Latest / The You Project / #2151 Skeptics in the Pub - Professor Chris French

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#2151 Skeptics in the Pub - Professor Chris French · The You Project

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Speaker 1: I get a team. It's Harps. It's the You Project
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Speaker 1: for the two thousand, one hundred and somethinth time. I
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Speaker 1: don't know why you're still here, Frankly, but I'm glad
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Speaker 1: you are. You're either interested or your martyrs or I
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Speaker 1: don't know what it is, but you keep coming back.
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Speaker 1: We appreciate you, love you, thanks so much for doing that.
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Speaker 1: Today we've got somebody back. I'm super glad because I
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Speaker 1: love this conversation. And I don't say that disingenuously or lightly.
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Speaker 1: I really did enjoy our conversation. It was about an
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Speaker 1: area of which I know little. I now know a
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Speaker 1: little more. Professor Chris French is his name, and he's
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Speaker 1: back and just a quick recovering his British psychologist, Professor
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Speaker 1: Emeritus at Goldsmith's London, University of London, where he founded
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Speaker 1: and led the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit, and lots more.
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Speaker 1: I'm not going to repeat it again too much, but
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Speaker 1: we had fun last time. Have you been, prof How's
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Speaker 1: life over there? Yeah?
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Speaker 2: Good? Thank you? Yeah, it's.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Just been keeping busy since we last spoke, you know,
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Speaker 2: the usual, doing lots of talks, podcasts, trying to get
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Speaker 2: another book written. Always behind schedule with the book, but
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Speaker 2: I'll get there.
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Speaker 1: Who do you Who do you talk to? Like when
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Speaker 1: you say you give talks, you're talking to academics, You're
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Speaker 1: talking to public groups, you're talking to corporates. Who you're
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Speaker 1: talking to?
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Speaker 2: I tends to be public talks these days. I mean
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Speaker 2: I actually there's a there's a there's a network called
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Speaker 2: Skeptics in the pub in the UK, and I run
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Speaker 2: the Greenwich branch. So that's great because that means I
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Speaker 2: can invite really interesting people to come along and give
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Speaker 2: us a talk in a pub. I mean, what more
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Speaker 2: can you work for in life? Yeah? So I but
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Speaker 2: I also give lots of talks at other branches of
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Speaker 2: Skeptics in the pub. There's also uh sigh in the pub.
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Speaker 2: There's I don't just do talks in pubs, but I
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Speaker 2: do do a lot of talks in pubs, and then
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Speaker 2: a human in his scroups and so on.
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Speaker 1: So yeah.
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Speaker 2: Usually, typically, if I get an invitation, unless it clashes
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Speaker 2: with something else or I'm really super super busy, I
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Speaker 2: usually say yes because I enjoy it. Yeah, it's fun.
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Speaker 1: Do you think people are born like some people are
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Speaker 1: just naturally genetically whatever? It is more skeptic than average,
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Speaker 1: or more skeptical, I should say, then average. Or do
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Speaker 1: you think people become more skeptical when they get scammed
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Speaker 1: or lied to or harmed mentally or emotionally by someone
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Speaker 1: or something. You think it's a or B or a
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Speaker 1: bit of both, or something else.
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Speaker 2: I think it might be something else. I mean, I
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Speaker 2: mean put it this way. And as I told you
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Speaker 2: last time we spoke, I used to be a believer
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Speaker 2: in a lot of this stuff. And there are one
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Speaker 2: or two other people in the worlds of skepticism who
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Speaker 2: started off as believers and eventually became skeptics. I mean,
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Speaker 2: Susan Blackmore is a name that springs to mind. There
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Speaker 2: are various people within the UFO community. I know, people
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Speaker 2: who were professional astrologers but also understood the scientific method
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Speaker 2: and so eventually became skeptics. And you find this all
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Speaker 2: over the place. Some people are just born skeptics. Another
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Speaker 2: good friend mentioned when we spoke last time, Richard Wiseman.
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Speaker 2: He was always a skeptic, never believing any of this stuff,
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Speaker 2: but always found it interesting. So I really don't know
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Speaker 2: where that comes from. Why that should be. I know,
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Speaker 2: obviously you also you do get people going in the
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Speaker 2: other direction as well. There are people who start off
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Speaker 2: as skeptics who end up as a believers. A famous
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Speaker 2: example there would be from the world of eupology, the
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Speaker 2: guy who gave us the kind of terminology for close
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Speaker 2: encounters of the first kind, of the second kind of
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Speaker 2: the third kind, a guy called Jay Allan Heinek who
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Speaker 2: started off as a skeptic but ended up as a believer.
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Speaker 2: So it can go the other way. In my experience,
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Speaker 2: it tends to be more likely to go from being
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Speaker 2: a believer to being a skeptic, but it does sometimes
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Speaker 2: go into the direction. Whether it's based on genetic factors,
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Speaker 2: are they also just learn of life experiences. I mean,
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Speaker 2: you know, if you grow up in a household where
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Speaker 2: your mum is a medium, your dad is a you know,
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Speaker 2: into all kinds of other weird stuff, then you're likely
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Speaker 2: to accept it. You tend to accept what your parents
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Speaker 2: tell you is true or what those around you is true.
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Speaker 2: And then at a certain point, for some people they
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Speaker 2: begin to question it, and they then they end up
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Speaker 2: as skeptics. So everybody seems to have a kind of
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Speaker 2: different I hate this phrase, different kind of journey to
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Speaker 2: get to where they end up. And in some cases
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Speaker 2: it might be as you say that people, what really
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Speaker 2: fascinates me, I suppose on that topic is then people
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Speaker 2: who who get scammed repeatedly but still carry on believing.
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Speaker 2: I mean, they're the ones who are really really fascinating
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Speaker 2: from a psychological point of view, they just don't And
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Speaker 2: there are a lot of those around as well, So
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Speaker 2: it's a mix.
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Speaker 1: And when you're in the middle of that ideological echo
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Speaker 1: chamber as you're growing up, whatever the idea or the
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Speaker 1: theory or the philosophy or the theology, whatever ology it is,
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Speaker 1: you're not taught how to think, you're told what to think,
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Speaker 1: and you're not presented with any other options. So of
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Speaker 1: course I know that my religion is the right religion.
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Speaker 1: Of course I know that because I grew up in it,
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Speaker 1: and I know that we're the one true church and
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Speaker 1: only we have the hotline to God us and everyone
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Speaker 1: else is living in sin and is confused and deluded exactly.
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Speaker 2: I mean, Ricky Gerves makes this point, doesn't he that,
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Speaker 2: you know, when he's talking to true believers in their
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Speaker 2: own one true religion, points out that in fact, you
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Speaker 2: know there are a thousand other religions that they don't
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Speaker 2: believe in. You know, if you're a fundamentalist Christian, you
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Speaker 2: don't believe in Zeus. Why not you know, ancient Greece
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Speaker 2: people did you know? And that's it. The idea that
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Speaker 2: it just when you're trying to think about it logically
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Speaker 2: and rationally, the idea that you would have the good
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Speaker 2: fortune to be born just in the right place, at
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Speaker 2: just the right time in the Earth's history, to be
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Speaker 2: exposed to the one true religion and all the others
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Speaker 2: are false. It doesn't really stack up when you think
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Speaker 2: about it, and it's it's it seems more more plausible
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Speaker 2: that they're basically probably all wrong. So hence I'm an atheist.
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Speaker 2: But I used to kind of when I in my
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Speaker 2: younger days, I used to kind of say that I was.
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Speaker 2: I was intellectually an agnostic but spiritually an atheist, you know.
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Speaker 2: I thought that was a really really smart thing to say.
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Speaker 2: Actually it's not too stupid, because I mean, obviously I
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Speaker 2: can't you can't prove that there isn't a God. Logically
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Speaker 2: you can't prove that, so you have to say the
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Speaker 2: others has to be. I don't know, but yes, I
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Speaker 2: don't feel any need to believe in a god. I
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Speaker 2: don't think it. I don't think explains anything. I don't
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Speaker 2: think it. Yeah, and I accept that for some people
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Speaker 2: it can provide psychological comfort, and that's fine. If they
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Speaker 2: get psychological comfort for it from it, then carry on
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Speaker 2: believing it. But if you want, you know, my honest opinion,
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Speaker 2: as somebody who sees themselves as being a rationalist, a scientist,
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Speaker 2: blah blah blah, I just don't see the evidence of
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Speaker 2: stacking up to support that hypothesis. Hmm.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's interesting when you when you start to
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Speaker 1: think about your own thinking, which I know is a
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Speaker 1: bit of a mind fucking itself. You know, amde a cognition?
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Speaker 1: What do I think the way that I do? Where
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Speaker 1: did this belief come from? Why do I believe that?
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Speaker 1: Why do I think this is true and that is untrue?
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Speaker 1: Why do I behave this way in front of this person?
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Speaker 1: You know that just that whole kind of which is
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Speaker 1: again easier said than done, But that attempt to dive
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Speaker 1: into a greater level of self awareness or consciousness whatever
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Speaker 1: that is, you realize, well, I didn't choose any of
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Speaker 1: these beliefs. It's like my situation and environment and context
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Speaker 1: chose them for me. Like I never decided to be
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Speaker 1: a Catholic, which I was growing up. I never decided
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Speaker 1: on heaven and hell and purgatory and venial sins and
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Speaker 1: mortal sins and all these rules. And yeah, I just
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Speaker 1: believe it, not because I made a conscious intellectual decision
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Speaker 1: one day, but because I was never taught or told
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Speaker 1: anything else.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And I mean again, once you've got those beliefs,
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Speaker 2: they very hard to shake off. I mean but I
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Speaker 2: think particularly with the religion like Catholicism, where one of
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Speaker 2: the big differences between religions and a scientific approach is
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Speaker 2: that the emphasis is on faith lead and to doubt
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Speaker 2: itself is a sin. So you know, you're mentally, as
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Speaker 2: a child, you're not going to go there because obviously
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Speaker 2: the idea that if you even begin to question those
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Speaker 2: beliefs that means eternal damnation, you're going to be tortured
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Speaker 2: in hell for eternity.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that'd put you.
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Speaker 2: Off thinking about it. But and for many people, you know,
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Speaker 2: they'll carry those convictions right through to the grave. I
9:28
Speaker 2: mean again, you've probably familiar with the idea of you know, mimetics, memes,
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Speaker 2: that have different kind of survival about you, and the
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Speaker 2: idea within many religions where faith is just seen as
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Speaker 2: being a virtue in itself. I mean, it's obviously in
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Speaker 2: total opposition to a scientific approach, which says you can
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Speaker 2: question everything, and you should question everything, and that's the
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Speaker 2: way towards whether or not we'll ever reach any kind
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Speaker 2: of ultimate truths on a lot of these issues is
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Speaker 2: another question. But the best way to try and approach
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Speaker 2: those questions is by looking for evidence, thinking it through
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Speaker 2: rationally and logically and so on. But that's diametrically opposed
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Speaker 2: to the idea that you should never question these fundamental beliefs,
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Speaker 2: otherwise you will suffer for eternity.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and also when it's something that you believe that
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Speaker 1: you didn't actually choose to believe it, it's just a
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Speaker 1: byproduct of where you've been and who you've been around,
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Speaker 1: and how you've been programmed or influenced or whatever. That
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Speaker 1: becomes your identity or part of your identity. So if
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Speaker 1: you question my beliefs, you question me, You question the
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Speaker 1: I am in the middle of my life, so how
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Speaker 1: dare you? And so therefore, where you know, we're very
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Speaker 1: emotionally protective of that, and it's impossible to be We
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Speaker 1: spoke about objectivity last time. I remember you. I think
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Speaker 1: you essentially said it's pretty much impossible because which is
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Speaker 1: true because I'm always looking through the subjective mind and
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Speaker 1: brain and journey of me.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, and we all are. But we can try.
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Speaker 2: I mean, that's again that's another attraction for me of
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Speaker 2: the scientific method, that we can try to the extent
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Speaker 2: that we can, and we can't do it one hundred percent,
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Speaker 2: but we can try the extent that we can to
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Speaker 2: minimize the influence of our own biases, so things like
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Speaker 2: double blind controlled experiments and so on, that is an
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Speaker 2: attempt to try to make sure that I'm not going
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Speaker 2: to influence the outcome of this experiment by the way.
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Speaker 2: I want the results to come out, either intentionally or unintentionally,
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Speaker 2: and we're deliberately taking steps to try to do that.
11:43
Speaker 2: And again that whole idea of you know, when a
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Speaker 2: paper is published, then other people will criticize it, other
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Speaker 2: people will will debate about the ideas and so on,
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Speaker 2: and that's all about kind of exposing your ideas, putting
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Speaker 2: them up and saying this it was like a plausible
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Speaker 2: idea to me, what do you guys think? And you know,
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Speaker 2: we take it from there. And within science, I mean,
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Speaker 2: I'm a great I was greatly influenced by Sir Carl Popper,
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Speaker 2: you know, and that idea that you can never have
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Speaker 2: certainty within science, you can only really ever say, well,
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Speaker 2: on the basis of the evidence as it currently stands,
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Speaker 2: I think this theory is more likely to be true
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Speaker 2: than that theory, and so on, But you never have certainty, whereas,
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Speaker 2: of course, with religion you are told that you are
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Speaker 2: being given absolute certainty. And I think I'm very, very
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Speaker 2: wary of people who claim to have certain ultimate truth,
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Speaker 2: because that way lies all kinds of extremism, you know,
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Speaker 2: that's the kind of ideologies that end up putting people
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Speaker 2: to death for blasphemy, et cetera, et cetera. And I
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Speaker 2: don't want to live in a world like that. I
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Speaker 2: want to live in a world where where people can say,
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Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know one way or the
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Speaker 2: other this, but I might be wrong. I don't want
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Speaker 2: a world where somebody comes along and says, either you
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Speaker 2: believe what I tell you, what I tell you is true,
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Speaker 2: or you get punished for it. So interesting like just
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Speaker 2: that thought that that I could be wrong, Like when
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Speaker 2: somebody has believed something for a very long time and
13:19
Speaker 2: that is now ingrained from a cellular level up, you know,
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Speaker 2: to their thinking, their culture, their behavior, their friendships, the
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Speaker 2: way that they socialize, the way that they operate in
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Speaker 2: the world is built around this idea or faith or
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Speaker 2: religion or political allegiance or scientific.
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Speaker 1: Kind of premise or whatever. And obviously you and I
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Speaker 1: both know not all sciences good science because because humans
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Speaker 1: do it. If we get to get humans out of
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Speaker 1: the way, it'd be much better. Yeah, that's that's that's
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Speaker 1: a good point.
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Speaker 2: That's another kind of that is that's a whole podcast
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Speaker 2: in itself.
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Speaker 1: But just the just the ability or the I don't
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Speaker 1: know if it's humility yourself, well, I don't know what
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Speaker 1: it is, but being okay with going this is what
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Speaker 1: I think. But I could be wrong, because I've been
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Speaker 1: wrong many times. So to think moving forward, I'm going
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Speaker 1: to get everything right, even on a logical level, makes
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Speaker 1: absolutely zero sense because I don't know how many, but
14:27
Speaker 1: I probably get five to ten things wrong every day,
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Speaker 1: little and big. So to move forward on the you know,
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Speaker 1: living in this paradigm where you can't be wrong, and
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Speaker 1: I think that's I think that's you know, it's like
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Speaker 1: I guess religion and politics and even sports. Sporting sports
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Speaker 1: like crazy in Australia, that's crazy in England. You know,
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Speaker 1: we know that every team except our team is the devil.
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Speaker 1: You know, it's and so there's no possibility to get
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Speaker 1: through on any level because all of these minds are
15:03
Speaker 1: you know, the doors locked and the keys thrown away already.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean I'm sure you're again, particularly in
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Speaker 2: your area, you'll be familiar with those studies, whether they
15:11
Speaker 2: show a match of some sort to a bunch of supporters,
15:17
Speaker 2: and especially if it was a particularly dirty match with
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Speaker 2: lots of fowls on either side, and you as supporters
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Speaker 2: to be as objective as they can in terms of
15:26
Speaker 2: tallying up how many how many fowls that were on
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Speaker 2: each side. Of course, the other side always come out
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Speaker 2: as being dirty than the team you support, you know,
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Speaker 2: it's it's inevitable, man, And I'm subject to that bias.
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Speaker 3: You know.
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Speaker 2: I'm a I'm a Manchester United fan, so I'm watching them. Mantelli,
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Speaker 2: there's a fifty to fifty decision. Well, I'm always convinced
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Speaker 2: that you know, it should be to United's advantage, and
15:51
Speaker 2: you can't get around that. You know. It's part of
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Speaker 2: the enjoyment of being a fan of sports, isn't it.
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Speaker 2: You know. But as long as you don't take it
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Speaker 2: too serious, you know how to keep it in perspective.
16:03
Speaker 2: That's a good, which is very hard when it comes
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Speaker 2: to small.
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Speaker 1: That's good, that's good in theory. I don't know that
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Speaker 1: that's going to work. Yeah, part of my journey I
16:12
Speaker 1: went boy you But when I came out of Catholicism
16:16
Speaker 1: when I was about eighteen, because I went to Catholic schools,
16:18
Speaker 1: Catholic friends, you know, it was a very Catholic environment.
16:21
Speaker 1: I moved, I did stuff, and I went on a
16:24
Speaker 1: bit of my own spiritual quest whatever you want to
16:27
Speaker 1: call it. And I ended up in a ended up
16:30
Speaker 1: in a church which was very, very very different, so
16:34
Speaker 1: very you know, fundamental Bible reading, tambourine, banging, rafa, swimming, swinging,
16:41
Speaker 1: evangelical like band musicians, the whole shooting match. And without
16:47
Speaker 1: saying that was good or bad, but there was just
16:51
Speaker 1: I remember being strongly discouraged from thinking for myself, like
16:57
Speaker 1: because I'm me right I'm curious. I'm like, I read this,
17:01
Speaker 1: this doesn't this seems to be inconsistent with this. I
17:05
Speaker 1: was basically told just believe, like just have faith, like
17:09
Speaker 1: you're never going to understand the mind of God or
17:12
Speaker 1: the wisdom of God or you know. I'm like, yeah,
17:14
Speaker 1: that cool story. However, this doesn't. This is illogical, Like
17:19
Speaker 1: let me show you these two scriptures. These are contradictory,
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Speaker 1: So which is it. And I was basically told not
17:26
Speaker 1: to ask, not to think, and I'm like, that's like
17:31
Speaker 1: I want to believe by the way, you know this
17:33
Speaker 1: is that. I wasn't trying to be problematic, but I
17:39
Speaker 1: just didn't really fucking fit in the echo chamber. Although
17:44
Speaker 1: I loved the idea of most of the messages in
17:47
Speaker 1: the New Testament and the idea of you know, all
17:51
Speaker 1: of it. But yeah, I remember thinking to myself, and
17:54
Speaker 1: not only that, so I studied and read a lot,
17:57
Speaker 1: like for years, I read the Bible seen times. But
18:01
Speaker 1: I also remember seeing people in the church who were
18:06
Speaker 1: in much higher positions than me, which was everyone doing
18:10
Speaker 1: things which were totally unscriptural, like this, Oh, like you're
18:16
Speaker 1: doing this. Can I just show you this? I'm not
18:18
Speaker 1: I wasn't trying to be a smart ass. I wasn't
18:19
Speaker 1: trying to be clever. But I was just seeing see
18:22
Speaker 1: people who were further along the spiritual journey than me
18:27
Speaker 1: apparently doing shit, which just didn't make sense. Now if
18:31
Speaker 1: i'd question that also get I'm like, yeah, this is
18:34
Speaker 1: just a vehicle for control and manipulation. And it's like, oh,
18:40
Speaker 1: there's no yeah, And that for me was really disappointing
18:45
Speaker 1: because I actually most of it I really loved. But
18:48
Speaker 1: then I realized what a controlling, unhealthy, toxic environment. It
18:53
Speaker 1: wasn't always, but it was often that.
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Speaker 2: Which what was it that attracted you towards it in
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Speaker 2: the first place. You've just moved out from a very
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Speaker 2: Catholic kind of context, and you're obviously a curious person,
19:07
Speaker 2: But what was it the practic to that particular church.
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Speaker 1: Exactly that curiosity? So I, without boring you, so I was.
19:15
Speaker 1: I started working in gyms from when I was young,
19:18
Speaker 1: eighteen years old, and I didn't go and do my
19:20
Speaker 1: first degree until later. So I started working first, went
19:25
Speaker 1: to university later and then But I always had like
19:31
Speaker 1: I loved the idea of God. I loved the idea
19:34
Speaker 1: of an all loving all knowing, you know, like being
19:39
Speaker 1: that would look after me or watch over me, like
19:42
Speaker 1: I was an only child. Maybe that played into it.
19:46
Speaker 1: My parents went, their lives were very hard growing up,
19:49
Speaker 1: and we had a good family, but it wasn't it
19:52
Speaker 1: was very now. It was functional, but it wasn't super huggy,
19:57
Speaker 1: touchy feely. And I was probably just a lonely kid
20:00
Speaker 1: wanted love or wanted attention or wanted I don't know,
20:03
Speaker 1: but I had exactly what you described. I had a
20:06
Speaker 1: real god curiosity or bigger than me. What else is
20:10
Speaker 1: Surely what I can see in touch and feel and perceive,
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Speaker 1: Surely this is not all of it. I had that,
20:17
Speaker 1: and I'm like, so what is it? What else is
20:19
Speaker 1: out there? So I was driven by curiosity, and it
20:24
Speaker 1: appealed to me this idea that there's this all loving,
20:28
Speaker 1: all knowing, compassionate being that I love that idea. So
20:32
Speaker 1: I was in. I was, I was off to the races.
20:35
Speaker 1: And yeah, and I mean, I can honestly say a
20:40
Speaker 1: fair bit of what went on for me, which because
20:42
Speaker 1: I didn't want to. I just actually wanted to figure
20:46
Speaker 1: out if it was real, and if it was real,
20:48
Speaker 1: I'm in, you know, But yeah, and obviously I've shifted
20:52
Speaker 1: a bit since those days, but I still have compassion for,
20:57
Speaker 1: you know, people who are Christians or whatever religion people are,
21:01
Speaker 1: because I think most of them are genuinely trying to
21:04
Speaker 1: find something or maybe have a purpose or an understanding
21:09
Speaker 1: bigger than themselves.
21:11
Speaker 2: I think you're right. I mean, I mean, that's one
21:13
Speaker 2: thing that religion does offer is a framework to make
21:18
Speaker 2: sense of everything, you know. And there's a certain attraction
21:22
Speaker 2: in the idea of being part of an institution that
21:28
Speaker 2: claims that kind of moral and even intellectual authority, that
21:33
Speaker 2: it can explain everything, it can tell you what's the
21:36
Speaker 2: right thing to do, what's the wrong thing to do,
21:37
Speaker 2: and so on. You know, I have to think about
21:39
Speaker 2: it for yourself, just follow rules. You know. It can
21:43
Speaker 2: be quite an appealing thing. But probably the one the
21:47
Speaker 2: one thing that it doesn't really satisfy is, as you said, curiosity.
21:52
Speaker 2: If you've got a curious mind and you want to
21:53
Speaker 2: ask questions and you want to question the answers, then
21:59
Speaker 2: religion probably isn't going to satisfy that in my opinion.
22:05
Speaker 2: I mean, clearly, lots of there are lots of benefits
22:07
Speaker 2: to religious belief and a lot of people get live
22:13
Speaker 2: very happy, productive, good lives as a result of their
22:17
Speaker 2: religious beliefs. The problem is it can be misused, is misused,
22:22
Speaker 2: and ultimately it doesn't answer the kind of questions that
22:25
Speaker 2: I'm interested in. So for me, and as I said before,
22:28
Speaker 2: I don't feel any particular need to to have a religion.
22:35
Speaker 2: I'm a humanist, so I don't mind other people. Other
22:38
Speaker 2: people can believe whatever they want to as long as
22:40
Speaker 2: it doesn't have a negative impact on those around them
22:43
Speaker 2: or on other people. It's only it's only when you
22:45
Speaker 2: have a belief system that is going to be causing
22:50
Speaker 2: problems for others that I might want to take issue
22:53
Speaker 2: with you, you know. I mean, it's one of the
22:55
Speaker 2: things that fascinates me. And again this is you know
22:58
Speaker 2: that comes from psychology. Is people can believe things with
23:03
Speaker 2: an absolute one hundred percent conviction, absolute certainty. And obviously
23:08
Speaker 2: a lot of religious beliefs are exactly beliefs of that sort.
23:12
Speaker 2: A lot of political beliefs, you know, the devout Marxist
23:16
Speaker 2: or you know, the one hundred percent capitalist. They're so
23:20
Speaker 2: certain in their worldviews. And yet you can also point
23:24
Speaker 2: to all these weird neurological conditions that mean people can
23:29
Speaker 2: have the most bizarre beliefs. I mean a couple of
23:33
Speaker 2: my favorite examples. I think I always tend to go.
23:37
Speaker 2: I get sometimes get these mixed up. Which way around
23:39
Speaker 2: there are? But I think it's Cotard syndrome, which is
23:42
Speaker 2: basically it's got a very rare neurological condition where the
23:45
Speaker 2: person who has it believes that they themselves are dead,
23:49
Speaker 2: and you can have a conversation these people are entirely
23:52
Speaker 2: rational in all other ways. You've gone to that topic
23:55
Speaker 2: and you say, well, hang on, you know you're talking
23:57
Speaker 2: to me now, so how can you be dead? And
24:00
Speaker 2: they'll say, oh, well, dead people can speak, you can
24:03
Speaker 2: see you know they just got this or you know,
24:06
Speaker 2: or another one. I think I've got these the right
24:09
Speaker 2: way around. Coat Arts syndrome. I might have gotten the
24:12
Speaker 2: wrong way around. Actually, Kotar syndrome. Thing is the one
24:15
Speaker 2: I've just described. Capgrass syndrome. I think if I've got
24:18
Speaker 2: the right way around is where you might wake up
24:21
Speaker 2: in the morning and the person line next to it
24:24
Speaker 2: in the bed is your partner whom you've been with
24:27
Speaker 2: for thirty years, and that person their line next looks
24:31
Speaker 2: exactly the same as your partner sounds exactly the same,
24:35
Speaker 2: behaves exactly the same, but you know it's not them.
24:38
Speaker 2: They've been replaced. You know. It's like insion of the
24:40
Speaker 2: body snatches type stuff, but it really does happen. And
24:44
Speaker 2: these things have said with one hundred percent conviction, absolutely
24:49
Speaker 2: believed anything. Well yeah, okay, so maybe just maybe absolute
24:54
Speaker 2: conviction and certainty isn't the best guide. You know, maybe
24:57
Speaker 2: people can believe things that are just you know, I
25:00
Speaker 2: think we'd all agree, apart from the people themselves, are delusions.
25:04
Speaker 2: People can suffer from all kinds of delusions. And again,
25:08
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, obviously you get all kinds of
25:10
Speaker 2: other less dramatic delusions, people suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, who
25:15
Speaker 2: are convinced that you know, the CIA are following them everywhere,
25:19
Speaker 2: and people are reading their minds, and all kinds of
25:21
Speaker 2: other stuff. So there's a whole range, and so it
25:24
Speaker 2: just for me, the message there is, well you need
25:27
Speaker 2: to be very very careful. They're trying to decide which
25:29
Speaker 2: beliefs are true, are most likely to be true, which
25:33
Speaker 2: are not. Because the human mind is it's just amazing
25:37
Speaker 2: in all respects, but also it can play some terrible
25:39
Speaker 2: tricks on people.
25:41
Speaker 1: That is true and also pursuant to your comment earlier,
25:47
Speaker 1: your honor about you know, for some people a certain
25:53
Speaker 1: belief even though the belief may not be true, but
25:57
Speaker 1: they believe it. It may be who knows, but let's
26:00
Speaker 1: say it's not true, but nonetheless they believe. They believe that,
26:04
Speaker 1: and that gives them comfort or calm or lower anxiety
26:09
Speaker 1: or a lower heart rate, lower blood pressure, a parasympathetic response.
26:14
Speaker 1: You know. It's like, oh, like my mum, I'm not
26:18
Speaker 1: saying she's not right, so don't send me an email anyone.
26:21
Speaker 1: My mom's uber Catholic. She's eighty six. She still goes
26:26
Speaker 1: to Mass. She still lights candles for me, although I
26:30
Speaker 1: think they don't light them these days. I think they
26:32
Speaker 1: have a little switch and you pay fifty cents or
26:35
Speaker 1: something in some battery powered candle. But and she's always saying,
26:40
Speaker 1: Hail Mary's for me, right, and whatever I've got going on,
26:45
Speaker 1: if I've got something a challenge going on, or I've
26:47
Speaker 1: got a fly and state and do well, I'll send
26:50
Speaker 1: up a couple of Hail Mary's for you, and like
26:53
Speaker 1: she's and I'm like, good, I need them, you know.
26:55
Speaker 1: And one that her faith just gives her a lot
27:00
Speaker 1: of comfort and calm that she wouldn't otherwise have. And
27:05
Speaker 1: I also just operate on the one percent that she
27:07
Speaker 1: might be right, So yeah, yeah, maybe more who knows
27:15
Speaker 1: it well? And I just look and I you know,
27:19
Speaker 1: when I go, you've been to Mass this week? Mum,
27:21
Speaker 1: have you done this? I go, I've got whatever coming up,
27:24
Speaker 1: you better shoot off a couple of hail Mary's from me.
27:26
Speaker 1: I will, what's what's happening? And she goes all right,
27:28
Speaker 1: and then she reports in that she's been praying for me,
27:32
Speaker 1: and and one, I love it. I love it because
27:35
Speaker 1: my mom does that. And she that's her way of
27:37
Speaker 1: showing me love because she's and that's one of her ways.
27:41
Speaker 1: And you know, it gives her a sense of control
27:46
Speaker 1: and calm and everything's okay, because even when I die,
27:49
Speaker 1: it's okay.
27:51
Speaker 2: You know, No, no, I know exactly where you're coming
27:54
Speaker 2: from on that. Because there's a little little lady who
27:58
Speaker 2: lives a couple of streets away again, staunch Catholic. She
28:02
Speaker 2: sits on her verandah and she she I now know
28:06
Speaker 2: that she kind of speaks to anybody that walks past.
28:09
Speaker 1: She always is clawning.
28:12
Speaker 2: But when I used to well when I take the
28:13
Speaker 2: dog for a walk, she would actually always stop and chat.
28:17
Speaker 2: And then got the point where she's got my phone numbers,
28:20
Speaker 2: and now she she brings me up and says she's
28:22
Speaker 2: got a very strong French accent. So it's kind of
28:24
Speaker 2: a I'm on my veranda, you know, and so all right,
28:27
Speaker 2: we'll be around in a minute, and we go, we
28:28
Speaker 2: just have ten minute chat with her. But she takes
28:31
Speaker 2: such comfort from her religiously. She's there with her Bible,
28:34
Speaker 2: she says her prayers every day. She has a priest
28:38
Speaker 2: that comes around on a Sunday and does you know
28:41
Speaker 2: they're doing masks and she listens to the mass. You know,
28:44
Speaker 2: she's totally totally mega religious. I've never mentioned the minor
28:48
Speaker 2: fact that I'm a total atheist, you know, but she
28:52
Speaker 2: takes such comfort from it. And again it's whenever there's
28:56
Speaker 2: a you've got a problem, she says, I'll pray for you.
28:57
Speaker 2: I'll pray for you, you know, and she's convince that that
29:00
Speaker 2: that will help. And also, i mean, her beloved husband
29:05
Speaker 2: died several years back, but she's at totally, totally, one
29:08
Speaker 2: hundred percent certain that when she dies, they'll be reunited,
29:13
Speaker 2: you know. And and again, why would you I would
29:15
Speaker 2: want to take that away from her. She's getting such
29:18
Speaker 2: comfort from that belief that it's, uh, they can be
29:22
Speaker 2: It's can sometimes be tricky when you are being presented
29:24
Speaker 2: as you know, the the atheist, the skeptic, the rationalist.
29:30
Speaker 2: Back in the day, I would do quite a lot
29:33
Speaker 2: of daytime TV which would often involve being in a
29:36
Speaker 2: studio audience with lots and lots of people who've lost
29:40
Speaker 2: a loved one but are convinced that they're still in
29:42
Speaker 2: touch with them and so on, and they're taking comfort
29:45
Speaker 2: from that belief. So again I wouldn't want to, you know,
29:48
Speaker 2: take that away from them. On the other hand, I
29:51
Speaker 2: was there to give my opinion as a scientist regarding
29:54
Speaker 2: whether or not I thought there was life after death,
29:57
Speaker 2: and you know, overall, I don't think the evidence does
30:00
Speaker 2: stuck up to support. Again, could be wrong, you know.
30:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, it could be all wrong about a lot of it.
30:06
Speaker 1: I'm speaking of such matters NDEs otherwise known as near
30:11
Speaker 1: death experiences, which I know you I was just saying
30:14
Speaker 1: that for our audience, near death experiences just a lot
30:18
Speaker 1: of you know, when you open that door, you go
30:20
Speaker 1: down that rabbit hole, then your whole feed starts to
30:23
Speaker 1: get inundated with people who were dead for twenty four
30:27
Speaker 1: minutes and went to heaven or went wherever and had
30:30
Speaker 1: all of these What do you what do you think
30:35
Speaker 1: about them? What do you have you bumped into? Any
30:37
Speaker 1: of that?
30:38
Speaker 2: Is that in your wheelhead? Yeah? No, I mean basically
30:43
Speaker 2: there are two kind of general views of near death experiences.
30:50
Speaker 2: One is that they are exactly what they appear to be.
30:53
Speaker 2: That means that I mean that typical near death experience
30:56
Speaker 2: will involve some of the following components, not all, but
31:01
Speaker 2: typically if people will report things like, so, you're in
31:04
Speaker 2: a situation where you are either objectively close to death.
31:09
Speaker 2: You've either had a heart attack, or you've been in
31:11
Speaker 2: a road traffic accident, or you're undergoing an operation or
31:15
Speaker 2: something like this, or even if you just believe this
31:19
Speaker 2: is quite interesting. Even if you just believe wrongly that
31:22
Speaker 2: you're in a dangerous situation and that you're near to
31:24
Speaker 2: death objectively you aren't, you might have one of these
31:27
Speaker 2: experiences typically begin with a kind of an overwhelming sense
31:31
Speaker 2: of peace, and then often people will report an outer
31:36
Speaker 2: body experience where it looks like they can see themselves,
31:39
Speaker 2: often from above, from some vantage point above, and you
31:45
Speaker 2: see the surroundings and so on. They may well then
31:47
Speaker 2: end up moving down a tunnel towards a bright light.
31:52
Speaker 2: They may be accompanied by spiritual beings, either angels or
31:57
Speaker 2: the spirits of people who have already died. Sometimes they
32:01
Speaker 2: report finding themselves in some kind of idyllic setting. It
32:05
Speaker 2: might be a beautiful garden, or a city made of crystals,
32:09
Speaker 2: or the just some amazingly beautiful place. And again they
32:14
Speaker 2: may meet the spirits of previous friends and relatives who
32:19
Speaker 2: have died previously. But then there's some kind of often
32:24
Speaker 2: some kind of barrier reported, either a river or a
32:27
Speaker 2: wall or a bridge or something like this, and they'll
32:29
Speaker 2: maybe sometimes you know, again there's such a huge variation here,
32:33
Speaker 2: I'm kind of doing a composite. They'll be they'll have
32:36
Speaker 2: a message saying, you know, it's not your time yet,
32:39
Speaker 2: and then the next they'll find themselves back in their body.
32:42
Speaker 2: Sometimes they might find themselves suddenly racked with pain, which
32:45
Speaker 2: which they were in this blissful situation. Now they're back
32:48
Speaker 2: in a in a hospital bed or you know, being
32:53
Speaker 2: being treated by medics at the roadside or whatever, and
32:56
Speaker 2: they're back in this world now. You know. Obviously it's
32:59
Speaker 2: a amazing experience for them, it's life changing. Literally. The
33:06
Speaker 2: question is what is actually the explanation. On the one hand,
33:09
Speaker 2: you've got, as I said, the views of people who
33:12
Speaker 2: have the experience, and also lots of the people who've
33:16
Speaker 2: done lots of research on the experience who take it
33:18
Speaker 2: at face value. It is first of all, evidence that
33:23
Speaker 2: the mind can leave the physical body, which against what
33:27
Speaker 2: most neuroscientists would think, and secondly, is possibly a glimpse
33:31
Speaker 2: of an afterlife. So that's one view. On the other hand,
33:36
Speaker 2: you've got the view which I would tend to endorse,
33:38
Speaker 2: which is that it is a very rich, very profound,
33:42
Speaker 2: but hallucinatory experience. It's a hallucination and it's been it's
33:47
Speaker 2: sometimes referred to as the dying brain hypothesis. In other words,
33:51
Speaker 2: when you're in these situations, usually there is weird the
33:56
Speaker 2: activity in the brain is not going to be typical,
33:59
Speaker 2: not going to be normal. And what it feels like
34:02
Speaker 2: to be on the inside of that brain activity is
34:05
Speaker 2: you're having these hallucinations, You're having these profound feelings of
34:08
Speaker 2: bliss et cetera et cetera. And so it really is
34:13
Speaker 2: a matter of kind of trying to look at the
34:14
Speaker 2: evidence and decide which is which is the more likely explanation.
34:20
Speaker 2: Now there are typically well, first thing say is, I
34:23
Speaker 2: don't think that either side could claim that they can
34:27
Speaker 2: prove that their view is the correct one, and so
34:30
Speaker 2: the skeptical view, although I see it as plausible and
34:35
Speaker 2: in some respects testable, and you know that's one of
34:39
Speaker 2: the attractions for me of that of that viewpoint. I
34:42
Speaker 2: certainly don't think we can say, oh, we've totally explained it.
34:45
Speaker 2: But there are lots of plausible aspects. A lot of
34:48
Speaker 2: the components of the near death experience do occur outside
34:53
Speaker 2: of the context of a near death experience, and that
34:56
Speaker 2: can make them easier to study. I mean, if you
34:58
Speaker 2: think about trying trying to body near death experiences as
35:02
Speaker 2: they happen, well, no ethics board is going to allow
35:05
Speaker 2: you to get volunteers in and bring them close to death.
35:08
Speaker 2: You know that's that's never going to be done under
35:09
Speaker 2: control conditions. And so typically you're talking about people giving
35:13
Speaker 2: retrospective accounts of what happened, and obviously you weren't there,
35:17
Speaker 2: you couldn't measure that their physiological state at the time
35:21
Speaker 2: and so on. But there are one improvement on that
35:27
Speaker 2: is to do prospective studies where you I mean, for example,
35:32
Speaker 2: if you want to try and test the idea that
35:34
Speaker 2: can people really have out of body experiences where they
35:37
Speaker 2: really can perceive objects from weird advantage points. There have
35:42
Speaker 2: been a number of studies now where they put hidden
35:45
Speaker 2: targets up near the ceiling in hospitals where people are
35:50
Speaker 2: recovering from cardiac arrest, the idea being that they have
35:53
Speaker 2: another heart attack and they have an out of body experience,
35:56
Speaker 2: they may float up the ceiling and be able to
35:58
Speaker 2: look down on these hidden targets that you can only
36:01
Speaker 2: see from above. Right now, if any of those studies
36:05
Speaker 2: produced evidence where somebody correctly identified the target, that would
36:09
Speaker 2: be a huge challenge to people like me, you know.
36:12
Speaker 2: I mean, you might say, oh, well, somehow they managed
36:14
Speaker 2: to trick their way to doing it, but you think,
36:17
Speaker 2: you know, you're probably not going to be big bothered
36:19
Speaker 2: to go to all that trouble live where you're actually
36:21
Speaker 2: having a cardiac arrest, you know. But those kind of
36:26
Speaker 2: stuffies have been going on for years now, and I
36:28
Speaker 2: fully support people doing them, but nobody has as yet
36:32
Speaker 2: managed to report one of those targets. Now, what you
36:35
Speaker 2: do get is lots of anecdotal evidence. You have individual
36:38
Speaker 2: cases where people report they've had these experiences and they've
36:43
Speaker 2: they've seen things that they shouldn't be able to see,
36:46
Speaker 2: But there are usually plausible alternative explanations there. Now, I
36:51
Speaker 2: would say that what we should try and do, and
36:53
Speaker 2: what people have tried to do, is let's try and
36:55
Speaker 2: study the out of body experience outside of the context
36:59
Speaker 2: of near death experiences. There are some people who claim
37:02
Speaker 2: that they can induce out of body experiences more or
37:05
Speaker 2: less at will by engaging in various mental exercises. Well,
37:08
Speaker 2: that's great. We just what we need is one such
37:11
Speaker 2: person who we could sit in a chair say, okay,
37:15
Speaker 2: do your stuff ham in our body experience, and then
37:18
Speaker 2: go into the room at the end of the corridor
37:20
Speaker 2: and tell us what's on the table. One person who
37:23
Speaker 2: could do that, and that's it. Game over with the skeptics.
37:27
Speaker 2: It's a really simple test that everybody could understand. Why
37:30
Speaker 2: haven't we got that evidence if it's in reality? Now,
37:34
Speaker 2: and again, there's a lot of other arguments that suggest
37:36
Speaker 2: we are dealing with hallucinatory experiences. So overall, I think
37:42
Speaker 2: that's what's happening. But I think it's probably best to
37:46
Speaker 2: try to kind of make sense to the near death
37:48
Speaker 2: experience by considering each of the kind of different components, yes,
37:52
Speaker 2: almost separately, obviously they all interact in this situation, and
37:55
Speaker 2: seeing if we can provide plausible accounts. A lot of
37:59
Speaker 2: the effect reported by people during near death experiences seem
38:03
Speaker 2: to be associated with lack of oxygen to the brain,
38:07
Speaker 2: and you know, we have been able to study that.
38:09
Speaker 2: For example, there where they're training pilots and they put
38:14
Speaker 2: them in the kind of centrifuge thing to wisdom around it,
38:16
Speaker 2: you know, very which is a massive gravitational pull that
38:20
Speaker 2: can lead to a situation where blood can't get to
38:22
Speaker 2: the brain and the pilots pass out, and they report
38:25
Speaker 2: many of the same experiences as people who have near
38:29
Speaker 2: death right. So again that is kind of telling we
38:32
Speaker 2: know what's causing that. We know it's a physiological effect,
38:36
Speaker 2: and so you know, the burden of proof that there
38:38
Speaker 2: is something more, something paranormal going on lies with those
38:43
Speaker 2: who are making the paranormal claims.
38:44
Speaker 1: I would say, yeah, yeah, that is a that is
38:50
Speaker 1: a thorn in their side. I guess that or a
38:56
Speaker 1: bit of a roadblock, is the like, that's such a
38:58
Speaker 1: good example that tests you gave. Okay, we're going to
39:00
Speaker 1: put you in this chair. You're going to sit here
39:02
Speaker 1: in this room, do you think and then tell us
39:06
Speaker 1: in the last room of the car, Yeah, what's on
39:08
Speaker 1: the table? But no one's been able to do that,
39:11
Speaker 1: and I yeah, it's It's what I love about you too,
39:15
Speaker 1: is you're open minded, Like you're like, if one person
39:20
Speaker 1: can do that, I.
39:21
Speaker 3: Mean, or at least that's that's yeah, yeah, but you're
39:28
Speaker 3: you don't believe that's likely, but you're open to it,
39:31
Speaker 3: and if that should happen, you would change your stance, right.
39:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, if somebody can do that kind of repeatedly, and
39:38
Speaker 2: then well then we've got something we can study. You know,
39:40
Speaker 2: We've got an actual objective phenomenon that we can study.
39:44
Speaker 2: We can look at what kind of factors affect it,
39:46
Speaker 2: what what might be behind it, what's what might be going
39:49
Speaker 2: on in the brain when it happens, and so on.
39:51
Speaker 2: But yeah, you know, I'm I'm for it. I mean,
39:56
Speaker 2: over the years, we've tested a lot of paranormal claim
39:59
Speaker 2: and claiming lots of different things and every time we
40:03
Speaker 2: do that, you know that there is always the possibility
40:06
Speaker 2: that we might get results that actually prove they really
40:08
Speaker 2: can do it. Well. To date, we haven't had any
40:13
Speaker 2: such results. Well, every time we do it, it could happen.
40:16
Speaker 2: This could be the time, you know, I think are
40:19
Speaker 2: probably are You're probably aware of the fact that there
40:22
Speaker 2: are big there are big cash prizes available for anybody
40:26
Speaker 2: who can demonstrate these abilities under properly controlled conditions. I mean,
40:31
Speaker 2: it used to be James Randy had had a million
40:34
Speaker 2: dollars on offer, has now gone down to a measly
40:37
Speaker 2: half a million, you know, which I guess you know,
40:39
Speaker 2: you couldn't really be bothered to out of bed for
40:41
Speaker 2: could you, you know? But it's there, and you know,
40:45
Speaker 2: there are people who claim they've got these amazing abilities
40:49
Speaker 2: and they're tested and so far nobody's ever passed these tests.
40:53
Speaker 2: And when on the occasions where we've carried out these
40:57
Speaker 2: kinds of tests, so we you know, the Anomalistics Ecology
41:00
Speaker 2: Research Unit. This was certainly back in James Randy's day.
41:05
Speaker 2: Sadly he's no longer with us. But the idea was
41:09
Speaker 2: that before going for the official one million dollar test,
41:14
Speaker 2: they would have to pass a preliminary test carried out
41:17
Speaker 2: by somebody that the people at the James Randy Educational
41:20
Speaker 2: Foundation kind of knew and trusted, and so we would
41:24
Speaker 2: very often be the people, if it was a claimant
41:26
Speaker 2: within the UK that'd say, Chris, can you test this
41:30
Speaker 2: guy or this woman? And you know, if we had
41:32
Speaker 2: the time, we'd say yes. Now, of course what that
41:36
Speaker 2: happened was they never passed the preliminary test, but would
41:40
Speaker 2: we would design the test in full collaboration with the claimant.
41:45
Speaker 2: You know, there's no point in testing people either for
41:48
Speaker 2: things that they're not claiming they can do, or under
41:51
Speaker 2: conditions under which they said, well, I won't be able
41:52
Speaker 2: to do it under those conditions. You had to kind
41:55
Speaker 2: of set it all up so that you've, you know,
41:57
Speaker 2: wo'd bend over backwards to try and accommodate any reasonable
41:59
Speaker 2: rec quests. But and when you typically get them to
42:04
Speaker 2: sign something in advance saying this is a fair test
42:07
Speaker 2: of my claim, and then we'd run the test, they'd
42:11
Speaker 2: failed the test, and then they would decide it wasn't
42:14
Speaker 2: a fair test after all. That was that was almost
42:17
Speaker 2: always the way it went. We tested dowsers, We tested psychics,
42:23
Speaker 2: who claimed that they could tell complete strangers all about them.
42:27
Speaker 2: We tested people who claimed that their dreams could foretell
42:32
Speaker 2: future events, and so on. I'm still a skeptic. Yeah,
42:38
Speaker 2: on each of the I could have improved wrong. I
42:41
Speaker 2: could have improved wrong.
42:42
Speaker 1: I have a story that relates to James Randy that
42:46
Speaker 1: you are probably unaware of. It's an Australian story. So
42:50
Speaker 1: there used to be a show, a TV show for
42:52
Speaker 1: years out here. Now my younger listeners won't remember this,
42:56
Speaker 1: but it was called the Donline Show and it was
42:58
Speaker 1: a tonight show of sorts, so every night they'd have
43:02
Speaker 1: different guests. Anyway, Don Lane had this kind of strong
43:08
Speaker 1: belief and connection, belief in and connection with this lady.
43:13
Speaker 1: I can't remember if she was Ozzy or English or
43:15
Speaker 1: American one of them. Her name was Doris Stokes. Have
43:19
Speaker 1: you ever heard of this?
43:20
Speaker 2: I never met Doris. She was slightly before my time.
43:24
Speaker 2: I know of Doris.
43:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, right.
43:27
Speaker 3: For it.
43:28
Speaker 2: Story for you after this.
43:29
Speaker 1: So she'd been on the show a few times and
43:32
Speaker 1: he loved her right, and he just thought she was it.
43:36
Speaker 1: And anyway, one day they got well, one night they
43:38
Speaker 1: got James Randy on to kind of go head to
43:43
Speaker 1: head and he obviously did his thing, and the host
43:49
Speaker 1: Don Lane stood up. What did he did? Something like
43:54
Speaker 1: he slapped the guy's drink out of his hand or
43:57
Speaker 1: something and said, essentially, you're full of shit because he'd
44:01
Speaker 1: just done his thing, and he walked off the set
44:05
Speaker 1: like he walked off his own show. He was so mad,
44:09
Speaker 1: and it was like that was headlined for days. It's
44:12
Speaker 1: like and it wasn't a setup. It wasn't you know.
44:15
Speaker 1: They weren't trying to get a like a bloody Instagram
44:18
Speaker 1: hit like they are now. Yes, So that was that's
44:21
Speaker 1: my recollection of that guy.
44:24
Speaker 2: No, he's I mean, Randy was amazing, I mean literally
44:27
Speaker 2: used that was his stage name, The Amazing Randy. And
44:29
Speaker 2: when I first discovered The Joys of Skepticism and read
44:32
Speaker 2: the read the books that he had written, you know,
44:33
Speaker 2: they were just so good and then so to eventually,
44:36
Speaker 2: you know, I got to a point where actually, you know,
44:39
Speaker 2: considered him to be a personal friend. You know, we
44:41
Speaker 2: were on hugging terms of so much conference we go
44:44
Speaker 2: and it was just his whole life was just so incredible.
44:49
Speaker 2: But the Doris Stokes thing, there's a there's a nice
44:52
Speaker 2: anecdote about Doris because she was like the she was
44:55
Speaker 2: like the biggest, most well known psychic in the UK
44:59
Speaker 2: at the time when she was operating, and apparently, I
45:04
Speaker 2: mean obviously they said it was before my time. But
45:07
Speaker 2: I've heard that if you ever went to one of
45:08
Speaker 2: her stage shows, most of it would be fairly unimpressive
45:14
Speaker 2: cold reading, you know, that wouldn't really impress very many
45:17
Speaker 2: people at all. But then occasionally she would kind of
45:21
Speaker 2: start talking to somebody. I knew you were in the
45:24
Speaker 2: third row back there, on the two seats along. I'm
45:27
Speaker 2: getting a message? Is it from someone called Terry? I'm
45:31
Speaker 2: the take care. It was a motorbike accident on the
45:35
Speaker 2: A twelve five years ago in August, you know, all
45:39
Speaker 2: bang on, bang on, bang on, bang on, and that
45:42
Speaker 2: was the stuff that would come away remember and say,
45:44
Speaker 2: my god, she's amazing. You know. Somebody took the trouble
45:47
Speaker 2: to actually just go up to the person who she
45:50
Speaker 2: had been talking to her. How did she know that?
45:53
Speaker 2: And it turns out that they'd written to her. They
45:56
Speaker 2: had written to Doris months before saying saying, Doris, you
46:01
Speaker 2: know my nephew Terry died in a motorbile accident on
46:05
Speaker 2: the eight twelve, you know, give it her all the details,
46:08
Speaker 2: and she writ back saying that I'm sorry to hear
46:11
Speaker 2: I don't do want to want but your area on
46:14
Speaker 2: such and such a date, here's two free tickets for
46:16
Speaker 2: the show. Those people go along to you exactly thing.
46:20
Speaker 2: She's got all the details. And of course most of
46:23
Speaker 2: the audios wouldn't think to do that. Why would you,
46:25
Speaker 2: you know, they trusted her. She was the real course.
46:28
Speaker 2: And she was also a past master at kind of
46:32
Speaker 2: if she said something that was a miss, she could
46:35
Speaker 2: turn it into a hit. And again, one nice example
46:37
Speaker 2: of that was at one of her shows, assumed that
46:41
Speaker 2: she'd been she'd been in touch with somebody who was
46:45
Speaker 2: in spirit, and she said, you know, said the person
46:47
Speaker 2: of the audience, and and it was let's car it
46:53
Speaker 2: was and it was it was lung cancer. Wasn't that
46:57
Speaker 2: took him? And they said, no, no, no, no, it
46:59
Speaker 2: was a heart attack. That's right, it was a it
47:01
Speaker 2: was a heart attack. Wasn't it that took him? And
47:03
Speaker 2: they say, no, no, it was lung cancer. No, no,
47:06
Speaker 2: it tells me you had a heart attack right at
47:07
Speaker 2: the very end. You could. She's always had an.
47:11
Speaker 1: Ax for everything, So wow, yeah, Wow.
47:13
Speaker 2: She's I mean she was again. She she was, in
47:17
Speaker 2: my humble opinion again now and there's a lot of
47:19
Speaker 2: evidence to suggest that she was just a total fraud
47:21
Speaker 2: from start to finish. And my again tongue in cheek.
47:24
Speaker 2: In my book, I think I referred to a Frenchy's
47:28
Speaker 2: second law, which is the the higher the profile of
47:32
Speaker 2: the psychic or medium or whoever, the more likely it
47:35
Speaker 2: is that they're using deliberate trickery. Because I think that
47:38
Speaker 2: a lot of workaday mediums and psychics, most of them,
47:41
Speaker 2: I don't think. I think they genuinely believe in what
47:43
Speaker 2: they're doing. They genuinely think that they have a gift.
47:46
Speaker 2: But when you get to that kind of level and
47:48
Speaker 2: you've got to deliver on stage at night after night
47:51
Speaker 2: or in front of TV cameras, you're not going to
47:54
Speaker 2: take any chances. You're going to make sure that the
47:56
Speaker 2: readings are accurate. That means that means cheating, and they do.
48:02
Speaker 1: It's not this similar in some mega churches where the pastor,
48:07
Speaker 1: you know, like obviously the whole foundation of what they're
48:12
Speaker 1: meant to be about is built around the Bible and
48:15
Speaker 1: the bi the pastor lives in this mega mansion, he's
48:19
Speaker 1: got jets, he's got like everything about his lifestyle is
48:23
Speaker 1: a contradiction to to the humility and the servers and like,
48:30
Speaker 1: you know, and you're meant to be all about you know, love, kindness, sacrifice, effort, humility,
48:38
Speaker 1: you know, ego lists, you know, the whole, and it's
48:42
Speaker 1: but people just think more, oh, you know, and then
48:45
Speaker 1: they have this what's it called? Uh, it's like this
48:49
Speaker 1: whole philosophy around explain what's it called explaining the wealth?
48:57
Speaker 2: It's like, I know, I can't think something. Gospel, isn't
49:00
Speaker 2: it the yeah?
49:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, God, God, God doesn't want us to be poor.
49:07
Speaker 1: It's the yeah. And I'm like, oh, it's bloody. And
49:10
Speaker 1: you're just objectively looking back. And I mean I'm no psychic,
49:15
Speaker 1: I know anything, but just even listening to these people
49:18
Speaker 1: speak as somebody who's heard a lot of people speak
49:21
Speaker 1: and has been around thousands of people in consultation, you know,
49:26
Speaker 1: you're like, well, I could be wrong, but everything about
49:30
Speaker 1: this dude just makes me feel creepy and like so
49:36
Speaker 1: obviously disingenuous and just playing this role. It's like so
49:41
Speaker 1: it's like just somebody acting in a film, and people
49:45
Speaker 1: like enamored.
49:48
Speaker 2: One of the prime examples there. I mean, have you
49:50
Speaker 2: heard of Peter Popoff. No, Peter Popoff was again going
49:54
Speaker 2: was exposed by James Randy. This would be back in
49:57
Speaker 2: the probably seventies, maybe eighties. Pop Off was a fundamentalist preacher.
50:02
Speaker 2: He would go around fill these huge arenas with all
50:05
Speaker 2: these typically poor, ill uneducated people who were looking for
50:12
Speaker 2: a miracle, and he would come on stage and one
50:16
Speaker 2: of the things that he did that really impressed them
50:18
Speaker 2: was he would at various points during the proceedings, he'd
50:22
Speaker 2: kind of start talking to some in the audience and
50:24
Speaker 2: he said, now, well, we've never spoken before, have we.
50:26
Speaker 2: You know, No, no, no. The name of your doctor
50:31
Speaker 2: is doctor so and so, and his addresses such and such,
50:34
Speaker 2: and you live at blah blah blah blah, and you've
50:37
Speaker 2: got a problem with the kidneys, haven't you. You know,
50:39
Speaker 2: And you just come up with all this again, totally
50:41
Speaker 2: bang on accurate stuff. And he'd do this repeatedly, and
50:45
Speaker 2: the implication was that God was giving him this information.
50:48
Speaker 2: Randy noticed he had a hearing aid kind of thought
50:53
Speaker 2: slightly odd. You know, heal yourself. Obviously it's a receiver.
51:00
Speaker 2: So with the assistance of a friend of his who
51:03
Speaker 2: was good with electronics. They went on the shows, they've
51:06
Speaker 2: they've found what the frequency was, so it was what
51:09
Speaker 2: they would do. While it turns out it was his
51:12
Speaker 2: wife who was feeding him the information, because when people
51:15
Speaker 2: were queuing up outside to come in, the various of
51:19
Speaker 2: his workers would go along and say, look, if we
51:21
Speaker 2: don't have time to heal you tonight, fill in one
51:23
Speaker 2: of these prayer cards and we will pray for you later.
51:26
Speaker 2: So they're fill in all these details and then that's
51:29
Speaker 2: what the wife was transmitting to pop Off and.
51:32
Speaker 1: So, oh my goodness, wow, and.
51:38
Speaker 2: So they this was then exposed I think was the
51:41
Speaker 2: Ed Sullivan Show. It was one of the big name
51:44
Speaker 2: American presenters that you know, was on every night and
51:47
Speaker 2: the whole nation follow But the host didn't know what.
51:53
Speaker 2: He was a good friend of Randy, He had Randy
51:56
Speaker 2: on a lot, you know, he didn't know what Randy's
51:58
Speaker 2: big expose was going to be that night. But basically
52:01
Speaker 2: they showed pop Off in action first of all, without
52:04
Speaker 2: hearing what the wife was transmitting to him, and then
52:07
Speaker 2: played it again with him getting the man you know obviously,
52:11
Speaker 2: and uh.
52:13
Speaker 1: So could could I could I access and record the
52:17
Speaker 1: message that was going into his ear.
52:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and so that is right. Yeah, you'll
52:23
Speaker 2: be well, you'll be able to find this. I'm sure
52:25
Speaker 2: there'll be clips online showing this because it was one
52:28
Speaker 2: of one of Brandy's classic exposes. And initially, of course
52:32
Speaker 2: pop Off denied and said it was a setup, and
52:35
Speaker 2: eventually they did admit it. But when it was first broadcast,
52:38
Speaker 2: because it's had different time zones in America, so initially
52:42
Speaker 2: it went on one side of the country and all
52:44
Speaker 2: the pop Off supporters were phoned and saying, look, this
52:46
Speaker 2: is terrible, because what's going on Peter. And then he
52:48
Speaker 2: knew that it would be broadcast an hour later in
52:51
Speaker 2: another section of the country. And then you know, so anyway,
52:55
Speaker 2: he went bankrupt away fantastic. Now he's now back again.
53:00
Speaker 2: He's earning more than he ever did. Then it's all
53:04
Speaker 2: tax free because he's religious. And I interviewed Randy for
53:09
Speaker 2: once for the ske I used to read it the
53:10
Speaker 2: Skeptic magazine in the UK. The ske I interviewed Randy
53:14
Speaker 2: for the Skeptic mag and we were talking about the
53:17
Speaker 2: pop Off incident and he also Randy told me some
53:22
Speaker 2: of the stuff that they'd recorded that they hadn't broadcast,
53:25
Speaker 2: which showed his attitude pop offs attitude towards his flock. Basically,
53:31
Speaker 2: he was just, oh, it was evil. You know, they
53:36
Speaker 2: had no respect for them at all. Apparently the other take,
53:39
Speaker 2: they take thousands and thousands in donation millions across across
53:42
Speaker 2: a year. You know, they wouldn't even bother to cash
53:45
Speaker 2: checks for less than ten dollars. It wasn't worth the effort.
53:48
Speaker 2: They just chocked those in the bin. And they're kind
53:52
Speaker 2: of talking. Let me tell you this, because it's so shocking.
53:57
Speaker 2: They would be saying things like, I mean, I forgive
53:59
Speaker 2: me for I'm not actually going to use the N word,
54:02
Speaker 2: but I will make references because they did use it.
54:05
Speaker 2: You know that they Yeah, the next one to go
54:10
Speaker 2: to that big fat N word. In the third row,
54:13
Speaker 2: you know, there was a guy in the audience who
54:16
Speaker 2: had testicular cancer, so so his balls are about the
54:21
Speaker 2: size of melons. And they thought this was hilarious. They
54:25
Speaker 2: were having a good old laugh over that. And you
54:27
Speaker 2: think these people are supposed to be Christians. And yet,
54:31
Speaker 2: going back to what I said before, despite the fact
54:34
Speaker 2: that he was totally exposed, then the end did accept
54:38
Speaker 2: that that's what they've done is now still doing it again.
54:40
Speaker 2: It's fleecing the same people with the same mindset still.
54:44
Speaker 2: And that's what I really struggled to get my head around,
54:47
Speaker 2: it that people can just ignore such such evidence, you know,
54:52
Speaker 2: that is.
54:54
Speaker 1: The fact that this guy who's like being proven publicly
54:59
Speaker 1: to be defrauding people, manipulating, deceiving, you know, it's it
55:07
Speaker 1: is humans. When humans believe something, evidence almost doesn't matter.
55:15
Speaker 2: It's a very good book by Randy on this stuff,
55:17
Speaker 2: called The Faith Healers. I highly recommend. It's very disturbing reading.
55:21
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean yeah, these people are just the
55:24
Speaker 2: worst kind of artists. I mean, especially as I say,
55:29
Speaker 2: they are taking advantage of desperate people who've got very
55:34
Speaker 2: little money, and they're quite happy to take as much
55:36
Speaker 2: as they can of that money. And you're not going
55:38
Speaker 2: to get anything in return. Wow Wow, wow, Wow.
55:43
Speaker 1: What time is it over there? Prof?
55:45
Speaker 2: I think we're just coming up to the hour, just
55:47
Speaker 2: coming up to eleven o'clock over here.
55:49
Speaker 1: In the IM of course, because we're in the PA,
55:52
Speaker 1: we're in the pam over here in the bloody Sunshine Country.
55:57
Speaker 1: Not always it's great talking to you.
56:00
Speaker 2: I could talk to you so often.
56:02
Speaker 1: It's so interesting. Is there anything you want to promote,
56:06
Speaker 1: anything you want to share with our listeners? Do you
56:08
Speaker 1: want to steer them in a direction? You just told
56:10
Speaker 1: us about that book. Have you got anything personally?
56:14
Speaker 2: Well, again, you know, just in case, just in case
56:16
Speaker 2: it didn't come up with a book the Science of
56:18
Speaker 2: Weird Shit, if you want to read more about all
56:20
Speaker 2: of this stuff. But also you know the tests that
56:24
Speaker 2: we've done of psychics, the kind of alternative explanations there
56:27
Speaker 2: are for a whole range of paranormal phenomena. Well, that's
56:30
Speaker 2: available at all good bookshops and also Satan's own website.
56:36
Speaker 2: Apart from that, I think you know I'm referring to that. Yeah, no,
56:42
Speaker 2: I mean again, like you probably, I do lots of
56:45
Speaker 2: I do lots of podcasts, interviews for people such as
56:47
Speaker 2: your good self. Always happy to come on again, by
56:50
Speaker 2: the way, And I should get around to update in
56:55
Speaker 2: my website at some point, but I'm always so busy.
56:59
Speaker 2: But if anybody wants to check it out, there's on
57:00
Speaker 2: various video clips, papers, all sorts of stuff there that's
57:04
Speaker 2: Profchrisfrench dot com. So maybe gerfect it doesn't need a dating,
57:09
Speaker 2: badly needs updating.
57:11
Speaker 1: We'll come and get your shit together. Also yes, of course,
57:14
Speaker 1: as Chris mentioned the science of which it is his
57:17
Speaker 1: book mate, you're a pleasure and a treasure. Thank you
57:21
Speaker 1: for that. We'll say goodbye O Fair, but thanks for
57:23
Speaker 1: being on the new project again. I appreciate you. My pleasure,