well, if I throw the coin in a certain way, that it'll make it work. Well, it doesn't. The thing just sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. But I would spend minutes trying to flick the coin in certain ways to get my soda.

And I no longer do that. Anyways, story hole, motherfuckers. Literal minutes on your soda. It's like fucking, like, you ever get to an elevator and the fucking thing's pressed already? And somebody walks up and presses it, and then it's not there yet, so they press it like two or three more times. Like, there's no combination of button presses that is going to get the elevator to you any faster than it's already on its way. Right.

The elevator is like, wait, someone's in a hurry. Hang on a minute. Everybody is like, what? It's like a fucking, it suddenly turns into a ride in Great America if you press the proper key combination. Like, what? You know, related to Kyle's story, I used to believe the old fucking apocryphal canard that you could take the slugs that you would find in construction sites, you know, like the electric box slugs, and use them as quarters and get candy. And they don't work.

Did you ever try that? No, never. wound up taking a long piece of scotch tape and he put it on a dollar bill. And I remember he would load it into the pop machine that we had and he would – as it would get to the very end, he would pull it out. And then the thing would be like, you have a dollar. And he would press it and he would just look for kids to give soda away so he could take the change from the soda. So he would take the change, the leftover change, which was like – I want to say soda away so he could take the change from the soda so he would take the the change the leftover change which was like i want to say soda back then i'm gonna date myself so back then i think was 50 cents sure so it was a 50 cent soda 12 ounce can and then he would pull the 50 cents

and then he would say who wants the soda and he would just i remember walking by almost every day in like fourth period having a free soda because he was just giving him away at that point. I remember the soda machines didn't used to have the little tray and I would reach my arm up there. No shit. And just yank the sodas out of the little clamps. There you go. I saw a kid.

I was at Chicago Park District and I remember I saw this kid with his fucking arm up the machine's ass and he just plunks his soda out. I was like, well, I need to learn to do that right now. You can do that. And if you do it wrong, like, you break the can, and, like, you get fucking root beer and fucking shit all over you, but you're a kid, so you don't care. Well, it's trial and error. You'll figure it out. Right.

Or you'll lose an arm. Tom, we got a message from Mike. Mike says, when I was around 18, I called myself a seeker. I did a lot of meditating, introspection, mental gymnastics, read about religion and mostly alternative religions because I got my fill of the Bible and traditional religion from my Catholic upbringing. Catechism, communion, and confirmation.

I found Econar, which is a sort of conglomeration of Eastern religions, astral projection, and general woo. It sounds like a character in Dungeons & Dragons I know right You're going to see the Prince of Achenar Yeah I always held some doubt but I waded in

I read some of their books and a few friends And I were into it for a year or two I love that you can always get your friends into your stupid shit Oh yeah absolutely Have you heard about Achenar? You guys want to join my guild? I'm a guild, I'm a guild, I'm a guild The Astral Projection stuff was pretty neat about Echinar. You guys want to join my guild? I'm a guild!

The astral projection stuff was pretty neat. It's basically just exploring your imagination, in my opinion. There were two things that made it personal for me. The day I was born was the day that the living embodiment of God and their belief, Paul Twitchell, was given the Rod of Echpower. Oh, God, shut the

fuck up. This is amazing. Shut the fuck up. The rod of ek power. Hold on. The God has the rod of ek power. Paul Twitchell? Paul Twitchell? What the fuck? The first thing I would do with all my godlike powers is

change my last name to like Ryan Force or something. Major power. Whatever you are, I changed my last name to like Ryan Force or something. Major power. Whatever you are, sunny presence. Whatever your name is. Yeah, right. Something other than Paul Twitchell. Then when a friend was in an accident and in a coma for eight months, I spoke ek mantras into her ear with the intent to guide her to someone who could help her.

And a couple of days later, she came out of it. Ek mantras. Isn't that from that Holy Grail? We And a couple of days later, she came out of it. Ack mantras. Isn't that from that Holy Grail? We're like, Acky, Acky, Acky, we're saying. Trippy, since I heard most people don't wake up after being in a coma that long. I don't buy any of this stuff, although I think Ack is as valid as any other religion, which is to say not. I seek.

And although it took me a long time, I found the truth. So thanks for your help my way. Path to reality. That's really interesting. Yeah, the Eastern stuff I remember after I dropped Christianity because I thought, well, that's kind of absurd. Right. I immediately – and I think this is a path a lot of people face. I immediately started reading Buddhist stuff and the Tao Te Ching.

I read that. I read the Buddhist stuff and the Tao Te Ching. I read that. I read the Buddhist stuff. I read the, I think I read something from the Hindu, the Dharmapada maybe I read. I don't know if that's Buddhist or Hindu. I don't remember. I think the Bhagavad Gita is the Hindu one, right? That sounds delicious.

That sounds like, that sounds good. Man, God, I'm hungry for Indian food now. I'm hungry for literal Indians. I'm going to eat the whole thing. I'll eat them while he's cooking. Sure, yeah.

At this point, I would eat a cow in India. But anyway, so – I want to make Indian food and replace the chicken or whatever with beef and just see how it works. Yeah. So we – but I remember reading that stuff though right afterwards because I thought, well, this stuff isn't real, but I need a thing. Yeah, right. And so I looked for something.

And again, I came out of my phase with that stuff real fast though. I remember thinking in a comparative religions class that it was kind of like a choose-your-own-adventure. Like you had to come out of it choosing one. Like one of these has to be yeah right you know and then i was like i don't but i don't think any of these are right none of this works yeah so we got a message from mikhail did i say it right i believe you is that he said that with a nice jewish um he says uh when i was little my family and i were moderately religious my mother who also casually believes in some soft core woo used to listen to some astrologer who was on the radio

every friday one friday when i was about six years old my underdeveloped skeptic sense tingled and i asked her mom isn't astrology bullshit you got away with saying bullshit at six years old my underdeveloped skeptic sense tingled and i asked her mom isn't astrology bullshit you got away with saying bullshit at six years old i got my fucking mouth washed out for seeing cocksucker at five so uh you weren't raised by a swear damn i wish i could have said hey mom are you a fuckwit i wish i could have said that at that age but i never had the opportunity so uh mikhail says uh mom isn't astrology bullshit and she answered usually yes but this one isn't she's actually pretty good i think that's pretty great i you know i think that there are people who give there's people who make concessions for certain types of that particular thing they don't think that that this thing is real, but they think that this person who does that thing is real.

So maybe they might not believe in all of the ghost talker to people. I don't even know what they call those people. They call them ghost talker tos. Ghost talker tos. Those people. But they might think Sylvia Brown is a person. Sure. Currently a ghost. I don't believe she's a person sure you know currently i don't know she's a she's currently a ghost but you know that or edward snowden what

was that guy's name edward snowden that guy's name what was his it was john edwards that's it actually it might not be john it might be john edward i think we've done this in the past where we mess up because there is a guy by the name of Edwards who is running for president. Oh, yeah. Edward, I think, is the guy we got yelled at for it before. What was the name of the show? The crossing the line or crossing over, crossing over. Yeah.

OK. Yeah. Walking the line. That was a Johnny Cash. The psychic. Hey, y'all. I'm just back from the ring of fire. How high is the water, mama?

Now, this is from Michael, and Michael sent in a message, too. He says, when I was young, my parents were convinced, and probably still are to this day, that Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards were demons. Literally, when kids played with Pokemon, my parents believed that they were playing with demon cards

and that the cards had demons in them. Demons in them? Yeah, like squishy little flat demons. Tiny little demons. Little, little, little, little. Unshackleable. I was homeschooled, so it was easy for them to keep us away from the cards, but I still had friends who had them because when I was eight, everyone had those damn things. Tell you what, I got an eight-year-old.

Everyone already has those damn things. Tell you what, I got an eight-year-old, everyone already has those damn things still. One day, my friend taught me how to play Yu-Gi-Oh and gave me some cards. My mom went through my bag and found my new Yu-Gi-Oh cards and confronted me about it. When she didn't buy the I'm holding it for a friend thing. I love that. I've done that so many times

as a kid. It's not mine, it's my friend's. Dad, those aren't my cigarettes. It's not my girlfriend's pregnancy test. She's holding it for a friend. She's holding it for the dry cleaners. Oh, no. I remember crying my little eight-year-old eyes out because I truly believed that I had brought demons into our house and played with them, and my mom wanted to pray over me. Oh, my God.

That's traumatic, actually. That is fucking oh my god that's traumatic that is fucking serious that's traumatic that's some fucking bullshit yeah um i i i remember not cards but i do remember the metal backlash that was back then yeah specifically judas priest and uh he got back a bunch of those people and they talked about bask back masking in the songs which is so as an adult looking on that now it's like watching it's like watching the first friday the 13th movie and when you were a kid you're you you basically pissed your bed you were so afraid and you watch it now and you look and you're like what the fuck what it was i what was i thinking that's a fucking rubber head that is the rubberest head i've ever seen in my entire life it's the same thing with this back masking you listen to the back masking

you're like are we fucking serious are we really doing this they sure and you're like that and they and then they say oh do you hear he said god god hates you and g and satan loves you and you're like that. And then they say, oh, do you hear he said, God hates you and Satan loves you. And you're like, no, it sounds like he said. Doesn't sound like anything. You're distressingly good at that. It was so awesome. I don't know why you can do that it was terrific oh so i remember that i for me uh all those cards you're so much younger than me because all those cards card games like that never came they didn't come out until i was in my 20s magic was the first one that i played and

pokemon is i played that in college yeah Yeah, I played Magic in college. This one is from Elvis, but Elvis sent this in. This is Sharon, his wife. When I was young, I read everything I could find about a cult. She's also in the middle of a giant room.

She's like reading this from a church or something. She recorded this from a secret underground lair I know With no furniture in it Just a big room Witchcraft and fortune telling I learned palm reading and found I was good at it

I didn't realize that I was responding to people's questions And saying things they wanted to hear As I studied science and psychology I understood the effects of the occult Were explained by the placebo effect Or the tendency to see patterns and connections where none exist. As a middle-aged mom, I found some tarot cards and I read the directions that came with the deck and began doing readings for fun. I was asked to do readings at an after-the-prom event at a high school. These run from midnight to 4 a.m. and are designed to keep kids off the streets after the prom. And from

fucking. Right? They don't give a shit if a kid's on the street. They just give a shit where their kid's dick is. And from fucking. I'd tell them how an upside down card meant they'd be given bad advice or possibly good advice that they wouldn't take, so they must think very carefully about anything anyone

told them. I'd tell them that an image of a guy stuck through with swords indicated there would be trouble in their life, and other cards indicated the resources that they would use to prevent that trouble from ruining them. I gave them lots of safe, matronly advice that kids normally ignore while they sat there wide-eyed and open-mouthed because of the cards. That's brilliant, actually.

What a gambit. Yeah, yeah. The only, I mean, of course, the only thing that I can say that might be the tiny downside is that you're not teaching them to think critically. But I think at that age, I

personally think you have to come into thinking critically on your own. I think that's one of the things that makes it work. You can't just have someone tell you, you need to think critically and then you do. Oh, I know. Why didn't you mention that before? Why didn't somebody say this earlier? Right.

You've got to fall into it. So while it's hard to teach people how to think critically, I think they have to come to it. But I think in replacing that, right, this is a good way to do it. Sure. It's a good way to get them down that path. And I think that this is touching on something we mentioned earlier, which is, you know, the finding of patterns and that

sort of thing. That's, that's something real common. Next voice messages from Katie. Hi there, you guys. Um, so this is for your woo show. Um, my life has pretty much been defined by woo. Um, I was homeschooled and very like isolated in my childhood um we did not go to doctors i was actually taken away from my parents the state took us away because um they were withholding medical care for from us we were taken away for not a significantly long period of time but we were taken away um the whole thing dousingowsing, Reiki, healing crystals, chiropractic. I've never been vaccinated. And my parents were anti-vaxxers like before the Internet. So before it was before that was cool. Even they were like trailblazers.

So the one thing that I actually still do is chiropractic. I also live in Chicago. You probably know the chain that I actually still do is chiropractic. I also live in Chicago. You probably know the chain that I go to. And it really does seem to help with like headaches and back pain and neck pain. I definitely don't believe that it helps with like diabetes. Yeah, it is definitely not good for the diabetes. No, it doesn't. Yeah.

Wilford Brimley will still have his fucking foot sawn off. Let me tell you, crack that motherfucker's back as much as you want. His foot is still coming off. We're still taking your foot, Wilford. We're still taking your foot. I don't care how many times you crack your neck. But I'm limber as a son of a bitch. That's awesome yeah uh you know we've been we've been on chiropractic before but i think what we get on chiropractic about is specifically the people who

do the you know hey you need to get your back cracked because um because of this we you know like you said diabetes or your fucking allergies or cancer my kidneys aren't fucking functioning correctly or i have cancer or whatever. Those are the people. But I had a friend recently, a friend that I know is a very smart person, recently just tried chiropractic. Now, he went over to Europe and had a very difficult location because he had a – his back was hurting the whole time, came back, had some chiropractic stuff done,

and his back is better than it has been in years. And so, you know, there is something to be said about sort of lower back pain and possibly neck pain and maybe even headaches based on chiropractic. But once you start getting past that simple realm of those, you know, very connected pieces to the back, all the data starts falling apart. This one's interesting, Tom. This is from Lisa talking about some hippy-dippy stuff. She says, I was one of those hippy-dippy herbal organic mothers in sandals. My kids wore non-gendered clothes, amber necklaces and cloth nappies. And we never ate shop-bought bread.

I believe in all the associated woo that goes along with inclusion in my subculture. The list of things that I believed were toxic was pages long and included many previously useful household items, which were subsequently removed. Sometimes my anxieties helped me to make more thoughtful, considered choices for my family. Some of these choices turned out well. My son was breastfed until he was four.

I carried my children in slings and pouches. We co-slept in a kangaroo in a family bed. We also ate a lot of homemade hummus with carrot sticks. But sometimes the fear that resulted in those choices had negative impacts. For example, since fluoride is, air quotes, a toxin, we used only

the non-fluoride toothpaste from the health food store and we only drank filtered, unfluoridated water. I was forced to reconsider the wisdom of this when my toddler needed extensive dental work to put four silver crowns and four caps on his rotten baby teeth. He had to have a generic anesthetic. A general anesthetic, not a generic anesthetic.

A generic anesthetic. We don't spend a lot of money on anesthetic in this house. Kirkland brand anesthetic. He had to have a general anesthetic and now every time he laughs his mouth full of silver is on full public display this makes him look like a small rapper he's got a grill good for him

it makes me look like one of those deadbeat mothers who most likely gives their kid a happy meal every day along with a baby bottle full of coke i feel very bitter about this it's interesting that uh the the uh the the woo here is that uh alternative medicine and or new age ideas right yeah i don't think a lot of these ideas are very like i don't think that they're terribly countercultural you know breastfeeding is i think in vogue now isn't it i think i mean like our family like it's funny because i read this and i was like oh man we're pretty hippy dippy by this because like you know we like my wife breastfeeds our kids and uh well kid not the eight-year-old

that's weird that's sort of pushing his brother out of there. Because he's the runt. He's pushing him out. Get out of the nest. Get out of here, buddy. And like, I'll carry the fucking kid in a slinger or whatever. Oh, yeah, dude. Because it saves my back.

Absolutely. And think about it this way. If you're ever rushed by a gunman, it's like a bulletproof vest. There you go. Well, maybe not bulletproof, but at least it slows it down. It slows it down a little. Sure. Yeah. This is interesting though that's a that's

a that's a level of woo that i just missed the alternative medicine uh alternative therapy sort of thing is something that i probably could have if i didn't get into skepticism could have really hit hard all that hippie stuff i never i never got into it though i was close yeah i think i was i knew a lot of shit and stuff that i never got into it but i was I was close. Yeah, I think I was. I knew a lot of those people. But that detox shit and stuff, I never got into it, but I was close. Jack sent in a voicemail. Hey, this is Jack from Milwaukee. I have a woo story. A member of our family went through several wristwatches that broke, and she realized the reason was because the iron in her blood created a magnetic field that stopped it.

What? Either by shorting out the battery or bending the metal gears or something. Bend the metal! Bend the metal! What are you doing? How the fuck did you bend the metal? What are you, Magneto? What the fuck?

What? Are you kidding? I was trying to buy Magneto a watch. He can't take it off. You got to get him a carbon fiber watch. That's the key. Oh, that's so funny. Oh, man.

And that got her interested in magnets. And she explained to me that wearing magnets on your body could heal people on the same principle. The same principle as it breaks your watch? So wait a minute. I've got a cold. And you're like, well, maybe if I break my watch with magnets, then I won't have a cold anymore. Oh, it's better now. Because it flings the blood into all the nooks and crannies of your circulatory system.

What I love about my circulatory system is that I can spread butter on it, and it's delicious. All those nooks and crannies get filled with cholesterol. Oh, man. As a fat man, I am made mostly of English muffins. And all the English people are like, what's an English muffin? We just call them muffins. And speeds up the healing process. So I put magnets into my shoes.

I had a back massager and wore a magnetic bracelet. in my shoes i had a back massager and wore a magnetic bracelet although i didn't get the bracelet near at my watch because i knew that would screw everything up and i did this for three years and um i know that this worked for ozzy osbourne because he was cured and healed in the great magnetic field. Oh, I like that it ended in song. That was terrific. That's worthwhile. That is not a thing.

Magnets, how do they work? I never got into that. My dad thinks that he can only wear certain wristwatches from certain companies because his body breaks. They don't run right or whatever. And then my brother thinks the same thing because that's what my dad thinks your brother's a fucking idiot i know he is man yeah i know yeah no and that's you know that's just genetics but really it's wow i know so we're gonna wrap up the show with a message from sorry hey guys this is sorry from australia so my woo story story is when I was a teenager, I got sucked in pretty heavily into

evangelical Christianity, went along to a Benny Hinn revival meeting where he pulled me up on stage and told me that through the power of Jesus, he had healed me. I was suffering pretty badly. I have ulcerative colitis. And, of course, you know, being a gullible young teenager, I believed him. He actually specifically told me that to prove my faith, I had to stop taking my medication. So I did it, stopped taking my medication, didn't tell anyone, obviously. Ended up violently ill in hospital, needing a lot of surgery and with a lot of damage to my body that I still suffer from today.

So yeah, that's my run in with woo. So thanks, Benny Hinn. Fuck you. Thanks guys. Wow. What a fucking twat,

huh? That shit is not uh that's harmless yeah that's not harmless at all man it's not a silly little yeah no it's not you know it's not i fucking got a crystal and i rubbed it on my fucking ankles or whatever like it's not magnets make my watch go bend you know the other thing too is with a lot of those you know i got fucking magnets in my thing or whatever i don't know how long they're delaying treatment, right? This is a clear delaying of treatment. This is clearly saying don't do your treatment.

Yeah, it's actively telling her. It's telling her not to. So this is a different kind of evil. It's very directed. It is. You know, I don't know how often they lure you away from the actual thing. I know that in a lot of cases they do the prayer and medicine. Yeah, right.

That's a thing. Yeah, because that way when the medicine works, they can blame the prayer. Yeah, right. Yeah, that's just a horrible story. Sorry, sorry. Well, that's the show for this week. We thank everybody who sent messages or called in. We did get a lot of repeat stories, people that wound up sending in a lot of the same stuff.

So if you didn't read yours, we apologize. But we had to trim it down some. Thank you to everybody who sent in voice messages and to all the people who wrote. You're the reason why this show even happened. I thought this was great fun. So thanks, everybody. We to all the people who wrote uh you're the reason why this show even happened i thought this was great fun so thanks everybody we appreciate all the parts that we appreciate appreciate all the participation so uh this is a short show this week uh so the email section was the entire show so we're gonna skip the email section and uh we're gonna leave you like we always do with skeptics cre Creed. Credulity is not a virtue.

It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo quasi alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water, downward spiral. Brain dead pan. Sales pitch. Late night info docutainment. Leo Pisces. Cancer cures. Detox. Reflex. Foot massage.

Death in towers. Tarot cards. Psychic healing. Crystal balls. Bigfoot. Yeti. Aliens. Churches.

Mosques and synagogues. Temples. Dragons. Giant worms. Atlantis. Dolphins. Truthers. Birthers. Witches. Wizards. Vacc vaccine nuts, shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, doublespeak, stigmata, nonsense.

Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this. council. you