Latest / Weeknight Mysteries Podcast / Ep. 91 | 5 Disturbing Psychology Experiments & The Strange Death Of Rina Yasutake

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Ep. 91 | 5 Disturbing Psychology Experiments & The Strange Death Of Rina Yasutake · Weeknight Mysteries Podcast

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Speaker 1: A while ago I covered the Pit of Despair experiment
0:02
Speaker 1: and the recording seemed to do pretty well so today
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Speaker 1: I thought I'd cover some more disturbing psychological experiments. The
0:09
Speaker 1: Pit of Despair was an attempt to create depression in
0:12
Speaker 1: an otherwise healthy rhesus macaque and since then there's been
0:15
Speaker 1: other experiments that attempt to simulate depressive symptoms in animals.
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Speaker 1: One of these is the Learned Helplessness experiment conducted in
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Speaker 1: 1967 by psychologists Stephen Meyer and Martin Seligman. The experiment
0:29
Speaker 1: was to study whether someone can learn that a situation
0:31
Speaker 1: is hopeless and then retain this hopeless mindset in situations
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Speaker 1: where a solution is clearly visible. To demonstrate this they
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Speaker 1: took a number of beagles and split them into three groups.
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Speaker 1: The dogs from each group were put into a special
0:45
Speaker 1: harness that allowed them to stand but prevented them from
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Speaker 1: walking away. The dogs in group 1 were their control
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Speaker 1: animals apart from the harness they were subjected to no
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Speaker 1: other treatment. The dogs in group 2 were stored on
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Speaker 1: a metal platform that would administer electric shocks at random.
1:02
Speaker 1: In front of the dogs was a button that they
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Speaker 1: could press with their nose and this would stop the
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Speaker 1: electric shocks. The dogs in group 3 were also given
1:10
Speaker 1: shocks but this time there was no button for them
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Speaker 1: to press. They were helpless to the tortures of the
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Speaker 1: electrified floor. Once each group had undergone the harness treatment
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Speaker 1: they were placed into a special box. The box was
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Speaker 1: split into two halves each with an electrified floor a
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Speaker 1: low wall separated the two halves. Scientists would electrify one
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Speaker 1: half of the box. To escape the shocks the dogs
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Speaker 1: would simply have to jump over the low wall into
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Speaker 1: the other half. As predicted the dogs in group 1
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Speaker 1: and 2 easily escaped the electrocutions by hopping over the wall.
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Speaker 1: The dogs in group 3 however had learned that it
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Speaker 1: was hopeless to attempt to escape. They simply stood there
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Speaker 1: in the electrified half, resigned to their fate. Escape from
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Speaker 1: their pain would have involved a simple jump over a
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Speaker 1: small wall but they couldn't comprehend that they might be
2:02
Speaker 1: able to help themselves. It was an important discovery in
2:06
Speaker 1: learned behavior but for the dogs involved it must have
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Speaker 1: seemed a particularly cruel and unusual punishment. An earlier experiment
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Speaker 1: in learned behavior comes from 1920 and this one involved
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Speaker 1: a human subject. The Little Albert experiment was a study
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Speaker 1: in how the human mind develops phobias, how we learn
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Speaker 1: what to be afraid of. A nine-month-old baby known only
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Speaker 1: as Albert was introduced to a number of stimuli. He
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Speaker 1: was given a white rat, a rabbit, and a dog
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Speaker 1: to play with. He was also shown people in different
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Speaker 1: masks and disguises. Little Albert showed minor reaction to these
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Speaker 1: things except mild interest. He certainly wasn't afraid of any
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Speaker 1: of them. The experimenters then placed him on a mat
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Speaker 1: with a steel pole hanging from a frame behind him.
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Speaker 1: They brought the white rat back in and placed it
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Speaker 1: on the floor in front of him. Every time curious
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Speaker 1: little Albert reached out to touch the rat, somebody would
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Speaker 1: hit the steel pole, causing a loud noise that gave
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Speaker 1: Albert a fright. Pretty soon he began to associate the
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Speaker 1: rat with the fear emotion. Now whenever the rat was
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Speaker 1: placed near him, Albert would cry and try to crawl
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Speaker 1: away from the creature. They had successfully given Albert a
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Speaker 1: phobia of rats which he didn't have days before. There
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Speaker 1: were some unexpected outcomes though. Not only did Albert develop
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Speaker 1: a phobia of rats but of any small furry object.
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Speaker 1: He would now display the same fear response to rabbits
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Speaker 1: and dogs. Even stuff like cotton wool and Santa's beard
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Speaker 1: would set him off. The sad thing is when the
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Speaker 1: experiments were over nothing was done to try and reverse
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Speaker 1: the process to help Albert learn his fears. The test
3:50
Speaker 1: was ended and Albert was sent back to his mother,
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Speaker 1: new phobias and all. Whatever happened to Albert after that
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Speaker 1: is still a matter of debate. His mother moved away
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Speaker 1: and his real name has always been kept secret. Quite
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Speaker 1: recently it was discovered that a man named William Barger
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Speaker 1: was born around the right time and place to have
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Speaker 1: been little Albert. His mother also worked in the same
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Speaker 1: building where the experiment was conducted. Although his name was
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Speaker 1: William he was always called by his middle name, Albert.
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Speaker 1: Unfortunately he died in 2007 aged 87 and most likely
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Speaker 1: he wouldn't have been aware of being part of a
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Speaker 1: psychological experiment but family members always mentioned how he had
4:30
Speaker 1: a terrible fear of dogs and other small animals that
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Speaker 1: persisted into old age. There's been a number of psychological
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Speaker 1: experiments that look at the effects of coercive control and
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Speaker 1: people's willingness to obey authority figures. The idea that people
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Speaker 1: can be convinced to ignore their own morals just to
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Speaker 1: obey the orders of someone in a senior position. Milgram's
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Speaker 1: shock experiments is quite well known already so I won't
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Speaker 1: go into too much detail here but for people who
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Speaker 1: don't know about it, in 1961 a psychologist called Stanley
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Speaker 1: Milgram conducted a series of experiments to see how willing
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Speaker 1: people would be to follow orders even if it meant
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Speaker 1: causing harm to another person. After the horrors of World
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Speaker 1: War II he wanted to see how normal human beings
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Speaker 1: could be convinced to commit terrible acts. The experiment consisted
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Speaker 1: of two people sitting in separate rooms with a psychologist
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Speaker 1: watching over them. One of those people was hooked up
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Speaker 1: to electrodes and the other was given a machine that
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Speaker 1: could administer electric shocks to their person in the other room.
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Speaker 1: The person with the electrodes attached would be asked a
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Speaker 1: series of questions and if they got the question wrong
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Speaker 1: the psychologist would tell the other person to give them
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Speaker 1: an electric shock. As the experiment goes on the strength
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Speaker 1: of the electric shock becomes stronger and stronger until they
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Speaker 1: seem to be actually harming the person receiving the shocks.
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Speaker 1: The person starts a shout for help begging for the
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Speaker 1: shocks to stop. The one administering the shocks might start
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Speaker 1: to protest but the psychologist simply tells them to continue.
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Speaker 1: Most of the time they would continue shocking the other
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Speaker 1: person until they seemingly killed them all because an authority
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Speaker 1: figure told them to. Of course the person receiving the
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Speaker 1: shocks was an actor. The electrocution machine wasn't actually hooked
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Speaker 1: up to anything but the person dishing out the shocks
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Speaker 1: didn't know this and oftentimes they would convince that they'd
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Speaker 1: badly injured or even killed another human being. As I
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Speaker 1: say this experiment is quite famous but what isn't so
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Speaker 1: well known is the experiments conducted afterwards. See there was
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Speaker 1: a suspicion that the test subjects might be able to
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Speaker 1: work out that the guy in the other room was acting.
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Speaker 1: To get a true measure of human nature they would
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Speaker 1: need to be giving shocks to a real victim. In 1972,
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Speaker 1: psychologists Charles Sheridan and Richard King decided to run Mildrem's
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Speaker 1: experiment again but this time instead of having an actor
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Speaker 1: receive the shocks it was a small puppy. Similar to
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Speaker 1: the learned helplessness experiments the dog was placed into a
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Speaker 1: box with a metal floor. The dog was supposed to
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Speaker 1: stand on either side of the box depending on where
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Speaker 1: a flashing light appeared. People were brought in and sat
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Speaker 1: in front of a device with 10 buttons each one
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Speaker 1: delivering an increasingly strong shock to the puppy. Whenever the
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Speaker 1: puppy stood in the wrong place the psychologist would inform
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Speaker 1: the person to press the button and give the dog
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Speaker 1: a shock. Naturally the puppy would scream in pain from
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Speaker 1: the punishment. The people delivering the shocks would often start
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Speaker 1: crying and beg the scientists to release the animal. The
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Speaker 1: psychologist would simply tell him to continue with the experiment
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Speaker 1: and in the vast majority of cases they did. Out
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Speaker 1: of 26 people tested only 6 of them stopped the
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Speaker 1: experiment and refused to shock the puppy. Another experiment that
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Speaker 1: shows obedience to authority was conducted decades earlier in 1921
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Speaker 1: by University of Minnesota students Carney Landis. As part of
7:52
Speaker 1: his doctoral research he wanted to study people's facial expressions.
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Speaker 1: The experiment was quite simple he would take various test
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Speaker 1: subjects and paint dark lines on their face. He would
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Speaker 1: then subject them to various situations that would make them
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Speaker 1: feel different emotions. Then he would photograph them to see
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Speaker 1: how their facial expressions changed. He would do things like
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Speaker 1: make them listen to jazz music, he had them tell
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Speaker 1: a lie, he showed them pictures of diseases and made
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Speaker 1: them smell ammonia. Each time he'd get a different reaction
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Speaker 1: and a different photograph. The final part of the experiment
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Speaker 1: though involved a live animal. In front of the test
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Speaker 1: subjects he placed a live rat and a large butcher's knife.
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Speaker 1: He told them to hold the rat in one hand
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Speaker 1: and beheaded with the knife. If anyone refused Landis would
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Speaker 1: grab the rat and beheaded himself. After all he wanted
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Speaker 1: to record their reaction. The strange thing is though hardly
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Speaker 1: anyone refused to cooperate. Even when they cried and protested
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Speaker 1: over being made to kill a live creature most of
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Speaker 1: them proceeded with just the mildest of encouragement from Landis.
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Speaker 1: Two-thirds of the people tested agreed to behead the rodents,
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Speaker 1: including a 13-year-old boy who was already suffering from psychological issues.
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Speaker 1: I have to wonder how being made to behead a
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Speaker 1: live animal affected his mental health afterwards. From these photos
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Speaker 1: it seems clear that he wasn't enjoying the ordeal. Finally
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Speaker 1: I want to look at a sleep deprivation experiment. As
9:24
Speaker 1: you may know sleep deprivation is one of the most
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Speaker 1: effective torture techniques. Even just a few days without sleep
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Speaker 1: can be enough to convince someone to confess the crimes
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Speaker 1: that they never even committed. To subject a defenseless animal
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Speaker 1: to this treatment can be difficult even for the scientist.
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Speaker 1: In 1894 some Russian psychologists who I'm probably going to
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Speaker 1: mispronounce the names of conducted one of the earliest known
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Speaker 1: experiments into the importance of sleep. Maria Manasina and Ivan
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Speaker 1: Tarkinov took 10 puppies and deprived them of sleep through
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Speaker 1: the use of constant activity. They also took another group
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Speaker 1: of puppies and allowed them to sleep but deprived them
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Speaker 1: of food. Strangely after four or five days the sleep
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Speaker 1: deprived puppies died whereas the food deprived puppies could last
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Speaker 1: 20 days or more. They concluded from their studies that
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Speaker 1: sleep was as important as food for a person's health.
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Speaker 1: The problem was conducting such an experiment left a psychological
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Speaker 1: mark on the experimenters. Keeping 10 puppies awake for days
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Speaker 1: on end was extremely difficult. Maria described it as being
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Speaker 1: a very painful process both for the scientists and for
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Speaker 1: the puppies. Since then there's been a number of other
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Speaker 1: sleep deprivation experiments on dogs. Each time the result was
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Speaker 1: the same. Without sleep the dog's brains would shut down
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Speaker 1: and they would quickly die. The longest the dog survived
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Speaker 1: without sleep was about two weeks. I hate to think
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Speaker 1: what it endured in those two weeks to make it
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Speaker 1: stay awake all that time. The results are clear though.
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Speaker 1: As I said in my pitted despair video, I don't
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Speaker 1: really know where I stand on these sorts of experiments.
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Speaker 1: A lot of them seem excessively cruel but sometimes it's
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Speaker 1: hard to judge the past with the ethics of today
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Speaker 1: and these studies often gave data that went on to
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Speaker 1: help a lot of people. Whether the end is justified
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Speaker 1: the means is a moral judgment or leave up to you.
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Speaker 1: If you're new to this channel then please consider subscribing.
11:26
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be able to make this content without you
11:28
Speaker 1: and your support is highly appreciated. If you'd also like
11:32
Speaker 1: to support a channel then check out the link in
11:34
Speaker 1: the archive now. It was September 2018. Brother and sister
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Speaker 1: Yashika and Takahiro entered a North Yorkshire chemist and bought
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Speaker 1: two large bottles of surgical spirit. They'd been in several
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Speaker 1: times already this week, each time buying two bottles of
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Speaker 1: the spirit. What did they need it for? The chemist
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Speaker 1: was beginning to get suspicious. She became even more suspicious
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Speaker 1: when she approached the siblings and noticed the unmistakable stench
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Speaker 1: of death upon them. The Yasutake family were a reclusive bunch.
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Speaker 1: There was Michiko Yasutake, a daughter's Yoshika and Rina and
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Speaker 1: her son Takahiro. They lived together in a small house
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Speaker 1: in the Pittrass town of Helmsley, North Yorkshire. They'd first
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Speaker 1: moved to the UK from Japan when Michiko married a
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Speaker 1: British man. When the marriage failed in 1998 the Yasika
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Speaker 1: family had moved into the Helmsley house and cut themselves
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Speaker 1: off from the outside world. They had no TV, radio
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Speaker 1: or telephone and they rarely interacted with their neighbours. Rina
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Speaker 1: was a little more outgoing. She received private education at
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Speaker 1: Queen Mary School and was known as a fun-loving and
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Speaker 1: popular student. In 1986 she won a scholarship to Cambridge
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Speaker 1: and there she studied classics specializing in linguistics. Again, at
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Speaker 1: Cambridge she was known as an outgoing and friendly young woman. However,
13:02
Speaker 1: after graduating from Cambridge she moved back to her family's
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Speaker 1: home and soon broke contact with her former friends becoming
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Speaker 1: insular and reclusive along with the rest of her family.
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Speaker 1: Most people in the town where she lived didn't even
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Speaker 1: know that she existed. Newspapers say that she was a
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Speaker 1: talented artist and even sold a few of her pieces
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Speaker 1: but sadly I've been unable to find any examples of
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Speaker 1: her work. Not much is known about her life after
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Speaker 1: Cambridge except that something happens to cause her mental health
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Speaker 1: to severely decline. Perhaps it was simply the insular lifestyle
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Speaker 1: in their Helmsley home. In 2013 she visited a doctor
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Speaker 1: requesting psychiatric help. She was experiencing violent mood swings and
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Speaker 1: was afraid that she was going to attack her family members.
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Speaker 1: She received some counseling but wasn't seen again after that.
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Speaker 1: In 2018 Rina's father who still lived in Japan died
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Speaker 1: and Rina fell into a deep depression. She started to
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Speaker 1: eat less and less and only drank occasionally. Over the
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Speaker 1: following weeks Rina grew increasingly weak eventually becoming too frail
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Speaker 1: to leave her bed. The family due to their insular
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Speaker 1: nature were afraid that something would happen if they took
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Speaker 1: her to hospital and although they tried to encourage her
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Speaker 1: to eat something they decided Rina had chosen her own
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Speaker 1: path and they allowed her to slowly starve. On the
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Speaker 1: 18th of August Rina finally succumbed. She passed away quietly
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Speaker 1: in her bed and here's where things start to get strange.
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Speaker 1: Her family refused to believe that she was actually dead.
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Speaker 1: Her body remained in the bed and her brother and
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Speaker 1: sister continued to care for her corpse as if she
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Speaker 1: was actually alive. In a later interview with a psychiatrist
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Speaker 1: her sister would say, she was still breathing, her body
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Speaker 1: was warm and she still had a pulse. She did
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Speaker 1: not say much to us so he said to eat
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Speaker 1: and drink more. She looked like she was nourished by
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Speaker 1: eating her soul. I don't know how to explain, even
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Speaker 1: though she wasn't eating, she was nourished with spiritual food
15:03
Speaker 1: and she was fulfilled. And so her body remained in
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Speaker 1: her bed for a number of weeks that family treating
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Speaker 1: Rina as if she was living. Even when her corpse
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Speaker 1: began to rot and stink they still believed that she
15:15
Speaker 1: was alive. Towards the end of September the decay must
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Speaker 1: have become unbearable because this is when they started visiting
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Speaker 1: chemist and buying large quantities of surgical spirits. A lot
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Speaker 1: of articles say that the family embalm Rina's body but
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Speaker 1: none of these sources provide any further details, at least
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Speaker 1: not that I can find. Did they go through the
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Speaker 1: whole gruesome ordeal of draining her body of fluids and
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Speaker 1: replacing it with some sort of preservative? Did they just
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Speaker 1: inject surgical spirit into a body in a crude attempt
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Speaker 1: to preserve it? It seems unlikely but it is possible.
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Speaker 1: It would be odd behavior for people who still believed
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Speaker 1: that Rina was alive. It could be something similar to
15:55
Speaker 1: this case from India where in 2021 a man named
15:58
Speaker 1: Vimlesh died in his home but his family refused to
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Speaker 1: believe it so they kept his corpse in the house
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Speaker 1: thinking he was just in a coma and when he
16:05
Speaker 1: started to decay they started washing him with cleaning chemicals.
16:09
Speaker 1: The cleaning chemicals stopped the bacteria growing on his skin
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Speaker 1: and slowed down their putrefaction process so neighbors were never
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Speaker 1: alerted by the smell of his decomposing body. The family
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Speaker 1: kept this up for 18 months before they were discovered
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Speaker 1: and when Vimlesha's body was found the skin had turned
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Speaker 1: black and he was partially mummified. Rina's body was also
16:29
Speaker 1: described as partially mummified. Perhaps her family was simply cleaning
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Speaker 1: her skin with the surgical spirit slowly pickling her corpse
16:37
Speaker 1: from the outside. Either way as I said at the
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Speaker 1: beginning of the recording the large quantities of surgical spirit
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Speaker 1: that they were buying and the fact that they smelled
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Speaker 1: like death made the staff at the chemists a little
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Speaker 1: bit suspicious. On the September 25th when Yoshika and Takahiro
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Speaker 1: attempted to buy another two bottles the chemist Eva Ward
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Speaker 1: confronted them. She noticed that Takahiro was carrying a pink
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Speaker 1: folder containing some letters and she spotted Rina's name written
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Speaker 1: on the piece of paper inside the folder. She pointed
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Speaker 1: to the paper and asked if the surgical spirit was
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Speaker 1: for her. Takahiro nodded and said our sister is unconscious.
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Speaker 1: Now I've heard two different accounts on how the police
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Speaker 1: were actually alerted. Most news reports say that the chemist
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Speaker 1: rang the police and tipped them off but this article
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Speaker 1: in the Times says that builders were repairing the roof
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Speaker 1: of the Asataki house and they noticed the smell of
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Speaker 1: a decaying corpse coming from inside and so they called
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Speaker 1: the police. Most photos of the house from the time
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Speaker 1: when they discovered Rina's body do show scaffolding up. Maybe
17:40
Speaker 1: both these things happened at the same time. The chemist
17:43
Speaker 1: and the roofers called the police and the combination of
17:46
Speaker 1: cause were enough to alert the police to the property.
17:49
Speaker 1: To be honest I'm surprised the body wasn't discovered sooner.
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Speaker 1: When I first heard the story I assumed the family
17:56
Speaker 1: lived in some isolated cottage in the middle of nowhere
17:59
Speaker 1: but looking up the house on street view they live
18:01
Speaker 1: on quite a busy street with neighbors on both sides.
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Speaker 1: Anyway however they were alerted on the September 25th police
18:08
Speaker 1: visited the property in Helmsley and in an upstairs bedroom
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Speaker 1: they found Rina's body. She was lying on a mattress
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Speaker 1: on the floor with a duvet drawn up to her neck.
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Speaker 1: A paramedic named Karen Tomlinson was on the scene and
18:21
Speaker 1: she said it was obvious that she'd been dead and
18:24
Speaker 1: probably had been for some weeks. The weird thing is
18:27
Speaker 1: as if this case wasn't strange enough already even after
18:30
Speaker 1: Rena's body was taken away and the family were told
18:33
Speaker 1: that she was dead they still refused to believe it
18:35
Speaker 1: and continued to claim that Rena was alive. They believed
18:39
Speaker 1: this for several more months until a psychologist could convince
18:42
Speaker 1: them otherwise. Rina's body was so badly decomposed that it
18:46
Speaker 1: was impossible for a coroner to determine a cause of
18:49
Speaker 1: death but they found no signs of injury or poisoning.
18:53
Speaker 1: The Yesetaki family were charged with preventing a lawful and
18:56
Speaker 1: decent burial but the prosecution was eventually halted. It was
19:01
Speaker 1: decided that pursuing the case would not be in the
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Speaker 1: public interests as the family were found to be suffering
19:06
Speaker 1: from an extremely rare mental disorder. None of the sources
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Speaker 1: I've found say what mental disorder that is and I've
19:12
Speaker 1: been wondering what it could be that they were suffering from.
19:16
Speaker 1: Follia toy perhaps an even rarer condition and folly adieu,
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Speaker 1: this is a condition in which multiple people can become
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Speaker 1: afflicted with the same delusion simultaneously. Or maybe there's some
19:26
Speaker 1: kind of reverse codered syndrome where instead of a living
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Speaker 1: person believing that they're dead a corpse is believed to
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Speaker 1: be living. If there's any psychologist watching perhaps they can
19:36
Speaker 1: enlighten me on this because I'd be interested in know
19:38
Speaker 1: what mental condition they were actually diagnosed with. So with
19:42
Speaker 1: the case halted the family were free to go back
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Speaker 1: to their reclusive insular lives and that's pretty much where
19:47
Speaker 1: we find things today. It's a sad case but surprisingly
19:51
Speaker 1: not all that unusual. I've already covered another case where
19:55
Speaker 1: people were living with a dead body but there are
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Speaker 1: many more examples. It's a lot more common than you think.
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Speaker 1: In the UK alone I found a In 2014 another
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Speaker 1: reclusive family. 59-year-old Timothy Brown and Kenneth his 94-year-old father
20:15
Speaker 1: lived in a small house in Stafford. One day Kenneth
20:19
Speaker 1: had a fall and after sitting down in an armchair
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Speaker 1: in the living room he died. Instead of calling the
20:25
Speaker 1: authorities and Timothy Brown left the body where it was
20:28
Speaker 1: and lived with his father's corpse for four months. It
20:31
Speaker 1: was only discovered when a neighbor popped by to check
20:34
Speaker 1: in on them and spotted Kenneth's skeletal remains sitting in
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Speaker 1: the armchair. Timothy wasn't under the delusion that his father
20:40
Speaker 1: was still alive. It seems he just had trouble accepting
20:44
Speaker 1: the death and he didn't really know what to do.
20:48
Speaker 1: Another case from 2011 a 29-year-old man named Christopher Blackburn
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Speaker 1: kept his father's dead body in his house leaving it
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Speaker 1: lying in a bed for five months. He even told
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Speaker 1: his 10-year-old daughter that her grandfather was just sleeping. Neighbors
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Speaker 1: would ask after his father and Christopher would tell him
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Speaker 1: that he was fine but after five months not seeing
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Speaker 1: him the neighbors got suspicious and they called the police
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Speaker 1: out of concern. In this case it seems that Christopher
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Speaker 1: did it purely so that he could claim his father's
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Speaker 1: benefit checks for himself. He pocketed around 1,800 pounds in total.
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Speaker 1: Now I know that isn't exactly small change but it
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Speaker 1: doesn't seem worth living with a corpse for 5 months
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Speaker 1: just to get it. It makes me wonder how many
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Speaker 1: more cases there are that we just don't hear about.
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Speaker 1: I know that corpses can often go undiscovered when people
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Speaker 1: are living alone and they pass away but to have
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Speaker 1: someone else living in the house with the body it
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Speaker 1: just adds a whole new level of creepiness to it.
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Speaker 1: For someone to be able to bypass that natural repulsion
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Speaker 1: we have towards corpses especially when they start to putrefy.
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Speaker 1: I found it unimaginable how somebody could live that way.
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Speaker 1: The case of Renee Yesotaki is an eerie one and
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Speaker 1: it seems the family were genuinely gripped by a shared
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Speaker 1: delusion that she was still alive. To me their biggest
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Speaker 1: crime wasn't preventing a lawful and decent burial but for
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Speaker 1: not seeking help while she was starving herself to death.
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Speaker 1: Perhaps this was part of their delusion. I've heard some
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Speaker 1: rumors that Renee's death was some sort of religious ordeal.
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Speaker 1: The family word about Buddhists and people who shared a
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Speaker 1: dorm of Renee at Cambridge said that she would get
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Speaker 1: up at 5 a.m. every morning and do Buddhist prayer
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Speaker 1: in the library. There is a very rare Buddhist practice
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Speaker 1: in Japan called Shokusanbutsu. Probably butchering that Buddhist monks will
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Speaker 1: literally mummify themselves whilst they're still alive by slowly starving
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Speaker 1: themselves to death. Practitioners believe that these monks are actually
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Speaker 1: still alive and experiencing a deep spiritual state known as Taktum.
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Speaker 1: For this reason their corpses are preserved and revered, often
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Speaker 1: displayed sitting in their lotus position for centuries on end.
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Speaker 1: I've got no evidence that Renee's death was an act
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Speaker 1: of shokusanbutsu. The fact that her sister talked about Renee
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Speaker 1: being nourished by eating her soul does lend a strange
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Speaker 1: spiritual aspect to her death but other than that I
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Speaker 1: can't find anything to support the idea. It seems most
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Speaker 1: likely that she just fell into a deep depression and
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Speaker 1: wasted away surrounded by a family who were too scared
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Speaker 1: to get help from the outside world. So there we
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Speaker 1: have it, the strange death of Renee Yasutake. It's a
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Speaker 1: sad story but hopefully you found it interesting. At the
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Speaker 1: moment I'm trying something out where I basically just paint
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Speaker 1: on a canvas for an hour and see what comes out.
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Speaker 1: Alright here's some more recordings you might enjoy. I've got
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Speaker 1: a whole playlist of strange death recordings if that interests
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Speaker 1: you and it should be on the screen now check
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Speaker 1: that out if you feel like it.