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Ectoplasm: Ghost Goo · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Why We Do What We Do. I am
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: your ethereally gooey host, Abraham.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: And I'm your gelatinous host, Shane.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: We are a psychology podcast and we are now into
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the month of October, which is where we traditionally record
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: episodes in which we discuss spooky topics. And we do
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: try and tie them back to psychology things as much
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: as we can because we are a And non-human animals
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: do and what ghosts do and leave behind.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, permanent products, baby.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: That's right. And as I said, for the month of October,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: we do spooky theme topics because we can, because it's fun.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: So hopefully you enjoy what you hear in this discussion today.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: And if you're joining us for the first time, then welcome.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Hope you enjoy what we provide to you in this discussion.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: And if you're a returning person, then welcome back. Glad
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: you keep seeking us out for all of your Halloween stuff.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: and spooky topic related needs embedded in the context of
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: psychology nerds. Yes. And either way, if you'd like to
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: support us, you can join us on Patreon, leave us
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: a rating and review, like, subscribe, tell a friend. For
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: a while, we're still doing this thing. And it's also
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: October 14th. So I'm going to wish my friend Nick
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: a happy birthday.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Happy birthday, Nick.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: It's also be bald and be free day.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Free of the need to use shampoo. And Combs. It
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: is Bullying Prevention Day. Indeed.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: It certainly is. It's also Emergency Nurses Day.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: It is International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction. Maybe Prevention?
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Also would be good.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Preparation, maybe? Because I don't think that we're going to
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: stop the Earth. It's International Top Spinning Day. Okay.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: It's National Chocolate-Covered Insects Day. I will not be celebrating that, personally.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: So the way that I pictured it was like ants
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: that had too much chocolate and they just had chocolate
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: all over their face. And they were like, oh, I'm
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: so full of chocolate. And that's a more fun way
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: to think about it.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: That is pretty cute. I like that.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is adorable, right? It's National Dessert Day.
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  Speaker 1: Not desert.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Not desert. Not today.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: That's a different day.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: In the dessert, you might find fossils for National Fossil Day.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Hopefully not, though.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Hopefully not. If you find fossils in your desserts, then
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: there's a different conversation to have there. It is National
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Lowercase Day. And my favorite thing was that this was
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: stylized with the L in lowercase being a lowercase letter.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Love this. Yeah. No capitals today. Nope. All right. National
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Pet Obesity Awareness Day. It was also just recently Fat
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Bear Week, so... That's true.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Backpack one. So congratulations to Backpack the Bear, which is
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: a great name for a bear. And I love him.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: Or her. I can't remember.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Whatever.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, whatever. Happy Fat Bear Week. It is Spider-Man Day.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Nice. Love it.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Love it.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: It is Stem Cell Awareness Day. Mm-hmm.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. It is Thank Your Cleaner Day.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: I do. I do indeed. I mean, that's mostly me,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: but indeed. It is World Standards Day.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: It is. And apropos for this episode, it is Biology Week.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Oh, indeed. And also apropos of this episode is Bone
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: and Joint Health Action Week.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: It certainly is. It is Earth Science Week.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Perfect. That also apropos of our topic today, although antagonistically.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: It is Meditation Week. Yes.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Yes, it is. It's also a mediation week, which was
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: really fun to put these two together.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, I thought maybe that was a typo. Nope.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: It's a meditation on mediation. It's meditation and mediation week.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: I was like, as I was writing that, I went,
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  Speaker 2: this is fun. I'm including this because I have to.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Fair.
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  Speaker 2: And it's also National Case Management Week, which is perfect
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: for National Lowercase Day.
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  Speaker 1: That could, man, that could mean so many things. I
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  Speaker 1: just got it. Sorry. It took me a second. That
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  Speaker 1: was a little thinker. Okay. Good one. I thought you'd
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, no, that was perfect. All right, well,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: we don't just discuss holidays as amusing as we find
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: that exercise to be. But we are here instead to
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: talk about some spooky things. And in this episode, we
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: will be learning what Dan Aykroyd, Sherlock Holmes, Harry Houdini,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: and MKUltra all have in common. As a little hint,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: it has to do with ectoplasm.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I wanted to ask you before we kind
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: of got into the episode proper, I mean, I Do
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: you remember the term ectoplasm from when we were kids?
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: I feel like that came up a lot because of, like,
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Ghostbusters and, like, spooky things.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Sure, sure.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: What was your thought or experience around it? I mean,
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: we've already kind of established that neither of us believe
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: in ghosts, but, like, what is your... Like, I mean,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: to me, it sounds so scientific.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I do think... It exists in the
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: sphere of people attempting to treat this as a natural phenomenon,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: because my understanding of this, I think the places that
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: it's been used, where I have interacted with this word.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: are places where it was basically like an offhand comment
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  Speaker 1: treated as like, well, we just know this is a thing.
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  Speaker 1: And so we just talk about it as if it's
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: a real thing without any need to describe it very
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: thoroughly because context will paint the picture for you. And
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: the picture that it paints is that this is like
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  Speaker 1: a residue left behind by ghostly revenants is how I
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: understood this to be. So it's like, I think it's
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: always depicted as being somewhat slimy. Often a sort of
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: effervescent shimmering gossamer sort of sparkly clear or greenish bluish color,
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  Speaker 1: but very, very light color. It's translucent to the point
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: of being almost transparent, almost like a jelly-like oil. Yeah.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: And it's relative transparency and viscosity. Yeah.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: I was trying to think about this because when it
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: came up for me, I was thinking, like, where did
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: I get this from? Like, where did I learn this?
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: What do I know this from? And then I just realized, like,
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: I just used to watch Ghostbusters all the time.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: I think that was my first interaction with it. Yeah. Yeah.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Like Ghostbusters 2 is probably one of my favorite movies ever.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: And it's because it's so ridiculous. And because the entire
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: movie is, it just deals with slime the whole time.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Like that is the premise of the movie is like
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: emotional slime.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It looks like a river of Pepto-Bismol. Yeah.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: River of Pepto-Bismol. And then also, I guess like a
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: cannibal witch warlock thing. So anyway, as we were kind
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: of getting into spooky season, I wanted to talk about ectoplasm.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: So that's where this episode comes from.
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  Speaker 1: Very fun. Yeah. Well, all right, let's do this. We
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: need to start by defining our terms, of course.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Because we're dealing with natural phenomenon, as it were. So
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: what is ectoplasm? Well... As I was sort of alluding to,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: it is the outer relatively rigid, granule-free layer of the cytoplasm,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: usually held to be a gel reversibly converted to a sol.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: That's a lot of fancy science terms. So, I figured
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: this would be a good space to kind of define
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: our terms further.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do biology.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do a little bit of biology here, babies.
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  Speaker 2: So cytoplasm, as Abraham said, is the thick jelly-like fluid
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  Speaker 2: that fills the inside of a cell and surrounds the
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  Speaker 2: internal structures.
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  Speaker 1: And this is a real thing. We're now discussing something
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  Speaker 1: well-established and understood inside of biology. Cytoplasm is a very
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: real thing that exists in your body, human being who's
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: listening to this.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and also to be clear, ectoplasm is also a
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  Speaker 2: very real thing that exists in your body as part
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: of your cellular biology.
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  Speaker 1: Right. Very good. Yeah. So this cytoplasm piece, there's a
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  Speaker 1: sol piece, and this is a colloid or a colloid, sorry,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: biology people, made out of tiny solid particles in a
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: continuous liquid medium. Yes. So we have cytoplasm and we
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: have sol.
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  Speaker 2: And then because we have colloid or colloid, that is
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: a mixture in which one substance consisting of microscopically dispersed
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: insoluble particles is suspended throughout another substance. So it's like
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: kind of like a substance within a substance, kind of
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: like what you might see with oil and vinegar or
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: oil and water and how like those substances can kind
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: of like be intertwined, but they are still separate. That's
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: what a colloid is.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: As far as I understood it.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: We have a plasmid. turducken going on right now.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of things happening here.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay. All right, so here's what we learned in
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: preparing for this episode. In addition to all the biology
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: sort of mechanisms we just described, one of those, as
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: you said earlier, is that ectoplasm is a real biological thing.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: And it was something that we always thought was made
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: up for the stories about ghosts, particularly in Ghostbusters. But
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: for better or for worse, this is a real term
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: with a real biological basis. It would be fun if
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: it was purely a fantastical term. And it would also
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: be fun, I think, if it was a purely biological one.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: But it is a real event in biology, a real
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: phenomenon in biology that was appropriated to the telling of
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: stories about ghosts in a whimsical setting.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Yes. And my favorite thing that we're going to get
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: into right now, which is a little bit of the history,
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: is that the term being adopted by the psychic world
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: also has its basis in science and scientific inquiry. Sweet.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: This is a really fun, fun story. So let's start
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: with ectoplasm as we know it in the supernatural world, right?
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: So ectoplasm has a secondary definition that is more relevant
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: to paranormal activity, which is that it is a substance
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: held to produce spirit materialization and telekinesis. Basically, what it is,
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: is it's the leftover residue from the interaction of some
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: paranormal event, some type of ghost interaction, usually found in
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: seances through the medium that is Like channeling the ghost
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: or the spirit. And that's usually where we talk about this.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: It's like some residue or leftover product from some type
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: of ghostly interaction.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: I wonder if any mediums ever use something like a
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: fog machine. Where they mix just a little bit of
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: oil in with it. Or something where when they pump
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: it into the room, if it's very light, it'll slowly
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: cover things and make it seem slimy. So it feels
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: like it's sort of a real... like experience you're having.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: If you're there, like someone who's supposed to be commuting
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: with the dead right there in the room with you. Yeah.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: I didn't read anything about them doing that, but there are,
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: there are some unique tips and tricks that do come
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: up that I think are going to be a lot
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: of fun as we kind of like talk about how
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: people do that. But first in order to understand that
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: you have to buy my book on ectoplasm through this ad.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: All right, we're back. As we were talking about before,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: there is ectoplasm in real biology, and then this was
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: co-opted or appropriated in the circles of those who want
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: to try and bring some level of scientific rigor to
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: ghosts by invoking this concept to explain how ghosts would
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: materialize into the sort of real world. It was coined
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: in 1894 by Psychical Researcher, which is not a thing.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Charles Richet, I'm going to say. Maybe it was Richet.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: I think it was Richet. He's French.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Richet. And I guess to be fair, there are
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: people who call themselves psychical researchers. There is not a
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: real phenomenon that they investigate, but there are people out there. Anyway,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: so like we want to do, here's a quick little
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: piece about Richet.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think Richer was reluctantly called a psychical researcher
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: because he did coin the term. Because Charles Richer was
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: a French physiologist, and he actually won a... Well, so
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: it is an interesting thing. I think that the spiritual
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: medium space started calling him a psychical researcher, but I
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: don't think that was his bag. So he was a
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: French physiologist and actually won a Nobel Peace Prize for
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: his work on anaphylaxis. He essentially discovered the processes by
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: which people go into anaphylactic shock and how to address it.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: He also discovered the drug chloralose with Maurice Henriot, which
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: is a drug used for anesthesia at the time, at
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: least it was. And he was also the author and
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: had written books on history, sociology, philosophy, theater, and poetry.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: And if that wasn't enough, he was a leading researcher
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: in aviation. So like he was also, yeah, he was
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: like somebody who was just, I think, a scientist through
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: and through.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like it. And to be fair with
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: my comments about psychical researchers, there was a period of
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: time where like we, because we didn't really know very much,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: like astrology and astronomy were basically the same thing for
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: a while where it was like the study of heavenly
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: bodies that eventually became more scientific in one branch and
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: less scientific in another. Yeah. Or you even think of
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: like early, early science on trying to understand human behavior
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: invoked a lot of mysticism around like energy forces that
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: propelled us around. And so while those people were doing
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: their version of science at the time, then like there
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: was a less clear defining boundary between objective natural phenomenon
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: and pontificating about– supernatural phenomenon. But this does seem like
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: someone who was doing a lot of really important actual science.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: So in his spare time, I'm just kidding. This is
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: part of his work. While on a scientific expedition on
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: the French coast, he and his research team extracted a
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: toxin from a sea creature, unnamed sea creature, known as
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: a hynotoxin. These are often produced by Portuguese man o' wars,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: those giant scary, well, not giant, but the scary jellyfish, Also,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: I see an enemy, which you do not want to
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: step on. And he started injecting dogs with the toxin
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: to observe the reactions. And we will not approve of,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: but we'll also understand that that was a common thing
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: people did back then. And he noticed that the toxin
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: had less and less effect with these injections. And ta-da,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: we learned that you can develop a tolerance effect. Yeah.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Basically, he was injecting dogs. The first reaction was pretty brutal.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: And then the more he would inject the dogs as
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: they went on, they developed a tolerance. And here we
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: are now in the space of looking at anaphylaxis and
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: what that looks like. So he kind of started– that's
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: where he started. But before this– Wow. Because this was
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: in 1901, 1902. Before this, he did take an interest
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: in parapsychology and paranormal research. In particular, he was interested
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: in extrasensory perception and hypnosis– So he started hanging out
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: with occultists and spiritualists to learn more. And just as
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: a quick note, I think this is really important because
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: everything I've read about this guy seems to suggest that
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: he is a scientist and just curious by nature. So
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: I get it. how somebody who is curious by nature
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: ends up talking to occultists, because you're just trying to
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: learn about people and these phenomenon and stuff, and you're
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: engaging in scientific inquiry. And I think that's what was
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: going on with Charles Roche. I think he was just curious,
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: and he wanted to learn everything, which I think is
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: evidenced by all the books that he wrote. And so
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: I don't think that he is a particularly nonsensical person. Like,
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: I didn't get that vibe from reading about him. He
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: didn't seem like somebody who was kind of like, a
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: scientist who went off the deep end and just started
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: hanging out with like Alistair Crowley and all that. And
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: I think the thing that I would say is like,
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: If you want to kind of see how this goes,
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: look at us. Like, instead of hanging out with a cultist,
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: we're just doing the research on the podcast. And the
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: podcast has covered so many different things. So, like, it's
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: just kind of one of those things where curiosity leads you.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: And I think that's kind of like he was in
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: that world, you know?
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: That makes sense. I mean, there was no Google back then.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: And although there were some books, I think, like, a
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: lot of ways that you would learn would be, like,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: to go experience it firsthand. And I think also, like...
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: You take, for example, SETI, a real group of actual
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: scientists who are interested in seeing, like, can we detect
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: any actual signatures of alien life out in the universe?
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: And they are doing real science to see, like, can
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: we find these things? They're not the ones who are
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: saying there are UFOs floating among our heads all the time.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: They don't. as far as I know, generally take the
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: position that we have never been visited by any extraterrestrial life,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: but there are, using the general Fermi paradox and Drake equations,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: assuming that there is life out in the universe, how
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: would we detect that it's there? And they want to
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: look around and see what kind of evidence might exist.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: So anyway, point being that they're also going to get
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: mixed up with the people who are more leaning toward
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: the believer side of like they're, they exist and they're
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: among us. They're here now already or have been right.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: And that anyway, I guess I'm just, I'm, I have
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: an appreciation for the fact that like, it's going out
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: to learn whatever you can learn may include looking at
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: places where there are people who say things that are like,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: it's a little out there, but yeah, let's see what
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: you have to say.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Just go ask the guy in the robes
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: and see what happens.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Anyway, that was a big side tangent. Ectoplasm. We're supposed
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: to be talking about ghost goo. Yes. So this came
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: about because Ruscha believed that psychic activities could be explained
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: through physical and natural means, that being, in this particular case, ectoplasm.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: And again, we're trying to look at, like, are there
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: natural phenomenon out there? If there are natural phenomenon out there,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: then they're not supernatural phenomenon, for one thing. But if
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: there are natural phenomenon out there, then we can detect
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: them in one capacity. And to be fair, there's lots
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: of things that at the time They couldn't necessarily detect.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: There was like we just barely had an understanding of radiation.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: And like even though that had always existed, we were
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: just now detecting it. Um, we also were just like
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: coming into a better understanding of like how bacteria and
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: diseases worked. And I think also we didn't quite even
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: really know what vitamins were yet at the time that
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: he was doing this. Like there was a lot, we
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: were still learning about things that we couldn't observe. Yeah.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Point being, if we assume that there are things out
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: there that we can't yet see, but have an effect,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: maybe ghosts are one of them, a way that they
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: potentially could exist is by understanding what biological underpinnings would
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: explain the their existence. And in practice, a practicing medium
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: would expel ectoplasm as a result of engagement in these
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: psychic activities, wherein they're actually interacting with ghosts. An important
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: point is that he did not believe this was anything
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: related to spirits and rejected spiritual relations outright. Rather, he
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: subscribed to what could be described as sort of the
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: sixth sense hypothesis, which is that ectoplasm is the result
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: of extrasensory perception.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so basically what he was doing is he was
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: going and meeting with spiritualists and mediums and kind of
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: seeing what they were doing during seances and finding that
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: they were expelling some materials as they were doing the interactions.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: And there were lots of different ways this showed up,
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: and we'll talk about that in a second. But mediums
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: would lock themselves in cabinets, and then they would suddenly
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: have these fabrics that didn't exist there, and they were
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: covered in this goop or this slime. There was always
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: kind of this thing. So he was kind of curious
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: about this process, and it was essentially that— whenever mediums
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: would do something that was extrasensory, like when they would
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: do these activities, they would expel some type of thing
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: from their orifices. It was never like on their skin
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: as like through their pores mostly. It was like coming
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: out of their nose and their ears and sometimes their genitals.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: So they would do these things and he was trying
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: to study that. So for those of you who don't know,
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: because again, Ruscha was interested in extrasensory perception Extrasensory perception
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: is ESP, or cryptesthesia, as best I can say that.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: That makes sense to me.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it refers to the ability to receive information
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: not through physical senses, but instead through your mind. So
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: your mind acts like an antenna and receives information through
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: those other means. And at the time that he was
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: studying this, there were people that were obsessed with this.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: And for the next few decades, obsessed with... you know,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: psychic activities, psychic practices. And we'll talk a little bit
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: about what that looks like too. But there are like
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: these really cool cards. As a matter of fact, in Ghostbusters,
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: when Peter Venkman is doing some of his psychic tests,
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: he's using some of the cards that were used in
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: like the 20s and 30s to test ESP for people.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: The ones that had like the star and the square
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: and the squiggly lines, if you remember that scene.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: I do.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: That was like an actual test for psychic readings.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Do you remember him saying that he was using negative
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: reinforcement to test for psychic ability? Yes. Yes, I do. Yeah. Yep.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: It's also wrong. Yes. Yeah. That's not in any way,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: shape or form. Correct. But, um, I was giggling a
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: lot as Shane's explaining this because I'm thinking like people
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: who are discharging fluids from their orifices. And I was like,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: you know, actually, now that I think about it, most
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: of our orifices, orifici, orifices, they discharge fluid. That's kind
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: of what they do.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: That's what all of our holes do.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's gross.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: It's gross. And like, yeah, humans are gross and sticky.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: It's funny to think about that. It's like, I like
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: this person is just drooling and they're like, that's ectoplasm.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: And it's like, no, that's just saliva, my buds. Oh,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: that's an infection. You should go get looked at.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Oh, no. Yeah, yeah. And then all the other things
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: that discharge things. Anyway, the discharge of a podcast is
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: called an ad.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Go get that checked out.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: All right, we're back. We've been talking about lots of things.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is like, I mean, we knew this was
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: going to be a gross episode in terms of like
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: what we were talking about, but I didn't expect to
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: land where we landed. Yeah.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, mostly I think where we actually were trying
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: to land was this idea that our minds allow us
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: to sort of interact with the world in these unique ways,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: this sort of extrasensory perception thing, and that that allows
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: us to potentially summon ectoplasm, which comes out of our orifices. Uh-huh.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: The whole point here was that we can understand this
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: through science.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, let's get into kind of like
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: where this goes, right? So, at the time this is happening,
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: there are these psychics, there are these mediums, there are
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: these spiritualists that are supposedly expelling ectoplasm. So, Richer, Charles Richer,
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: coins this term ectoplasm, which just means outside plasm, essentially
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: is what it means. Now, the use of the term
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: has since evolved beyond and continued to evolve beyond Richer's
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: belief in what it meant and what it was, and
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: it kind of took a life of its own inside
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: of paranormal research. So, in current paranormal research, ectoplasm is
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: studied as a means for spiritualists to make direct contact
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: with otherworldly spirits. So, essentially what it is … When
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: the spiritualist or the psychic, whoever it is, when they
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: expel ectoplasm, they have a physical means to make direct
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: contact with whatever that entity is. So that ectoplasm is
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: supposed to be like a conduit or a means for
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: whatever that spiritual entity or whatever it is they're trying
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: to touch is. Like now they can interact with the
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: real world. So it's either the medium expels it or
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: the ghost expels it. But whatever it is, now we've
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: got a conduit to the real world for that spiritual entity.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: And if you're a person who you might be one
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: of these psychical type of researchers, paranormal researchers, et cetera,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: the evidence of ectoplasm may be found on solid objects
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: in the research, in the physical environment, right? And used
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: as evidence by these people to explain interactions between the
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: living and the ghosts, the dead, I guess. There's this
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: great humorous example of this in the Ghostbusters movie when
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Bill Murray's character is slimed by the large green character
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: who apparently is somebody's body after they died. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: That turned into this weird amorphous blob that is green. Anyway,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: they call him Slimer. Yeah. And he is slimed by
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Slimer and there's this quick exchange. He's lying on the
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: floor because in the movie he's like, ah, and the
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: camera's charging at him. Presumably it's the ghost. The camera
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: finds him and he's laying on the floor. He's covered
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: in a lot of goo. And the character Ray, played
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: by Dan Aykroyd, runs over and says, Venkman, what happened?
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Are you okay? And Peter Venkman responds, he slimed me.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: And Ray says, that's great. Actual physical contact. That was
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: my best Dan Aykroyd impression in the moment from the movie, yeah.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: And it's great. And it's one of those things where, like,
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: it is that thing where, you know, because I think
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: people think that Ghostbusters are, like, action heroes, but, like,
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: people forget that they're all scientists. Like, they're all doctors.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're nerds.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: They're all, yeah. They were literally kicked out of the
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: college because they were studying paranormal things, but they're all doctors.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: They're all scientists, with Bill Murray being the, like, Peter
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Venkman being, like, the skeptic of the group, and Egon being, like,
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: the data person. But Ernie, I'm sorry, Winston, The guy
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: that comes in later is like the everyman that's like,
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: I just need a job. And he's like the foil.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: He's supposed to be us, you know, going like, what
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: are we doing here? But Ray is the super nerd.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: And the big believer.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: The big believer and also like the one that is
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: like wants to collect specimens and do all that and
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: really get into it. So that's why it's so funny
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: that he's so excited that Peter was slimed, you know? So...
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: Then that brings up the question, what does ectoplasm actually
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: look like? What does it look like in our world?
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Not in the movie world, but our world. Well, so far,
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: when people report it, it varies in consistency. In some instances,
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: it could be thicker and more viscous, like a jello.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: Some have described it as being fabric-like. Sometimes there's threads
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: and stuff like that, too, where it's almost like gauze
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: or cheesecloth. And in some cases, in most cases, it's
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: described as gelatinous or jelly-like, sometimes carrying a strong odor,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: often not pleasant, maybe stinky, but sometimes it'll have an
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: odor as well.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: So someone's sweat, basically.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, yeah.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Cool. So Arthur Conan Doyle, who you may recognize as
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: the creator of Sherlock Holmes... described ectoplasm as, quote, a
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: viscous gelatinous substance which appeared to differ from every known
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: form of matter and that it could solidify and be
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: used for material purposes, end quote. Very descriptive of him. Interestingly,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: I know many people probably know this already, but Sir
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Arthur Conan Doyle It's interesting. So Sherlock always sort of
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: undermines these fantastical explanations for things. Well, ironically or coincidentally,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was very big into spiritualism and
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: very much believed in mediums and communicating with the dead
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: and in supernatural things. It's actually one of the things
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: that I feel like I recall that it was him,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: and I want to say Harry Houdini, who actually kind
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: of got in a fight about it, because Harry Houdini
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: found it extremely disrespectful the way that mediums attempted to
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: sort of erase his memory of his mother who had
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: passed and replace them with sort of their own fantastical
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: bull crap. And I mean, it's one of the actually
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: the things that's interesting about magicians is they tend to
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: be the best at spotting frauds because a lot of
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: frauds use the same tricks as magicians. And so magicians
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: were finding pretty quickly like, oh, the medium's doing this
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: classic version of this magic trick. But they're presenting it
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: as if it were real magic and bringing people sort
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: of false hope, false emotions, erasing their real memories and
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: replacing them with false ones of their loved ones and
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: saw that as very dishonest. And there was a great
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: documentary actually called Honest Liars about magicians for that reason. Yeah. Anyway,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: so funny thing about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, big believer
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: while his character was a big skeptic. Yeah.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: And I'm so glad you brought up Houdini because he's
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: about to make an appearance in this. So now we've
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: got Dan Aykroyd, right? Going back to our initial, like,
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: how are we tying these people together? We got Dan Aykroyd.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: We've got Sherlock Holmes. And now let's get into how
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: Harry Houdini shows up in this as the skeptic, as
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: the person who's like got the, you know, he's the
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: person that we want to follow in this space, right?
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: Perfect.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: So let's talk about how entoplasm is studied. So I
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: went and dug into the research. I went to the
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: academic literature. And the answer is that it wasn't.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Sure. Yeah, not at least the spiritual space.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, not in the spiritual space, right? So, most often
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: ectoplasm was used as grifts, like in grifts, as evidence,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: the quote-unquote evidence, that a spiritualist or medium made contact
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: with the dead. And oftentimes, they would use some sleight-of-hand
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: process or something, some trick, to actually trick grieving families
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: into believing they'd been communing with their loved ones during seances. So, essentially...
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: The reason the ectoplasm became as popular as it did
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: in the early 1900s was because mediums would use it
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: as a grift.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You have people paying you to communicate with their
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: past loved ones and for evidence to have them feel
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: good about that investment and recommend that other people come
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: to you for your services, et cetera. You want to
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: leave them with something a little bit tangible. And so
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: as evidence of your ability to having interacted with someone
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: who is dead, there might be some physical residue. Enter ectoplasm.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: But again, this is a part of it. trick intended
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: to convince a paying audience to continue paying and send
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: other people to pay as well. Well, of course, as
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: I mentioned, magicians see right through this kind of thing
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: because it's basically just a magic trick. It's just a
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: sleight of hand trick, little gimmicks, little things where they
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: They misrepresent, misdirect, and otherwise like look over here while
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: they're spraying the room with goo. No, that's how they'd
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: actually do it. But like it is the misdirection and
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: sleight of hand thing. And Houdini was able to answer
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: the question of how ectoplasm was expelled during seances, which
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: is quite simple, regurgitation. Many spiritualists or mediums would swallow
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: tightly wadded cloths, clothes, maybe sometimes bloodstained, and then regurgitate
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: items during their connection with spirits. Spiritualist Mrs. Helen Duncan
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: was famous for expelling nearly 12 feet of fabric from
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: her body during one seance. So they'd pull this out
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: of the air, essentially. A very common way that seances
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: would happen is that people would Close their eyes, right?
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: They close their eyes to communicate with the dead. And
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: while this is happening, they could be pulling stuff out
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: of their mouth. And there are actually quite a few
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: regurgitation magic tricks. Feel free to Google it if you
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: have a strong stomach. Yeah. Because you can see them.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: They've done some remarkable things with regurgitation as a magic trick.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: magic trick quote-unquote it's like it's you're storing stuff in
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: your body um but it means it comes out covered
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: in your like the goo that's inside you which is
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: going to be things like saliva bile possibly stomach acid
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: if it was down there far enough it's gonna have
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: an odor yeah it's definitely gonna smell bad and so
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: they pull this out and so it's covered they might
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: have this bloody rag presumably belonging to someone or maybe
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: stained with some coloring or something Or they bled while
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: pulling it out of their body. That would definitely sell it.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: But this thing that they pull out of their body,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: and then it's covered in goo, and they're like, oh, yeah,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: that's because it's ghost goo. They're like, why is this
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: thing all wet? They're like, ghosts. Ghosts.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: I like the idea of them panicking and then just
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: blurting that out. Ghosts. So essentially, this is what they
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: would do. They would regurgitate these, they would keep them
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: stored in their orifices in some situations, and they would
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: do this. And when they actually went so far, people
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: did go and test the fluids that they were finding,
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: the ectoplasm they were finding, and they gathered them from
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: some of these events. They went and did a chemical
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: analysis and actually found physical or biological origins of substances.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: It was like, oh, this is from a human. Like
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: this is from a stomach. This is stomach acid. This
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: is saliva. This is some mucus, right? They were able
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: to find that stuff. And to date, to date, like
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: as of 2026, there is no verifiable evidence that ectoplasm
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: in the form of spiritual connections or like any sort
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: of paranormal sense, it actually exists. Like it's never been discovered.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: It's never been proven. Everything that's ever been tested has
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: been found to have some type of like physical biological
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: origin that we are able to tie directly back to
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: those environments.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Right, because ectoplasm does exist in the biological sense. It
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: plays an important role in cellular makeup. It just doesn't
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: exist in this ghost sense. Zero evidence. It's not little evidence.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: It is zero evidence. None evidence.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: It's literally zero evidence.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: And although people like to say a lack of evidence
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: is not evidence of absence, I would say, yes, it is.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Like that is actually exactly what that is. Now, to
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: be fair, like there are things where we have not
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: detected something yet that we might in the future. But
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: in this case, we and many other cases where this
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: has been something we've looked for, we have looked for
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: it and not found it. That is evidence of absence.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: I think I messed up the saying. It's like absence
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: of evidence is not evidence of absence. That's, as we
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: discussed in a previous episode, an anti-metabolism. And as I said, yes,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: it is. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Yes.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: So anyway, as we mentioned, ectoplasm in actual biology is
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: a real thing. It's important in cellular makeup. The existence
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: of ectoplasm aids in cellular movements as other structure interactions
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: inside the gel-like structure allows cells to navigate their environments,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: move through them. So again, biology real. Ghost goo, not real.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: Ghost goo, not real. Also very real. Ads. Ads. Okay,
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: so we're talking about ectoplasm, and we're talking about what
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: this looks like, and we have established that at this
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: point in time, paranormal ectoplasm does not exist. So let's
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: go ahead and keep talking about the scientific part of this.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: We actually had a hard time finding academic literature on
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: this because it doesn't exist, okay? But here's the thing.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: We do need to talk about how ectoplasm, how it
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: emerged and how it was used in this space because
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: there is a science behind this, right? How people kind
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: of took this term, It became this behavioral phenomenon for
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: a little bit. And I want to unpack that for
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: just a little bit because I think that this is
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: so important when we talk about the cultural selection and
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: operant selection pieces of the use of ectoplasm and its
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: practical applications.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: You see, I knew we'd get it back to psychology somehow.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: It's always going to get there, baby.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: It's going to get there. We're going to get there.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: So there was an emerging culture of ghost slash paranormal
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: interest in the 19th and 20th centuries for reasons we'll
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: get into in just a second. People were particularly interested
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: in ghosts and phenomenon related to ghosts. In many, if
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: not most, if not all cases, ghosts of someone they
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: know specifically. This is oftentimes a loved one, maybe also friends,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: but people that they have an emotional connection to. They
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: were also interested in psychic phenomenon to the extent that
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: the United States government commissioned research on psychic warfare through
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: their MKUltra program. I believe Russia also conducted some experiments
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: looking into psychic abilities in warfare.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: The movie Men Who Stare at Goats is based off
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: of these endeavors. And this is the federal government funding
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: real research to try and look into the existence and
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: exploitation of psychic phenomenon. The Nazis actually famously looked into
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of this. They also believed they could unlock
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: these psychic phenomena. telekinesis and other psychic abilities and could
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: interact with ghosts. This is like a thing the military
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: has done in many instances and places around the world
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: where they think we can leverage the other worlds. And, like,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: these paranormal phenomenon for military benefit. Yeah. And paid for
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: this with, like, lots of money.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: Lots of money. Lots and lots of money. So, yeah,
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was one of those things where there
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: was a period of time where we were obsessed with
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: the paranormal, the mind, all of those things, right? Like,
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: that's this from early 1900s. I mean, for decades, decades.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: This isn't, like, a one-and-done, like, you know, fidget spinners
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: type of thing. This was something that they really spent...
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: A lot of time and a lot of interest in.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: And so with this worldwide cultural obsession in the paranormal
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: activity and cults and all that stuff, occultists, spiritualism, all
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: of it stands to reason that members of society would
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: take up an interest for profit. because people like to
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: make money. So you've got this kind of like phenomenon
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: occurring that people are going to find a way to
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: make money. And simply put, people found a way to
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: make money. And so they used it through palm readings, seances,
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: like some things they had like actual traditional values somewhere
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: along the way. Like, these are not things that people
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: just made up on the spot. Like, these do come
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: from practices that are sometimes religious practices that people engage in,
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: but people took it, they bastardized it, they made profit
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: off of it, and then here we are sitting in
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: seance rooms where people throwing up bibs and stuff. So,
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: that's how we get here.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so the why part of this is... In part,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: like for the people who are claiming to interact with
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: the ghost is they get paid for doing so. Yeah.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: For the people who are paying researchers to look into
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: paranormal phenomenon is because for them it's a defense thing.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: It is the idea that like no idea is too
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: stupid that we won't throw money at it. to see
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: if we can leverage it for military advantage. And the
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: other aspect of this for the people who are also
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: paying money to the people who would be the interaction
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: between them and the spiritual world is an emotional one.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: Like what would often happen as spiritualist mediums, these are
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: going to prey on people who are in need. Most often,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: these spiritualists hosting seance services would reach out to grieving
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: family members who want to hear from their deceased loved ones.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: And they would then employ these parlor tricks. They're just
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: magic tricks, throwing their voices, moving furniture, strange noises, an
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: ectoplasm to convince their customers that they were in fact
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: in communication with their loved ones. And so the, for the,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: the why of it, for the people who want to
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: believe this, who are like seeking out this contact, it is,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: it is because they are, they're grieving. They're sad. They're like,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: they miss the people in their lives. And someone is
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: offering them the chance to have something important to them
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: that they lost come back to them in some way, shape,
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: or form. And that can be very appealing to someone
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: who's desperate and depressed. I mean, losing a spouse, a parent,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: a sibling, a child, God forbid, like you might want
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: to have some way to communicate with them. And as
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: we mentioned before, the blurred line between science and paranormal,
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: particularly a century and a half ago, meant that there
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: seems like a very real thing that could happen. And
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: also the blurred line between the paranormal and religion was
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: also kind of the same thing. So people would seek
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: the relief by praying to gods, but it was not
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: out of the realm of possibility that someone else could
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: help them Now, to be fair, I think with most
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Christian religions, they tend to eschew the idea that anyone
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: other than the clergy could help you communicate with the
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: other world. But in many other versions of religions around
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: the world, the people who were the part of the
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: church were also the people who would communicate with the dead. Right.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: Then the medium is like, well, I'm not going to
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: let you down here. And so then they would do
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: basically magic tricks to make it seem as if that
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: is exactly what had happened. And one of the tools
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: that they would use is ectoplasm. Yeah.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: So basically what we're saying here at the end of
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: this episode to kind of wrap up and like put
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: this all put it into a nice, neat little package
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: for you is that ectoplasm in the paranormal sense does
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: exist as part of a grift. And grifts only exist
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: because people want to make money and people make money
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: important because of capitalism. So ghosts exist because of capitalism
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: and war, I think, and more and more and more.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: But like, yeah, it is. It is one of those
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: things like the term ectoplasm was co-opted by people who
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: were using it to take advantage of people. I mean,
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: that's essentially what it came down to. And, you know,
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: it's unfortunate because Richard, I'm sorry, Charles Richet, I was like,
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: I was getting his name mixed up. I was going
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: to call him Richard Charchet. That is not his name.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: Charles Richet, like, it's unfortunate because I think he gets
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: lumped in with this group of people. And that was not,
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: to me, his original intention. His original intention was curiosity
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: and understanding. And that term just got kind of, it
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: got away from him and turned into a thing that
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: was really, you know, became problematic for a lot of people.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We do have some interesting tidbits, which are just
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: things we like to throw at the end of these discussions. Uh-huh. Yeah.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: We mentioned Dan Aykroyd. He is great. Love Dan Aykroyd.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: In Ghostbusters, he was Ray, was the character's name. He
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: comes from a long line of family members who were
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: paranormal researchers. He describes himself as a fourth generation spiritualist.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: His father wrote a book called The History of Ghosts. Yeah.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Fantastic comedian. I still very much like him. And I
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: did know this about him that I think one of
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: the things that attracted him to the movie of Ghostbusters
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: was the opportunity to sort of showcase this thing and
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: treat it as if it were real, even though he
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: knew he was it was being done for sort of
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: comedy and for laughs because he was also a comedian.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: So like it makes a lot of sense that he
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: would he would approach it in that way. But he
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: is a true believer, at least was, and we think
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: probably still is. But yeah, he comes from a long
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: line of family members who do the ghost thing.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. His character is very much so him. Like,
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: people don't realize that. That's like super special interest about ghosts,
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: has a long history of it, studies it. Like, that's
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: his thing. It's super interesting. Now, as I was doing
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: my research, I also learned that some mediums would actually
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: host erotic seances. And those were for those people who
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: are more interested in more intimate ghost interactions. And I
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: thought that was kind of an interesting thing to think about. Like,
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: of course, I mean, we're always going to find some
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: version of whatever's happening in a sexy space. But yeah,
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: there's erotic seances if you wanted to attend one of those.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Boy, that found... This seems like a space you could
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: get into very dangerous waters with essentially lack of consent
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: where people are being tricked into doing sexual things they
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: might not have otherwise chosen to do. I think– I
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: suppose as long as everyone who's going into this is
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: very clear about what they're getting themselves into, I wouldn't
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: have a problem with it. But I feel like there
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: is a very murky space in here where a level
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: of sort of manipulation and coercion could be happening that
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: makes me feel a little uncomfortable. So– I would generally discourage,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: I think, the idea of this unless you've very well
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: understood that you're going into a situation where this is
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: with someone else. who maybe is pretending to be someone
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: else or doing things on their behalf and just be
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: on the up and up about who's doing what here
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: and what they represent and their role in that interaction.
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I just want to leave it with that, I think.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: That makes me a little uncomfortable to be thinking about
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: people manipulating others in that way. But I mean, if
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: you want to go in and have like a sexual
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: ghost party and that's just sort of the theme and
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: like whatever, like you do you, boo. Yeah. But I'm
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: not going to... I feel like I would be a
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: little worried about people who are coercing others into doing
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: stuff by making them believe something that's not true so
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: that they could. I don't know. It just feels like
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: it could be, it could grow a smirky territory. Yeah. Yeah.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: It's yeah. It's not a great, it's not a great
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: space for sure. But it was one thing that I
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: was just kind of like, I never, I never would
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: have thought. And I guess it's like that whole thing, like,
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: you know, truth is stranger than fiction. Like I never
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: would have pictured or thought of a sexy seance. And
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: here we are. So like, that is a thing that exists.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: It doesn't surprise me terribly, I guess, but, um, Yeah.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I'd also don't want to like yuck
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: anyone's yum if that's like a thing that they're into. Um,
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: but I just, I would, I would be cautious I
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: think in that space.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Educate yourself.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would be cautious about listening to
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: ads in a podcast. All right, we are back. I
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: think we have said what we have to say about ectoplasm.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: How do I summarize this? Ectoplasm is real in biology.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Ectoplasm is not real with respect to ghosts. But there
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: were people who would regurgitate stuff that'd be covered in
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: their own bile, and they would call that ectoplasm. And
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: they maybe used other things to try and wet objects
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: to make them ectoplasmy in the opportunistic way that they
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: would then get people's money and say that they're interacting
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: with the dead. But that's what it is.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: I think you summarized it perfectly.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: Thanks. If you're joining us for the first time at
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: the very end of our discussions, we recommend some things
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: that are usually unrelated to our topic at hand, which
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: is the case today. So stick around after these brief
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: credits and acknowledgments and requests, I guess. and we'll get
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: to share some fun recommendations of things that bring us joy.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: But as I said, if you're listening for the first time,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: then you may not know this, but you can support
• 46:09
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• 46:10
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• 46:12
  Speaker 1: can like and subscribe, go tell a friend, make a friend,
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: subscribe for the next little while, while we're continuing to
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: make this podcast. If you haven't heard... We are sort
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: of winding this down. I'm not going to say that
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: every single time because I want you all to keep
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: coming back because we're going to keep making content for
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: a little while longer. It does still help us to
• 46:29
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• 46:32
  Speaker 1: do that thing and we appreciate it. If you do
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: join us on Patreon, if you do join us on Patreon,
• 46:37
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• 46:39
  Speaker 2: Generally.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Then you get some bonus content, ad-free episodes, early episodes, and...
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: what most people are here for, I think, is that
• 46:48
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• 46:50
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• 46:54
  Speaker 1: We also do mini episodes, which come out on Mondays.
• 46:56
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• 46:58
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• 47:01
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• 47:03
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• 47:05
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• 47:11
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• 47:14
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• 47:17
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• 47:19
  Speaker 1: podcast for as long as you have.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's beautiful. We love it.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much to my team of people. My
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: team of people.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: I love my team of people.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: Help me make this podcast. Writing and fact-checking from Shane
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: and myself. Thank you for your notes today, Shane, and
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: great job on them. Hey, thanks.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: Our social media coordinator is Emma Wilson and the person
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: who stitches together my uhs and turn them into a
• 47:42
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• 47:47
  Speaker 1: the greatest producer of all time.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: We love him too.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: Indeed, indeed. And of course, thank you all for listening.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: However you got here, whatever level of support you provide,
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: including just hitting play, which we do appreciate your time
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: and attention to this very important matter of ectoplasm. Mm-hmm.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: we do appreciate your, your, your space and your time.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: So thank you all for listening.
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the best. You guys are just truly. Yeah.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, we've been doing this for so long and
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: we are just so thankful that you would give us
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: any of your attention. So just thank you for being here.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: Yes, very much. So the bees knees or the ghosts ectoplasm,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: but I think that's what I have to say about
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: that part of it. And I think we're ready to
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: recommend some things unless, is there anything that I forgot
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: or you'd like to add before we recommend some things?
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: Nothing on my end.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's do it. I'm recommending a album. This is
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: an old album, like it's over 20 years old now,
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: but I kind of forgot about it. And then it
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: made its way back into my life. And I am
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: just finding all the joy from this album. This is
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: an album called Rock the Plank by the band, the
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: Ska band, Mad Caddies. And There are a lot of
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: ska bands that I think were not the easiest thing
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: to listen to. And it's actually something I appreciated about them.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: This is not one of those. This is like if
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: Four Year Strong had horns in their band. This is
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: a lot more on the well-written songs. They have that
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: punk element, but they're melodic, strategic. use of horns. And
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: I think that accents the music very beautifully. And it
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: is just a very fun, silly album with a pirate, very,
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: very a pilot sea shanty song in the middle of their, uh, the,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: the record. It is just a very good time. It's
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: not very long. Uh, so mad caddies rock the plank
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: is their sort of pirate themed punk ska album. Um,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: the recording quality, by the way, you might hear 20
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: years old and think the recording quality is garbage. It's not,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: it's fantastic. I think it is as good as you
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: would find in a recording anywhere today. Yeah. It's just
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: a very, very fun album. And so go check that out.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: It is not the sort of heavy metal I tend
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: to recommend. This is very much on the melodic side.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: Even just the very first song on this album, if
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: you check that out, is really, really good. So Rock
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: the Plank by the Mad Caddies.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great record. It's a lot of fun.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: In keeping with my spooky-themed recommendations for this month, I
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: am going to recommend a comic book series that is
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: also 20 years old. This came out, and this, I think,
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: was a pretty significant event inside of the Green Lantern
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: comic book series. There's an author named Jeff Johns. He
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: came in, and he started writing, and he started with
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: this series called The Sinestro Corps War. And essentially what
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: he did was he started building this story for like
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: a couple of years that led up to like one
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: of the coolest zombie stories that has existed. Wow. Called
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: The Blackest Night. So the entire run is really great,
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: and essentially what he does is he kind of takes
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: the Green Lantern power, which is these power rings that
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: are powered by the emotion of willpower, is what it
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: says in DC. Willpower not being an emotion, but, you know, whatever.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: So what he ended up doing was they created a
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: color spectrum, or the emotional spectrum is what they call it,
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: and every color along this color spectrum has its own emotion.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: And with it comes its own kind of Green Lantern core,
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: like there's the Sinestro core, which is the fear-based ones.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: There's one for Avarice, which is just Donald Trump. There
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: is the Rage one, which is red, of course.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: Pete Hegseth.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Pete Hegseth. Yeah, yeah. Except it's not as cool
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: because I wish Pete Hegseth was vomiting blood. So as
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: you kind of get into it, like every color has
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: its own emotion. They all do this thing and it
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: all leads to the Black Lanterns emerging, which are all
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: the zombies. It resurrects dead superheroes and whatnot, which is
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: really cool. And they're going to take over the world
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: because they are devoid of emotion, which is why they're
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: the Black Lanterns. Yeah. So anyway, it's great read. It's
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: a great run. It's a lot of fun. It's scary
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: as shit because it is zombies. It's space zombies, but
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: it's awesome. So if you like that kind of stuff,
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: check it out from Jeff Johns. It's called The Blackest Night.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: The Green Lantern run, Blackest Night by Jeff Johns, about
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: space zombies, and then Rock the Plank, the pirate-themed ska
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: punk album. Love this so much.
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: Just, yeah, same realm.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: All the same things. They're all the same things. If
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: you'd like to tell us your thoughts on Ectoplasm or
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Mad Caddies or Green Lantern comics, you can email us
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: directly at info at WWD WWD podcast.com or reach us
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: on the social media platforms. But I think that's all
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: we have to say about our topic today. So happy
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: spooky October month, everybody. I think that's it. Anything else?
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: Thank you all for listening. This is Abraham.
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: This is Shane.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: We're out.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: See ya.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: You've been listening to why we do what we do.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: going to WWD, WWD podcast.com.
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. And we hope you have an awesome day.
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: Thanks for watching!