The Jordan Harbinger Show - 664: Reiki Healing | Skeptical Sunday

Starting point is 00:00:02 Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger, and this is Skeptical Sunday, a special edition of the Jordan Harbinger show where fact-checker and comedian David C. Smalley and I, we break down a topic you may never have thought about, open things up, and debunk common misconceptions. Topics such as why the Olympics are kind of a sham, why expiration dates on food are nonsense, why tipping makes no sense. We've even talked about ear-candling and chemtrails recently. Normally, on the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills are the world's most fascinating people, and we turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. We have long-form interviews and conversations with a

Starting point is 00:00:40 variety of amazing folks from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, and performers. And if you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about this show, the starter packs are where you do it. These are collections of our favorite episodes organized by topic, and it'll help new listeners get a taste of everything that we do here on this show. Topics like technology and future China and North Korea, negotiation and communication, disinformation and cyber warfare, crime and cults, and more. Just visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash start or take a look in your Spotify app to get started. Today on this edition of Skeptical Sunday, Reiki Healing. How can somebody heal me without even touching me or giving me any medication? Or, in fact, maybe not even seeing me in person or in

Starting point is 00:01:24 real life at all. And via Zoom, I don't know. I don't really buy it. But we're going to talk about it here with David C. Smalley, maybe there is something to it. Then again, maybe that something is just placebo effect. But then again, that's not nothing. Now is it? All right, let's talk about Reiki healing on Skeptical Sunday. David, when we first started talking about doing Skeptical Sunday, one of the examples I gave of kind of obvious nonsense was things like crystal healing. And so Reiki healing was one of the first examples you came up with. And I looked this up because I hadn't really, I guess I'd heard the term, but never really knew what it was. It's actually even more, I'm trying not to be super dickish about all this. It's even more ridiculous than I thought.

Starting point is 00:02:05 Yeah, whenever I first brought it up to you, you kind of blew it off and went, yeah, but everyone knows that's bullshit. Yeah. And then you're like, no, no, no, let's do other topics, things that people really need to sink their teeth into. And I'm like, yeah, but it's kind of widespread, man. There's a lot of people out there doing it, and a lot of people are not only doing it themselves, but getting certified to do it to other people, it's offered at hospitals and stuff. Well, doesn't that mean it's legitimate, David? I mean that for some people, it legitimizes it because they're like, well, hey, if it's available at Mayo Clinic, surely it's a good thing. And so I do feel like we need to,

Starting point is 00:02:39 we need to address it, man. I think a lot of people get taken advantage of with stuff like this. Yeah, well, then let's get into it because, of course, that is of one of the key criticisms of my criticism is, well, if it was BS, it wouldn't be offered at the hospital. And licensed by XYZ. So I definitely want to get into this and debunk a lot of this because it is hard to argue with somebody who wants to believe in something. And that's what this show is all about. You know, throughout these episodes, you typically, we'll be talking and you'll ask me a question about whatever's going on and we kind of guide through it like that. In a moment, I'm going to ask you a question about this. Okay. It's going to be kind of a moral dilemma of

Starting point is 00:03:14 what you think we should do. So let's just start it off like this. So you're talking, Rakey is basically 30 to 90 minute sessions. Okay. And it's essentially no touch massage. And sometimes the person will touch you, but it's very light touches. But it's all about these like 12 to 15 different hand positions where they can hover their hands over your body. And the whole point is to control the flow of energy. Reiki therapy is based on this idea of transferring their God-derived energy into a willing

Starting point is 00:03:47 human. And they're essentially believing that they can, or saying that they believe, that they can channel divine energy and then push it into you while also absorbing or withdrawing your negative energy to get to the root of your medical problems. Of course, at the rate of $25 to $100 per session. The average is going to be about $75 to $90, depending on where you live. And by the way, there's also distance healing for those we want to do it over Zoom or... Hey, if it's no touch massage, get a massage on Zoom. Yeah, you could do it over Zoom for about 50 bucks for 30 minutes. So there are people doing it. I didn't know my Xfinity broadband could handle negative and positive Chi energy flow. I can't even, I can barely upload the videos for

Starting point is 00:04:35 this show and yet it can transfer Chi. This is such a full of surprises. It does depend on how faster broadband is. You might, you might not get as much good energy if you haven't upgraded. That's right. Yeah, you need, you need, you need, you need, you need, Bigabit pro if you really want to get the good stuff. But these same people will never recommend 5G, I promise you that. Yeah, probably not. So the way this originated, once again, like a lot of these things, much like ear candling, they claim it to be some sort of ancient healing method.

Starting point is 00:05:02 That's absolutely false. It was created in the 20th century by this guy named Mikau Usui. He's a Buddhist monk who basically climbed a mountain, starved himself for 21 days, had a malnutrition induced hallucination that he called a vision about healing people with energy. And that's what people are doing. Okay. Not a super original idea. No, absolutely not. Healing people with energy. It's just funny to me how this guy came up with it. Like, that's not how the greatest ideas are come up with. You know, you don't develop an idea by starving yourself for 21 days and having hallucinations. But yeah, that's how rock songs are written. Everybody knows that. Although it might not be a starvation induced

Starting point is 00:05:39 hallucination when it comes to rock music. I was letting your folks put that together themselves. Yeah, there may be other things involved. All right, so I've heard of it. I've seen it. I live in California. It seems to be all over the place. Is it just sort of a localized phenomenon? We talked about in the beginning that it's at the Mayo Clinic, or maybe, were you joking

Starting point is 00:05:56 about that or is it actually at the Mayo? No, no. Sadly, sadly, over 800 hospitals offer Reiki globally, including Johns Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic. The Cleveland Clinic even says it can treat Parkinson's disease, digestive issues, and even cancer. The University of Arizona also offers Reiki to patients who request it, and the Canadian Reiki Association recommends Reiki for ear or sinus infections, excessive fatigue, strong desires of sensual or sexual gratification, and for hearing voices. Now, here's an interesting sidestep to this conversation, Jordan. In a weird way,

Starting point is 00:06:37 let me tell a brief story, and then I'm going to sort of pose this as a question. I have a family member who found out I was a non-believer and was like, hey, don't ever talk to my son about the fact that you don't go to church and you're not a Christian. And I said, okay, that's fine, but why not? And the person said, well, because he has nightmares about demons and praying to God is the only thing that gets rid of the demons in his nightmares. And I was like, well, you know he wouldn't know about the demons if you hadn't taught him about this entire thing to begin with. So it's like you're teaching him that's causing the problem, and then it's just sort of self-perpetuating its own mental torture and anguish. But if someone is suffering from hearing voices or some type of schizophrenia or some

Starting point is 00:07:21 sort of mental illness, one could argue that a placebo of the same magnitude could possibly help the situation. So do you think it could be offered to people? This is part one of the moral question. I think it could be offered to people who have those issues. Yeah, I'm a firm believer. Well, I don't have to believe in the placebo effect. It exists. But I'm a firm believer in allowing people to take full advantage of it. But I've done shows on the placebo effect before, and it really mostly slash only works for pain. I don't know if you can sort of placebo your brain into being healthy if you suffer from an actual mental illness. That would require study that I haven't seen. I haven't seen research on that at all. Now, if it works, then sure, go for it, but I'm

Starting point is 00:08:05 highly skeptical that you can get rid of someone's schizophrenia by not, by giving them a touchless massage. Same with the sexual addiction thing or the sudden strong desires for sensual gratification. I feel like somebody lightly hovering their hands over you is probably one of the worst things you can do to get, take my mind off this sexual gratification thing and give me an almost touch massage. It sounds like the kind of like the opposite of what that person needs. But again, hover your hands over my body and tease me more. Yeah, I'm no doctor, but that sounds, like the exact opposite direction we're trying to go. It's like I have trouble with central gratification.

Starting point is 00:08:40 I'm going to go to a strip club and be teased relentlessly. According to the IARP, which is the Rakey professionals, the International Association of Rakey Professionals, this is on their website. Rakey doesn't cure anything. Thank you. They say it flat out. Good.

Starting point is 00:08:56 But they do say it rather helps to get to the root of the problem, which is just a clever way of saying, we didn't make a medical claim, so don't sue us. Right. Yeah, we can't make a medical claim. claim because we will get sued, but we can also sort of allude to this vague idea that we do things that are maybe kind of medical, but only if you say they are, we didn't say it. Right. So the vast majority of these 800 hospitals, let me be very clear about this. They're not

Starting point is 00:09:21 prescribing Reiki. They're not saying Reiki is part of this treatment plan. The vast majority, there are a couple, but the vast majority offer it if the person requests it, just like prayer. Okay. You could say, can you pray with me? And a nurse will say sure, and they'll say a prayer, especially if you were terminal or end of life. And as a non-believer, I think that's a good thing. I'll say that out front. I think that that's sweet and that's caring and that's patient care, because that person's mental health is extremely important to their well-being and their recovery. So if someone requests, will you pray with me in their final moments, I think that's a sweet thing for someone at a hospital to do. And as a non-believer, if someone was on their deathbed and said, David, will you pray with me? I would absolutely do it. It would be very hard to walk away and say, sorry, bro, this is about me. Yeah. In that moment, it's not about me.

Starting point is 00:10:10 It's not about, you know, your own beliefs. I'm a little uncomfortable with this and the fact that you're dying, so I'm just going to go over here and check my email. I'm going to scroll through TikTok and try not to be loud with your last breaths. It's terrible, jewell. Okay. Anyway, this is starting to sound like a comedy show Green Room. It's very, very rough in there.

Starting point is 00:10:31 Yeah. So back to the question. and the situation where someone has cancer, this is the moral question I wanted to pose to you, back on your placebo situation, if something doesn't technically or medically work, should we even allow it in terminal patients if it makes them feel like it could work?

Starting point is 00:10:50 Like, for example, embracing that placebo effect just for the patient's happiness, same with prayer or shaman rituals or native dances or whatever. Yes, as long as their medical cares. So if your doctor is like, he's getting Reiki right now, but we're still doing chemo because that's what he needs in order to maybe get rid of his cancer,

Starting point is 00:11:07 then yes, definitely. The only time I have a real problem with this kind of stuff is when someone says, oh, Western medicine has failed us. Come fly to my weird clinic in the middle of nowhere where I can pull the chicken guts out from your stomach using magic sleight of hand and make you think I'm removing your cancer. If it costs you your life because you're not getting other treatment, then it's evil. But if you're in a hospital and you're getting chemo and they say, take this magic throat lozenge because it gets rid of the nausea and it will help your chemo

Starting point is 00:11:36 and it's a friggin jolly rancher, then go for it. Because at this point, you're just trying to treat pain and misery. And if you have to give somebody a little bit of a white lie and it doesn't cause them to suffer and it doesn't cause their treatment any issues or take them backwards, then I find it to be totally moral. These Reiki practitioners essentially try to make this sound medically and scientifically sound by using the phrase quantum entanglement. Oh, yeah. If someone is like skeptical of this and talks to someone who's a Reiki practitioner or a Reiki master, if you are lucky enough to have one of them grace your presence, and you push them on

Starting point is 00:12:09 it and they start saying things like quantum entanglement, it sounds like they're talking over your head and you're like, well, I don't know what they're talking about, so I'm going to back down because I don't know how to challenge that. That concept is basically used by theoretical physicists to describe when quantum particle pairs interact with one another and create some sort of issue by becoming entangled, which is a real thing. But there is zero evidence that that can happen with the moving of hands over your body. So it's essentially a way of saying Reiki is good because quantum physics is really hard to understand. So just take my word for it. And if you want to fact check it, good luck getting your

Starting point is 00:12:42 PhD and theoretical physics. But it's not a real, it's not a real thing. And no one has actually proven that that can happen. Or I wouldn't be covering it on Skeptical Sunday. I assume somewhere along the line, somebody has studied whether or not patients can, or even Reiki practitioners can actually feel their client's energy. I remember watching an episode of bullshit with Penn and Teller, and they were doing like, what is it, feng shui? And everyone said, it's a science. And they all had different answers for the way a room should be arranged based on the science, which is, you know, not how science works. So there are ways to test if somebody can actually feel any sort of energy from someone else. Somebody must have run this experiment at some point. Yeah, absolutely. And I did

Starting point is 00:13:22 I did an episode like that on my podcast as well. I had a crystal healer in studio, and she claimed she could feel the energy in crystals. And I told her, I didn't think there was any energy in crystals. With her permission, we blindfolded her and had her hold out her hands. And she brought crystals from home. And we had her lay her hand out flat so that she couldn't, you know, grab it and feel the texture of the crystal. She laid her hand out flat, and we just placed different objects in her hands to see which one had the most energy in it. And the one she chose with the most energy was a plastic bottle cap. I just took it off my water bottle and set it in her hand while she was blindfold and she's like, this is very powerful. She was right about 40% of the time. So she was actually,

Starting point is 00:14:03 you know, wrong 60% and at the end of the show, she was like, still, maybe I didn't charge them enough the night before. I need to put them out in the sun for two days instead of one. And, you know, it just started to backtrack. The same thing happens with Reiki. There was a researcher named Emily Rosa. She came up with this really clever way of testing whether or not this therapeutic Reiki practitioner could really feel their client's energy. She tested 21 of them under blind conditions, and they basically did know better than a coin toss. And I've seen other experiments where people have to put these Reiki practitioners put their hands through a wall, and they have to tell you when a person is standing in front of their hand. And again, they're right 50% of the time.

Starting point is 00:14:43 It's essentially some sort of coin toss. Right. The only evidence is it is purely random, and they're guessing. Because if you flip a coin to say yes or no, whether or not there's a person on the other side of the wall, the coin toss will be just as accurate as the Reiki Healer. You know who I will let put their filthy hands all over my body? The sponsors that support this show. We'll be right back.

Starting point is 00:15:07 Thank you for listening to and supporting this show. Your support of those advertisers is what keeps the lights on around here. All the discount codes and URLs, they're all in one place on our new mobile responsive page at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. You can also search for any sponsor, using the search box on the website as well, please consider supporting those who support this show. Now for the rest of Skeptical Sunday.

Starting point is 00:15:31 Now, you mentioned certification, not having any sort of scientific background or any sort of reliable way to test anything. That hasn't stopped people from trying to certify people for all kinds of things throughout history. So I assume you can get your Reiki practitioner or certificate probably, let me guess, on the internet by telling the person or the organization that you can do this and that's probably, probably good enough? No, you got to pay like $25. Oh, okay. Sorry. Aside from that piece. Yeah, I forgot that piece. So it's one of these things where they sort of walk the line of being medical, right? So in this instance, like, I can't certify you to be a black belt and karate because I don't have the credentials to certify a black belt in karate.

Starting point is 00:16:17 But if I made up my own form of, you know, David Jitsu, I could just say, Jordan, you've got the look. I can tell you're going to nail it. You're now a blackbell in David Jitsu. Because I am David and I get to control that, right? So I can control the narrative. So there's no background or social training required. You basically just need a current Reiki master to give you attunement. Not atonement, attunement. Well, how do you obtain that? Here's a thing. I found one for $26. and six hours of your time, you can be a certified Reiki practitioner. I almost did it, Jordan. Just for the show. I almost did it just as a joke to go, here's my certificate. I'm a Reiki, I'm a certified Reiki practitioner. I had the 26 bucks. I didn't have the six hours of time.

Starting point is 00:17:02 I was going to say, it's not the money. It's the time. Yeah, it's definitely the time. And you can do it online. You're spot on. You can certainly do it online. And although there are premium teachers who are much more expensive. Of course. There's a Claudia Borges out there who charges 333, $3 for four hours to reach level one. And only after you complete level one can you apply for level two and pay $385 for level status and go for another four hours. And then once you do that and you practice for six months, you can then come back and pay $610 for five hours for a level three class.

Starting point is 00:17:40 Once you complete that, you're a Reiki master like Claudia, who says on her website, And I quote, at the end of each class, you will be attuned to the Reiki energy. Attunement is a simple sacred ceremony performed by a Reiki master where the master connects the student to the universal life force energy that is Reiki. I guess it's like 99.5 FM, I don't know. Sure. And then to become a Reiki practitioner, you must receive attunement from another Reiki master. Classes and attunements can be online or in person, your choice. But as you practice, this gentle energy healing technique, your spirituality and intuition will grow.

Starting point is 00:18:19 In just a couple of hours, you can obtain the skills to use Reiki for yourself, your family, your friends, and even your pets, Jordan. No. Well, it's so funny, it's like this deep, primal life force energy. You need six hours of this and five hours of that. But hey, then when you're done in a few hours, you can use it on your family, your friends, and your pets. and your intuition will grow, but we might note, never better than a coin toss, never better than a coin toss. Exactly. And the great part about this class is once you're done with all that grueling, studying, and work, you're then certified to teach others and attune them to your rakey ways,

Starting point is 00:18:58 which essentially means you can not only screw over your friends and family who need to be healed, you can also take advantage of people who also want to help others by using their magical powers by charging them ridiculous prices for nonsensical courses. So it's like a pyramid scheme, except it's not that efficient and you don't have to kick up. Once you're done kicking up, you're off the hook. It just keeps on giving. Yeah. Just keeps on giving.

Starting point is 00:19:18 So how widely accepted is this? Like, you know, a lot of people I know who are into super new agey stuff, even they will tell me like, I'm not really into the Reiki thing, right? So that people have their lines, but it has made its way into popular culture. Absolutely. But you know something is still somehow on the fringes. when the Catholic Church says it's too weird. In 2009, the Catholic Church did a full study on Reiki.

Starting point is 00:19:45 Now, what I'm about to say is going to be filled with a lot of Easter eggs, so I want people to pay close attention, take notes if you need to rewind it. They did a full study on it. So, yes, the Catholic Church did a study, and they released these findings saying, quote, Reiki finds no support either in the findings of natural science or in Christian belief. and a group of bishops actually said, and I quote, Reiki lacks scientific credibility and has not been accepted by the scientific and medical communities as an effective therapy. Not wrong.

Starting point is 00:20:18 They literally perform exorcisms, by the way, which we should totally cover on an episode of Skeptical Sundays. Yes. I don't want to add that to the list. But then they go on to say that it poses a problem because, and this is another quote from their study, for Christians to access divine healing is to do so by prayer in Christ as Lord and Savior, which somehow is scientific. But the whole point is that Catholics are worried about exactly how someone is attaining this divine healing powers without prayer. So could it be demonic, right?

Starting point is 00:20:55 Are you accessing some level, like, are you cracking open, you know, God's back door and taking powers that you aren't actually authorized to use. There's that, and there's also, we've investigated this, and it turns out we're still the only game in town. Right. Yeah, it turns out. Yeah, turns out we haven't found a way to monetize Reiki, so. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:21:14 Yeah, we're going to say it's a bad thing. Yeah, we're going to stick to our system. It's a couple thousand years old. It's been working for us so far, and we don't like this new stuff. Yeah. It's funny when I'm sitting there nodding like, yeah, Catholic Church, you tell them. I don't have anything against, look, I don't have anything against people of faith or the Catholic Church, you know, as a whole, I would say, but rarely do we agree on scientific studies and

Starting point is 00:21:37 what is scientific and what is not. I mean, you got to give me that one, folks. Right, right, absolutely. Going back to what we said before about doing this over Zoom, even somebody who's been doing this and really, really, really believes it, right? They have their hand over you. Why bother to do that at all? If you really think you can do this over Zoom, then there's no reason to ever do it in person. And also, why do you need to put your hand close to me if you can do it over Zoom? Right? Why can't you just stand across the room? Like, all of this stuff sort of breaks down. Even the most sort of diehard, rakey believer has to be like,

Starting point is 00:22:08 the Zoom thing is a little bit of a play. I don't know, man. I don't think so. Because you're bringing too much thinky-thinky into this. That's true. Remember, it's energy, man. We're getting energy from the sun from 93 million miles away. I mean, energy is energy.

Starting point is 00:22:22 So if I can push energy seven inches above your body, why can't I push it through the internet to, you know, Miami, Florida? True. Yeah, sure. And it also depends on how good you are, right? So if you're really good, you can do distance healing, according to the Reiki Masters, which includes virtual chakra balancing. Now, as long as we're making list of things to talk about on future skeptical Sunday episodes, chakra is definitely one I want to address. Sure. I've got to, but I'll do my best to kind of summarize what's going on with this distance healing situation. So you basically do it over Zoom or Skype or something. like that. You can do over FaceTime, you know, whatever. Whatever's going to have the best connection for the energy push. And you're right, you would never need to go in person because in order to do this, you're essentially seeing the person and then imagining them receiving the energy and then if they are willing, they can receive the energy because you can send energy to people without their consent. That sounds creepy. Right? It does. They have to be willing to accept

Starting point is 00:23:23 the energy. So if they don't accept it, it'll just bounce off of them and then they're missing out on free healing, bro. So that's part of the issue. The Zoom calls, on average, last about 40 minutes, okay? You basically have to talk about how you're feeling, you do breathing exercises so you can receive the healing. And those in themselves can actually be good for you, right? You're talking about why you need the healing. It's almost therapy, right? You're explaining what's going on, either physically or emotionally or mentally in your body, and you're expressing to another person what's going on. So you're taking note, you're being aware, you're being mindful. All of those things are real, and can help someone feel better.

Starting point is 00:23:59 But once you do that, then you lay down with a mask on or something covering your eyes. You're supposed to, like, put a pillow over your head or some kind of towel, something to block your vision, I guess just to make sure this is as creepy as possible for Dr. Reiki Wizard to look at you. Yeah, no kidding.

Starting point is 00:24:15 While you're not looking at them. And typically all you can hear, and I've actually, I went in read reviews of people who have done distance healing, and they basically just say that all you can hear is the person breathing. Like you just hear a person's breath over and over for 40 minutes. So it's basically like a sound bath but with hot air.

Starting point is 00:24:33 And according to ThriveGlobal.com, which is a holistic healing website for corporations, in order to provide distance healing, the practitioner must, and I quote, use their imagination. Oh man, why didn't I think of that? That's what you're missing, is the imagination. Yeah. So the first step to distance healing is to attune to the Reiki frequency. Of course. I would have to pay $26 to know exactly what that frequency is.

Starting point is 00:24:56 I'm sorry, I can't provide that for today. And then they say it helps you get into a positive emotional state so that you can send positive energy to someone else. But I wonder if it helps, you know, to have good internet or if you have a bad signal if there's some kind of issue. Yeah, yeah. You can't use Google meets. You can use Skype and Zoom only.

Starting point is 00:25:12 There you go. Skype and Zoom. Probably Zoom is going to be the new norm. But they warn you that you're going to see the energy as a white light. So just be sure to imagine them smiling. They say repeatedly as they're teaching you to do this or as they're talking about how this works. It only works if you have the positive energy, if you imagine positive energy, and if you imagine the person smiling. And you'll learn about these symbols and everything in level

Starting point is 00:25:36 two. But the way you do it is you basically visualize the person you're sending Reiki to. You imagine them smiling. And then whatever Reiki symbol you want to send them, you literally just draw the symbol with your finger in the air and it can send it to them through the ether. So you kind of need a photo, right, of the person so you can imagine them smiling or if, in a best case scenario, you're watching them on video and you imagine them smiling as you're sending it to their body. So if you don't have a photo and don't know what they look like and you're only doing this over the phone, the backup backup plan is to then write their name down on a piece of paper while you're talking them on the phone, draw the symbol next to their name, imagine this imaginary person receiving. this and then you charge them $50. This is so simplistic that, and I rarely ever say this, this is almost like if you buy into this, you almost deserve to lose your money at this point. The problem is it goes to a scammer.

Starting point is 00:26:35 That's where I have a problem with it. But that's unbelievable. Yeah. Can you Reiki somebody without them knowing it? Speaking of creepy. You can skedush it their direction. And if they are constantly open, they can receive your scadush. Yeah. But if they are not open, it can bounce off of them. They won't receive the healing, but at least they're staying safe from your non-consensual Reiki pushes. Got it. Also, if you open yourself up to this, and I believe this is part of the Catholic Church's issue with it, what if that Reiki healer has evil intentions? What if they start sending you negative energy? What if they're pretending to be positive, but really they're working

Starting point is 00:27:17 for Satan, and they start pushing negative energy into you, and you're receiving it, think you're getting positive energy. Look, I'm just trying to fight fire with fire here, Jordan. Yeah, tricky, tricky. It seems like maybe you should just stay away from people pushing their energy into you in the first place. It's a colossal waste of money. And I think, like you said, the real danger is with anyone who chooses Reiki over actual medical treatment. So just like with those push-up mats and the rolling sit-up things, diet and exercise, regular healthy diet and exercise is very important. Drink lots of water, eat your veggies, and talk to your doctor about it. But please stay skeptical of Reiki healing.

Starting point is 00:27:54 You're making me rethink my thigh master, Dave. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me, man. You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show with the Godfather of influence, Robert Chaldeen. Of course, as we know from being scammed over and over by everyone online or otherwise, all of these things can be engineered.

Starting point is 00:28:15 And we've talked about that on the show. We've had con men on the show who pull these levers, right? They are levers of influence. They just flick us. switch and we respond automatically. Liking is one of the universal principles of influence. Because it works so well and so broadly across all these situations, there is also something called a horns effect, just as there's a halo effect where everything around you, if you're good looking, if there's something negative about you, people then associate other negative things with you.

Starting point is 00:28:49 So we have to be sure that our first encounters with people are very positive. When you go into a new situation, when you don't know very much about the people that you're dealing with, expect the best from them. That allows you to be generous. And the consequence of being generous hits on three of the principles. First of all, people like you more. Secondly, they reciprocate the generosity with generosity of their own. And when they've done that, when they've given to you, they've made a decision about making a commitment to your partnership.

Starting point is 00:29:33 It's costless, and the other thing it does, besides producing a gift that you're given to people and the obligation to give back that goes with it, you've established yourself as an authority. An authority is another one of the universal principles of influence. Whatever your business is, you give first. For more on Robert Chaldini's universal principles of influence that will turn you into an unstoppable persuasion machine, check out episode 507 on the Jordan Harbinger Show. Really appreciate everyone's attention today. I love doing these skeptical Sunday episodes, a lot of positive feedback from y'all on these.

Starting point is 00:30:14 Some haters, of course, because some people really believe in chemtrails and really believe that they are psychic or whatever. And I can't really do much about that. Now can we. A link to the show notes for the episode can be found at Jordan Harbinger.com. Transcripts are in the show notes. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram or just hit me on LinkedIn. You can find David Smalley at David C. Smalley on all social media platforms at David C. Smalley. or better yet, find him on his podcast, the David C. Smalley Show, links to all that in the show notes as well.

Starting point is 00:30:47 This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogart, Ian Baird, Millio Campo, Josh Ballard, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions, they're our own, and I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer, so do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. Remember, we rise by lifting others. So share the show with those you love. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with somebody else. who needs to hear it. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save

Starting point is 00:31:23 you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like something you should know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast, focused format. Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask, and the topics are all over the place in the best way. Recently, they've covered things like why we care so much what other people think, the benefits of laughter, why sports fans get so invested, and what makes people like you or not. The through line is always the same. Smart ideas you can actually use in real life. Something you should know has been featured in Apple's shows we love, and it's got

Starting point is 00:31:58 thousands of five-star reviews because it's consistently interesting. So if you want another show that scratches that I want to understand how people in the world really work, itch, search for something you should know wherever you get your podcasts. Look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening. You can thank me later.

The Jordan Harbinger Show - 664: Reiki Healing | Skeptical Sunday

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