Speaker 1: I get a team. Welcome to another installment of the
Speaker 1: View Project. I am super excited, and you know that
Speaker 1: I don't say that very often, so I must be
Speaker 1: super excited because I do this seven days a week,
Speaker 1: and you talk to people. I've spoken to thousands of people,
Speaker 1: and I am excited to talk to our guest today
Speaker 1: because I've been doing a deep dive on her. I
Speaker 1: listened to her recently on Rogan and went, Wow, wouldn't
Speaker 1: I love to talk to her? Wouldn't I love to
Speaker 1: talk to that lady? And I'm doing it. I'm doing it. Rebecca,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the You Project. How are you?
Speaker 2: I'm great? Thanks so much for the invitation, Craig.
Speaker 1: Well, thanks for agreeing. Thanks for agreeing. Do you want
Speaker 1: me to call your prof or Rebecca?
Speaker 2: Rebecca's fine, Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: Well we appreciate you. Can you give my listeners a
Speaker 1: quick snapshot of who you are? Obviously we're going to
Speaker 1: do a deep dive into the newest book and all
Speaker 1: of your research, but just tell them who you are
Speaker 1: if you would.
Speaker 2: Sure. Well, my day job is being a professor, and
Speaker 2: I teach in a field called history of science, which
Speaker 2: is a pretty it's a pretty unique field where we
Speaker 2: get to study the role of science, technology, and medicine,
Speaker 2: but from a historical and historical perspective and just trying
Speaker 2: to understand how these things work. And I teach at
Speaker 2: Harvard in that in a department, a small department, but
Speaker 2: as trained as an anthropologist, I have had many other experiences.
Speaker 2: I've been a yoga teacher and student of yoga, and
Speaker 2: I also consider myself a writer and basically a researcher.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I heard your interesting story about so you
Speaker 1: still do Are you still doing yoga every day? Like
Speaker 1: two hours morning in like an hour morning hour not
Speaker 1: or something like that.
Speaker 2: I do do the meditation for an hour in the
Speaker 2: morning and an hour at night. And sometimes my yoga
Speaker 2: practice has been slipping a little bit. But like you,
Speaker 2: I have a background in athletics too, so I love
Speaker 2: that too.
Speaker 1: I heard with interest that for you having that practice
Speaker 1: mains you need less sleep. Yeah, how does that work?
Speaker 1: What's the science behind that? Do you know?
Speaker 2: I don't know the science, and I didn't expect that
Speaker 2: to be an outcome of learning to meditate. I've heard
Speaker 2: it reported that other people have had this experience, but
Speaker 2: also some people have not. And you can't really rely
Speaker 2: on it happening. But for whatever reason, I went from
Speaker 2: and it's fortunate because I think otherwise had to have
Speaker 2: trouble fitting in the meditation. But I went from needing
Speaker 2: a good eight eight to eight and a half hours
Speaker 2: to needing about six and a half to seven maybe,
Speaker 2: which is still I think a good amount of sleep.
Speaker 2: It's just the meditation's almost like it satisfies the need
Speaker 2: for sleep, or as I think of it, it's almost
Speaker 2: a deep birth state that makes me feel rested. So
Speaker 2: even when my job, travel or whatever vastly reduces my sleep,
Speaker 2: if I can meditate, like while I'm on the airplane
Speaker 2: or when I get there, it also helps regulate. I
Speaker 2: don't know the science there, but maybe somebody has studied that.
Speaker 1: You are like the picture of equanimity, being the calm
Speaker 1: and the chaos. I feel like everything that I've read
Speaker 1: about you and heard about you, like your life is
Speaker 1: pretty chaotic, Your pretty biggest pretty pretty busy. Is that?
Speaker 1: So I guess for you to be able to kind
Speaker 1: of not take all the mayhem and the chaos and
Speaker 1: the anxiety along with you is important, right.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's really challenging. I do think what did I have.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's kind of a joke at my university
Speaker 2: that everybody kind of brags about how busy they are
Speaker 2: and how hard it's going to be for them to
Speaker 2: find the time to have coffee with you. And this
Speaker 2: is and even the students highly scheduled, Like it's amazing
Speaker 2: we see each other at all. But yeah, I try
Speaker 2: to just create it human condition for a way that
Speaker 2: it's enjoyable for myself in different ways, to ground myself
Speaker 2: and try to create some calm just because otherwise I
Speaker 2: couldn't stand to do to do it.
Speaker 1: Are you still supervising payih stay students.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, definitely.
Speaker 1: That's how many of those have you got at the minute?
Speaker 2: I have about I've got about three for whom I'm
Speaker 2: the primary advisor, and then I have about I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe six or seven. Quite a few just graduated. They
Speaker 2: do all kinds of interesting things. It's actually one of
Speaker 2: the great parts of the job is getting to know
Speaker 2: these students. And I really love helping students figure out
Speaker 2: what projects sort of suit them and how they're going
Speaker 2: to do them. That's been something I didn't expect. So
Speaker 2: there's and we're a pretty small department too.
Speaker 1: I feel like if you can do your payah Dale
Speaker 1: or whatever research that intersects with something that you genuinely
Speaker 1: are fascinated with, rather than oh, this is a topic,
Speaker 1: I'll do this topic because I want to get a
Speaker 1: PhD and the university wants me to do this or
Speaker 1: have been pushed in this direction. But like my research,
Speaker 1: I'm absolutely fascinated with and so it's kind of exciting
Speaker 1: and it's fun. It's not I mean, the work, you
Speaker 1: know is hard on all of that, but it's it's
Speaker 1: because I'm actually really curious about this, and it kind
Speaker 1: of spills into my work. I'm a corporate speaker and
Speaker 1: you know, do this every day. So I'm intersecting with
Speaker 1: people and trying to understand people and trying to you know,
Speaker 1: theory of mind and metaperception and metaaccuracy and metacognition, trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how other people see the world and
Speaker 1: how they think and process stuff. And that's my research.
Speaker 1: Like it all kind of folds in together and this
Speaker 1: nice little kind of cognitive soup, you know. I love that.
Speaker 2: It's nice if you can. I mean, I think we
Speaker 2: do have more choice sometimes in arranging our lives than
Speaker 2: we think, and I've often found that it, including myself
Speaker 2: when I was a graduate student. A lot of people
Speaker 2: feel constrained by this imaginary you know they. I mean,
Speaker 2: we all actually have committees that we have to get
Speaker 2: our work approved by or whoever whatever authorities. But often
Speaker 2: I found that people would imagine their committee saying, no,
Speaker 2: you can't do that project, even though you really want
Speaker 2: to do it. You have to do this compromise, or
Speaker 2: you have to you have to suit the market, or
Speaker 2: you have to project ahead what people will be hiring.
Speaker 2: But I always think those choices so people seem to
Speaker 2: be torn between what they really want to do and
Speaker 2: then what they think will get them hired. But it
Speaker 2: feels like canceling out just sheer enjoyment, and it should
Speaker 2: be enjoyable. So I always try to be someone who
Speaker 2: advocates for that doing the thing that you enjoy, because
Speaker 2: then you never really lose out, even if you like it.
Speaker 2: Took me quite a while to get a job after
Speaker 2: my PhD, just because I did something pretty unusual.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I've always felt like that. When I was
Speaker 1: in my early twenties, I was working in fitness centers
Speaker 1: and gyms, and I realized I wanted to work, but
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be an employee. So the last
Speaker 1: time I had a job, as in it i was
Speaker 1: an employee was when I was twenty six, which was
Speaker 1: thirty five years ago. So I've the last thirty five
Speaker 1: years I've just been making shit up doc just figuring shit,
Speaker 1: just figuring it out. But I think that when you're
Speaker 1: kind of what you do, you know, what pays the bills,
Speaker 1: intersex with what you like and what you're passionate about
Speaker 1: and what you're curious about, then that sense of drudgery
Speaker 1: that can come with work or research kind of. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it's periodic. I guess not every day is
Speaker 1: a Hollywood movie or a Disney sitcom, but but you
Speaker 1: know it's for the most part. Yeah, I never get
Speaker 1: sick of what I do, So, you know, I think
Speaker 1: that's that's a bonus. So you've written, You've written a
Speaker 1: bunch of books, but your new book is called The
Speaker 1: Instability of Truth. By the way, can you understand my
Speaker 1: accent clearly? Or am I talking too far?
Speaker 2: No? I get it.
Speaker 1: I like it, okay. So the Instability of Truth brainwashing,
Speaker 1: mind control, and hyper persuasion. I loved your chat with Rogan,
Speaker 1: as I said, and that wasn't brief that that was
Speaker 1: three hours of my life that I actually enjoyed investing,
Speaker 1: give or take three hours.
Speaker 2: The thing I liked about it is it kind of
Speaker 2: went somewhere like, yeah, even though it's long, I felt
Speaker 2: like we got you know, made progress instead of sometimes
Speaker 2: you feel like you're spinning your wheels or a long
Speaker 2: conversation doesn't pay off anyway, That's how I felt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Well. The thing is I always say to people,
Speaker 1: irrespective of like whether or not it's a corporate gig le,
Speaker 1: listening to Rogan or a podcast or a radio whatever
Speaker 1: it is, is it good to listen to? Do you
Speaker 1: want to keep listening? Like that's the you know, that's
Speaker 1: the litmus test. And I did not want to stop listening.
Speaker 1: And one because I started listening because I knew I
Speaker 1: was going to chat to you, and then I went, oh, this,
Speaker 1: excuse my language, this is fucking fascinating, and then I
Speaker 1: couldn't stop listening. But it's great. So everyone have a
Speaker 1: listen to Rebecca on Joe as well. What does the
Speaker 1: instability of truth mean? Like, what was the why, what
Speaker 1: was the premise for that?
Speaker 2: Well, I was trying to think of a title basically
Speaker 2: for a book about brainwashing, mind control and like the
Speaker 2: question of whether how this connects to our current reality
Speaker 2: or real you know, digital reality and things like that,
Speaker 2: social media, and I was so trying different titles. I
Speaker 2: was talking to my mom about what the book is about,
Speaker 2: and I said, it's kind of about the way. It's
Speaker 2: not that we're on truth, but it were, it's an
Speaker 2: instability of truth. The truth is not easily available at
Speaker 2: all times, and it sometimes seems remote or it's sometimes
Speaker 2: it seems really unstable. Is the word I want? And
Speaker 2: she said, oh, write that down, and then she actually
Speaker 2: wrote it down for me, and then that became the title.
Speaker 2: But it's just that's it's just so just basically came out.
Speaker 1: Of a conversation, how great is mum?
Speaker 2: She's a great Yeah, she's a raider.
Speaker 1: Too, So that was, well, yeah, truth is interesting because
Speaker 1: there's there's the practical, you know, thing that's happening, the
Speaker 1: objective truth. You know, it's like the light turned red.
Speaker 1: That's the objective truth. Then there's my subjective experience of
Speaker 1: that objective event. So there's my truth. My truth is
Speaker 1: the world's against me every traffic light's turning red, this
Speaker 1: is not fair. So, you know, trying to have an
Speaker 1: awareness of like where where does the objective thing finish
Speaker 1: and where does my subjective experience of that start, because
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of us lack that consciousness
Speaker 1: or level of awareness that what's going on in my
Speaker 1: head is not the truth, the objective, global, universal truths,
Speaker 1: but rather just my story of something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think a lot of what we take to
Speaker 2: be true is our perception. But it's not that I'm
Speaker 2: a relativist or anything. I just think that we are
Speaker 2: constantly we kind of create the reality tunnels in which
Speaker 2: we live. I think that's an insight that even someone
Speaker 2: like you know, the great psychedelic and psychedelic researchers of
Speaker 2: the sixties and seventies thought about things like that. But
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of truth to that. Also
Speaker 2: in my field. I mean, it's really helpful to be
Speaker 2: in a field like history of science, where they actually
Speaker 2: have papers just looking at the history of objectivity and
Speaker 2: it actually meant different things over time. So in the
Speaker 2: seventeenth century, there was no sense that you know, technical
Speaker 2: instruments gave you the objective or most exact truth. Truth
Speaker 2: was not seen to be something that was exact. It
Speaker 2: was seen to be something like if you could represent
Speaker 2: a flower through its essence, that would be objective, not
Speaker 2: you know, the hyper measure. You know, our focus on
Speaker 2: measurement only came a bit later through what they call
Speaker 2: mechanical objectivity. So anyway, it's helpful to be in a
Speaker 2: field where they think about things.
Speaker 1: Like that, trying to understand the mind of individuals and
Speaker 1: trying to do science around it, you know, human behavior
Speaker 1: and you know psychology, and it's kind of tricky, isn't it,
Speaker 1: Because there's it's very difficult to measure and observe other
Speaker 1: than like we observe, we don't really observe the mind.
Speaker 1: We observe the byproduct of what's happening in the mind,
Speaker 1: you know. And even with my mind research, sometimes I go,
Speaker 1: this is kind of garbage just in terms of measurement
Speaker 1: tools and stuff. You know. You like, yeah, yeah, because
Speaker 1: you know, like you and Tiff and I can all
Speaker 1: do the same kind of psychological assessment this morning or
Speaker 1: our time this morning, and depending on how I'm feeling
Speaker 1: and what I've eaten and how much sleep I've had,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm going to get completely different data to
Speaker 1: if the same person does the same test or protocol
Speaker 1: a day or two or three later, we're going to
Speaker 1: get different data and then different science. And it's like,
Speaker 1: it's a really tricky area of research. I think the mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's been my obsession for the past couple decades,
Speaker 2: aside from the brainwashing stuff, is really how do we
Speaker 2: measure subjectivity? And how has science kind of dreamed of
Speaker 2: getting tools that will allow you to actually extract that.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's one thing to wear someone or physically
Speaker 2: test them, but if you want to take a sample
Speaker 2: of their inner life or their inner thoughts, like, how
Speaker 2: would they do that? And I got very interested in
Speaker 2: things like the Rorshach test or dreams, you know, science
Speaker 2: of dreams, things like that which were which were kind
Speaker 2: of sampled and turned into scientific objects of study. But
Speaker 2: it is a difficult it's a challenge that scientists often
Speaker 2: want to take on, or psychologists especially, but often are
Speaker 2: it's it doesn't always it's kind of awkward the results sometimes.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts around gratitude? I work with lots
Speaker 1: of people who or quite a few people who've got
Speaker 1: some significant disabilities and challenges, and when I spend time
Speaker 1: with them, I mean when I spent well one. I
Speaker 1: love spending time with them, but the volume on my
Speaker 1: gratitude is always turned up a little bit when I leave,
Speaker 1: because I walk away going I guess I can walk
Speaker 1: Guess what. I can get up out of a chair,
Speaker 1: I can open the fridge, I can turn on the tap,
Speaker 1: I can you know, I live relatively pain free. I
Speaker 1: don't have any massive debt, I'm not in threat. You know,
Speaker 1: It's it feels like when we've got things really good,
Speaker 1: we don't seem to have the same level of gratitude
Speaker 1: as when we lose something and then get it back.
Speaker 1: Perhaps I think it.
Speaker 2: Is amazing what we are capable as human beings of
Speaker 2: taking for granted, like it only takes you know, several
Speaker 2: times in my life I've had injuries such as a
Speaker 2: neck injury, where I can't actually for whatever reason. You know,
Speaker 2: something you're so used to being able to do, like
Speaker 2: turn your head, You take for granted that I can
Speaker 2: turn my head, lift my head, not be in agony,
Speaker 2: and then suddenly when you lose that capacity you and
Speaker 2: then hopefully get it back, you have incredible gratitude for it,
Speaker 2: but we somehow it's elusive to be in that state
Speaker 2: all the time. And I notice in myself, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: my capacity to feel gratitude and to it's kind of
Speaker 2: something you have to cultivate, like you're saying in your
Speaker 2: work with I think that I think the world provides
Speaker 2: us many opportunities to be grateful and also many opportunities
Speaker 2: to complain, so you can, like I have this phrase
Speaker 2: called the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, which I feel that
Speaker 2: sometimes it's like a curse that descends on me. I'm
Speaker 2: walking around and you know, I start I usually start
Speaker 2: the semester where everything seems full of possibility and I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm so lucky I get to be paid to do
Speaker 2: research on the things I want and you know, without
Speaker 2: oversight to write about it. But by the end of
Speaker 2: the semester, I feel like everything is heavy and concrete,
Speaker 2: and I sometimes fine have trouble having gratitude for you know,
Speaker 2: just these things. So I think it is well, noticing
Speaker 2: when that happens is a good first step.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's finding the space between the thing that's happening
Speaker 1: and us. And also I think sometimes realizing what's changed
Speaker 1: over the last three months is not so much the
Speaker 1: thing or the event or the situation or the goings on,
Speaker 1: but me around it and then leading into that, like
Speaker 1: what is that about? Even I work kind of a
Speaker 1: little bit in the personal development space. I hate saying
Speaker 1: that because it sounds cheesy, but anyway, I do. But
Speaker 1: I'm always talking about you know, so much of personal
Speaker 1: development and self help and all of that is focused
Speaker 1: on the external situation, circumstance, what I have, what I own,
Speaker 1: what I earn, what I'm getting, what people think, what
Speaker 1: I look like, all that visible stuff and trying to
Speaker 1: or having the awareness that I can build all of that. Perhaps,
Speaker 1: but maybe the thing that really needs to change is
Speaker 1: not all the stuff that people see, but maybe the
Speaker 1: stuff that people don't see. Because when I'm different, when
Speaker 1: I am inherently intrinsically different than my experience of the
Speaker 1: world is different, right, So true, we try to resolve
Speaker 1: these internal issues with external stuff. If I have this
Speaker 1: or do that or achieve that, or people think that,
Speaker 1: or I have a million listeners per episode, or if
Speaker 1: I whatever, then then I'm going to be X, Y
Speaker 1: and Z. And then that happens and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm still insecure. I've still got a big ego, I
Speaker 1: still want people to love me. I feel still feel disconnected.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it doesn't getting the thing you want to
Speaker 2: be careful what you ask for getting the thing you wanted,
Speaker 2: even in the positive way. I mean, it's also another
Speaker 2: opportunity to realize that it wasn't the thing. It wasn't
Speaker 2: the thing that you wanted, you actually wanted some kind
Speaker 2: of internal state. I mean, a simple thing that happens
Speaker 2: to me, I mean I happened to everyone. Is I
Speaker 2: could walk out wearing an up for that, like the
Speaker 2: day before I wore it and I felt awesome, and
Speaker 2: then I'm We're in the very same thing. But I
Speaker 2: just feel like I've made a terrible mistake that I
Speaker 2: don't know. The only thing that's changed is my is
Speaker 2: my attitude. Probably maybe a couple other factors.
Speaker 1: Maybe you donate to get address. After all, Tiff not
Speaker 1: Tiff doesn't do dresses. Chiff's a self proclimbed tomboy. Well,
Speaker 1: tell us about your fascination with all the genesis of
Speaker 1: your fascination with mind control. Where did that start? Did
Speaker 1: something happen? Did you have an experience like where did
Speaker 1: that come from.
Speaker 2: Well, I think on two levels. I think I when
Speaker 2: I published the book, I had to go back and
Speaker 2: rethink all of this because it's been with me for
Speaker 2: so long, I think about two and a half decades
Speaker 2: that I've been Since I was finishing my dissertation. I
Speaker 2: wrote the conclusion about brainwashing, the last chapter I think
Speaker 2: it was, and I started to think about brainwashing it
Speaker 2: because I wrote my dissertation about conditioning and behavioral engineering
Speaker 2: and the extent to which people can be controlled, or
Speaker 2: first laboratory animals, and then how that could be extended
Speaker 2: to people. So I thought brainwashing in a weird way.
Speaker 2: I just thought of it as like an abstract Oh,
Speaker 2: this would be a territory, or this is an extreme
Speaker 2: version of unfreedom, yes, where you become someone who's not yourself.
Speaker 2: And I guess I had always been interested in that question,
Speaker 2: can you become someone? Can you become a different person
Speaker 2: without realizing it, either slowly or very quickly, which is
Speaker 2: brainwashing tends to be radical transformation. But in my personal life,
Speaker 2: I guess it's a thing where my research question also
Speaker 2: became personal in the sense that I think around that
Speaker 2: time I fell into like a addiction just just out
Speaker 2: of some difficult circumstances in my life, feeling like I
Speaker 2: disappointed my family and just feeling like I had too
Speaker 2: much to deal with and I would like to check
Speaker 2: out for a while. And I did, and it was
Speaker 2: kind of combined with a very negative relationship that was
Speaker 2: involved with the drugs, and that period long, prolonged period
Speaker 2: of I mean, it was just a couple of years,
Speaker 2: but still it felt like and it relates to brainwashing
Speaker 2: in the sense that it became not obvious to me
Speaker 2: that I would get out or that I deserve to,
Speaker 2: And so I did become a different person. And then
Speaker 2: when I did, which was almost accidental in some ways,
Speaker 2: I broke the spell of this terrible situation. I did
Speaker 2: feel incredible gratitude, but also it seemed amazing to me
Speaker 2: that that had happened, you know, and it seemed like
Speaker 2: that's worth trying, that understanding that would give me some
Speaker 2: sort of power or help I could maybe it would
Speaker 2: be helpful or compassion, I guess, for just understanding that
Speaker 2: this can happen to anybody.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's so interesting because everybody wants to belong
Speaker 1: as well to a group or something bigger than themselves.
Speaker 1: And sometimes and whether or not that's a church or
Speaker 1: a social group or a different kind of religious group
Speaker 1: or like, we want connection, and sometimes in order to
Speaker 1: stay connected or be part of the group, we've got
Speaker 1: to conform to a certain ideology or philosophy or way
Speaker 1: of being or behaving or you know, socializing or worshiping
Speaker 1: or and then there's all of this pressure and guilt
Speaker 1: wrapped around. If you don't think like us or be
Speaker 1: like like you can't you can't question things because we've
Speaker 1: we've found the truth. So you're here, You're in the
Speaker 1: middle of the truth, right, So you don't need to
Speaker 1: learn anything more, you don't need All you need to
Speaker 1: do is like follow the path, right, and you're on
Speaker 1: the path, So why would you even Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: have an experience in a church where I went to
Speaker 1: when I was younger, which was very very culty, very culty,
Speaker 1: and even now, like one hundred years later, I still
Speaker 1: feel pangs of guilt when I talk about it, because
Speaker 1: I feel disloyal and unfaithful, like and I recognize it
Speaker 1: for what it is, but there's still that I feel,
Speaker 1: you know, and there were not everything to come out
Speaker 1: of that was bad, of course, but so much coeresive pressure,
Speaker 1: so much manipulation, so much control, and so much like
Speaker 1: when I was young and quite I was probably an
Speaker 1: asset to the church. I was young and a bit
Speaker 1: dynamic and a bit whatever, like I was valuable to them.
Speaker 1: And so then there's just a lot of pressure and
Speaker 1: manipulation and coercion and bullshit, to be honest, to get
Speaker 1: you to be what they wanted you to be. And
Speaker 1: the moment that you would ask questions or say look,
Speaker 1: I don't really agree with that, will, they start to
Speaker 1: lose their grip and then they panic and then the
Speaker 1: screws get tighter. Yeah. And it's only in hindsight that
Speaker 1: I can look back and go, oh wow, I was
Speaker 1: in the middle of something, you know, really very very
Speaker 1: cultish and controlling and manipulative and in a way mind
Speaker 1: control because you're actually discouraged from thinking critically.
Speaker 2: Right, I mean, they can yeah, I think I relate
Speaker 2: to what you're saying. And subsequently I've been in various
Speaker 2: yoga groups that have elements of just you know, what
Speaker 2: you end up submitting to, even just the idea that
Speaker 2: a teacher should be allowed to say push you into
Speaker 2: this position, or you note that then there's a culture
Speaker 2: around that says this is what's acceptable, and people seem
Speaker 2: to be transformed before your eyes, and there's this idea
Speaker 2: that this, oh, this is perfectly. Maybe those other groups
Speaker 2: are cults, but we're we've found some sort of special
Speaker 2: route to to you know, personal transformation or whatever it is.
Speaker 2: Those things do change you, and hopefully they also give
Speaker 2: you some really really valuable experience. Because I love I
Speaker 2: love the fact that the word experience in English means
Speaker 2: in the in the old days, in the early modern period,
Speaker 2: it was a synonym for experiment. So you know, we
Speaker 2: all have these experiences that are in a sense very valuable,
Speaker 2: very valuable sources of information akin to experiments. And I
Speaker 2: think it's the most valuable thing is what you've personally experienced,
Speaker 2: if you can, if you can later make the most
Speaker 2: of it and not sort of beuh not not be
Speaker 2: stuck in it.
Speaker 1: Yes, you know what you learn from it about yourself
Speaker 1: and about other people. And for me, I look back more,
Speaker 1: you know, no regret. For me, I look back and
Speaker 1: it's just curiosity. And I think, like the like when
Speaker 1: you think about it, from when we're from when we
Speaker 1: could reason anything, from when we could process anything around
Speaker 1: us as children, as babies until now you and me
Speaker 1: on this conversation and Tiff is that we've been programmed,
Speaker 1: you know, and influenced and manipulated and coerced, and so
Speaker 1: my worldview is only partly my worldview. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: always looking at everything through the Craig window, thinking like, well,
Speaker 1: I know better, but most of us think, well, I'm objective.
Speaker 1: And it's like I say to people, you, really, objectivity
Speaker 1: on a personal level as almost impossible because you're looking
Speaker 1: through the subjective Craig window or Rebecca or Tiff window
Speaker 1: or and so everything that I'm looking at is at
Speaker 1: least informed or influenced or affected in some way by
Speaker 1: the totality of my experiences until now. And so for me,
Speaker 1: it's like consciousness and awareness is recognizing that, ah, this
Speaker 1: is just my version of the truth, and then trying
Speaker 1: to expand on that is the tricky bit.
Speaker 2: I agree, I mean, I think so, I agree that
Speaker 2: we've been programmed or we are being programmed, and I
Speaker 2: think that can both that that in itself can be
Speaker 2: something one wants to break free. And I'll just suxily
Speaker 2: talked about negative self transcendence and positive self transcendence, and
Speaker 2: he said, well, you know, it would be ideal if
Speaker 2: everyone could have positive self transcendence through some way of
Speaker 2: breaking or programming seeing, you know, being able to think
Speaker 2: for yourself and free yourself from the assumptions about the
Speaker 2: you know, the limited nature of the life you should
Speaker 2: leave or the the what you should accept, because inevitably
Speaker 2: it'll be limiting. That's what he felt. But he said,
Speaker 2: also there's negative self transcendent, which sometimes also breaks the
Speaker 2: pattern and therefore is to be valued even though it's
Speaker 2: a harder path. But also what you were saying reminded
Speaker 2: me of just this line from Walt Whitman where he says,
Speaker 2: I am a part of everything I have met. Yeah,
Speaker 2: which I really like because in a sense, we are
Speaker 2: constantly responding and remaking ourselves potentially at every moment, so
Speaker 2: there's some sense there. I think the mistake is to
Speaker 2: think that we're sort of very autonomous, you know, sort
Speaker 2: of sealed hermetically sealed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you like, I think about my beliefs, good
Speaker 1: and bad, you know, empowering, self limiting. Most of my
Speaker 1: beliefs I didn't choose them, they're just thereby social osmosis.
Speaker 1: You know, by like when you're ten years old, you
Speaker 1: have all these beliefs, and pretty much none of them
Speaker 1: you chose. Mum and Dad chose them for you, or
Speaker 1: your peers or friends or you know, and so you
Speaker 1: grow up in this world view looking through this window
Speaker 1: that you didn't choose, and so it's difficult in the
Speaker 1: middle of that to realize that that you didn't You
Speaker 1: didn't build this reality. You're just part of this reality.
Speaker 2: Right. That's why that's why I wanted to go to
Speaker 2: I thought anthropology seemed like the most interesting topic when
Speaker 2: I was preparing to go to graduate school. I thought, well,
Speaker 2: it would you could ask that question, would I be
Speaker 2: someone else? Is there some essence of who would I
Speaker 2: be someone else if I was raised an erratically different
Speaker 2: place at a radically different time. Just that in itself
Speaker 2: is kind of profound because we are so shaped by
Speaker 2: our environment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I grew up in a really Catholic FA family.
Speaker 1: Initially that was my first part of religious call, right.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's like I've said this many times on
Speaker 1: the show, but by the time I was ten, I
Speaker 1: knew that there was heaven and Helen purgatory, and I
Speaker 1: knew that if I died with a mortal sin on
Speaker 1: my soul. I'd burn in an eternal lake of fire forever.
Speaker 1: And that wasn't even a question. That was just that's
Speaker 1: what happened. That was like, that's a tree. It was
Speaker 1: like I knew that as much as I knew what
Speaker 1: a tree looked like. And I never questioned that because
Speaker 1: there was no reason to, because all the people I
Speaker 1: looked up to and trusted and loved, that was the
Speaker 1: you know, so the idea of thinking outside of that programming. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that for some people, maybe that
Speaker 1: never happens or that never dawns on them.
Speaker 2: I think for some people, I think there are every person.
Speaker 2: I believe every person has invitations too. But sometimes it
Speaker 2: only comes with uh, with you know, severe grief or
Speaker 2: something where all of like the loss of a loved
Speaker 2: one or a spouse or a child, you know, just
Speaker 2: tragedies often strangely enough, have that effect where it just
Speaker 2: breaks the program. You see that nothing, nothing was important
Speaker 2: that I thought was important, Or you see that the
Speaker 2: thing you took for granted, uh you know, was was
Speaker 2: actually the thing you should have or might have focused on.
Speaker 2: So sometimes it's those things. But other times I think
Speaker 2: I think we are uh maybe so, I just I
Speaker 2: just took this course in at the University of Amsterdam,
Speaker 2: a two weeks two week course on the history of
Speaker 2: human consciousness and the psychedelic history of psychedelics research. But
Speaker 2: really one thing that they were it was quite a
Speaker 2: formal class, a lot of lecturing, and and these were
Speaker 2: by religious study scholars, and one of one of the
Speaker 2: points they were making is we think there are three
Speaker 2: base human drives, which is what is it, food, reproduction,
Speaker 2: shelter or something like that.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: But actually there's a fourth which is the alteration of
Speaker 2: one's consciousness, whether it's in small ways just through an
Speaker 2: amazing meal. But we we do seem and you can
Speaker 2: look back as far as Homo sapien sapient, or further
Speaker 2: to Neanderthal, the different types of human varieties that preceded,
Speaker 2: you know that they all seem to have this desire
Speaker 2: to break this kind of narrow the narrow mold of
Speaker 2: their programming.
Speaker 1: I think it's I think everyone at some stage thinks
Speaker 1: is this all there is? You know? Is like, is
Speaker 1: this is all that I know or there is to know?
Speaker 1: And obviously the answer is not the answers no to that.
Speaker 1: But I think also sometimes when our beliefs and our
Speaker 1: ideas and our stories essentially form our identity, then anyone
Speaker 1: who doesn't align with our ideas or philosophy or theology
Speaker 1: or whatever, especially when our sense of self is intertwined
Speaker 1: with that, it's almost like they become the enemy. Like
Speaker 1: when you think about anyone who has really strongly held
Speaker 1: belief or faith, and you know when who they are
Speaker 1: is essentially that the idea of well, well, you know,
Speaker 1: this is what I think or believe, but I could
Speaker 1: be wrong. Well, that's usually not on the table, you know.
Speaker 1: I think just the idea of opening yourself to the idea.
Speaker 1: Like I always say to people, I've been wrong thousands
Speaker 1: and thousands of times, so I'm probably going to be
Speaker 1: wrong about twenty things today. So the idea that I
Speaker 1: know and everyone that doesn't agree with me is wrong
Speaker 1: is really just an exercise in ego and insecurity and fear. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that's why brainwashing is an interesting phenomenon because
Speaker 2: will often mistake it, or even myself when I got
Speaker 2: into it, You mistake it as an ideal loot, a
Speaker 2: problem of ideas, someone got the wrong ideas they got
Speaker 2: bad ideas they got they fell for. They fell for
Speaker 2: a scam or a scheme or you know, a set
Speaker 2: a system that is just wrong or is bad thinking,
Speaker 2: or they weren't smart enough to see through it. But
Speaker 2: I think some of it so much of it riads
Speaker 2: on emotional identification, also the harnessing of trauma and of
Speaker 2: painful experiences in your life. And that's the thing that
Speaker 2: we often don't see. So that I try to argue
Speaker 2: that brainwashing is actually something that if you're only seeing
Speaker 2: it happening to other people and not applying the window
Speaker 2: to yourself, then you're probably missing the actual dynamics of
Speaker 2: how it works.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's the relationship or the insection. I don't know
Speaker 1: what the right term is. But between the same mind control,
Speaker 1: if we had a hierarchy mind control and influence and
Speaker 1: manipulation and coercion, are they all first cousins? Like is
Speaker 1: it all in the same wheelhouse?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think I would. I would say that sometimes
Speaker 2: there are just different words and they have different kind
Speaker 2: of intensity to them. I mean persuasion, I would take
Speaker 2: out a little bit. I would say there are aspects
Speaker 2: of persuasion that are and I even think there's possibly
Speaker 2: a kind of positive brainwashing or self transformation, as long
Speaker 2: as it's done with full consent, you can always leave.
Speaker 2: There's not an abusive relationship. And you could say many
Speaker 2: you know, there are ways that you could put yourself
Speaker 2: in a very intense situation and be transformed, but anyway, influence.
Speaker 2: There's a guy, there's a researcher named Steve Hassan who's
Speaker 2: also an exit counselor. He used to be a deprogramm,
Speaker 2: a cult deprogrammer, and before that he was a member
Speaker 2: of the Moonies and he is I'm actually backing to
Speaker 2: him on his podcast tomorrow because I actually know him
Speaker 2: because he lives in my area. But he used to
Speaker 2: come guest lecture in my class on brainwashing and he
Speaker 2: basically he has an instrument called the Influence Continuum, and
Speaker 2: it's kind of helpful and you can look it up online,
Speaker 2: but it helps you place identify certain features which would
Speaker 2: be extreme influence which is pathological on one side, which
Speaker 2: would be a high demand cult, or a dangerous abusive
Speaker 2: cult which is characterized by extreme hierarchy, the extreme sanction
Speaker 2: if you try to leave, also a abuse of a
Speaker 2: sexual and other types financial abuse, the use of love
Speaker 2: bombing thoughts, stopping all these techniques, whereas on the other
Speaker 2: end of influence would be actually more educational in a
Speaker 2: benign sense. And so he kind of lays that stuff
Speaker 2: out that you can so you can. I think it's
Speaker 2: a useful tool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think not all influence is bad. And yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe there is. Maybe there are some forms of mind
Speaker 1: control of sorts that I guess. Maybe it depends on
Speaker 1: the outcome for the individual, right is it. Maybe can
Speaker 1: there be a good outcome depending on I do think yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean if you said yeah, I would say definitely.
Speaker 2: And this is the thing that's tricky, and all this
Speaker 2: territory is tricky, and if it wasn't tricky and complicated
Speaker 2: and full of full of potential problems, it wouldn't be
Speaker 2: worth writing a book about. You could just write a
Speaker 2: Wikipedia entry and be done with it, like oh, done
Speaker 2: with brainwater. You know, it would be simple. But it's
Speaker 2: actually quite tricky because a lot of people, when they
Speaker 2: join a group that they would later call a very
Speaker 2: dangerous or abusive or a terrible cult, at the beginning,
Speaker 2: they people often feel great benefit and you can see
Speaker 2: the benefit in their lives, even as they're maybe they're
Speaker 2: they're bank account might be drained, but they feel freed
Speaker 2: of their programming. They feel empowered. Even the Manson girls,
Speaker 2: many people describe them, you know, later in the trial,
Speaker 2: so I write about the Manson family.
Speaker 1: Yes, so there.
Speaker 2: Were several of them when they were observed in the trial.
Speaker 2: People they used the word brandwashing in the trial to
Speaker 2: convict them and say they had been they were sort
Speaker 2: of mindless robots, but they were still responsible for carrying
Speaker 2: out the will of Charles Manson. But in their lives,
Speaker 2: many people surprisingly would describe them as extremely empowered and
Speaker 2: kind of radiating this kind of self assurance, which is
Speaker 2: interesting and not what you expect. And that's what really
Speaker 2: caught the public when they waltzed into the courtroom seemingly
Speaker 2: free of any type of conscience, wearing looking like hippies. Basically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember you and Rogan talking about how when
Speaker 1: people often, as you said initially, when they go into
Speaker 1: these cults, they had this transcendent experience, this euphoric experience.
Speaker 1: And I had that. I had that the first time
Speaker 1: I went to this place that I told you about
Speaker 1: where I won't bore everyone with it, but it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, it was a moment I thought, I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was spiritual. I thought it was spiritual,
Speaker 1: but it was definitely emotional and psychological. It was like
Speaker 1: there was this whole and yeah, I still remember that
Speaker 1: experience really quite clearly. And you're like, oh, and so
Speaker 1: even it's funny how that can happen, even in the
Speaker 1: middle of something that's perhaps you know, not as altruistic
Speaker 1: as it might, you know, try to.
Speaker 2: I think that's when it's really fascinating, and it makes
Speaker 2: it hard when you leave. I think people who leave
Speaker 2: cults often are it's extremely painful, even if they feel
Speaker 2: lucky to have escaped with whatever remains of you know,
Speaker 2: people stand for decades sometimes and they feel drained. There's
Speaker 2: a guy I wrote about named Ray Connolly who's a
Speaker 2: really wonderful person I met at a anti conference. He
Speaker 2: spent thirty five years of his life in the Children
Speaker 2: of God. But he said, at the beginning, yeah, it
Speaker 2: was this amazing connections. He felt filled with like a
Speaker 2: divine presence, He felt connected to others, He felt this
Speaker 2: love emanating from him, and it seemed it was so
Speaker 2: obviously true, and that when you leave, it's very hard
Speaker 2: to abandon those experiences as untrue or as manipulation. So
Speaker 2: I think you kind of have to. I believe it's
Speaker 2: legitimate to still value those experiences and just to say
Speaker 2: it's too bad that they were in a context of
Speaker 2: someone or a group that was ultimately extractive and trying
Speaker 2: to steal my vital yeah, my life forces, which is
Speaker 2: essentially how those groups do function. But really, sorry, it's
Speaker 2: just confusing. I think a lot of people do really
Speaker 2: struggle after they leave, too, because they don't have that
Speaker 2: connection and they miss it.
Speaker 1: Yes, and then you know that, like I had some
Speaker 1: experiences within my time that were great, amazing, like, and
Speaker 1: so there's the the like the experience is real, maybe
Speaker 1: the premise for what set me up for that, or
Speaker 1: maybe some of the stories around you know, But did
Speaker 1: you ever read or maybe you've even met But Megan
Speaker 1: Phelps Roper wrote that book, unfollow I.
Speaker 2: Haven't met her. I haven't, and nor have I read it,
Speaker 2: though I would like to. But I've heard her interviewed,
Speaker 2: and I guess I read an essay she wrote for
Speaker 2: maybe for The New Yorker about this experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, such a good book, so great. I listened to
Speaker 1: it and Tiff, you had to listen to that, didn't
Speaker 1: yeh yeah, yeah, yeah great, and you liked it.
Speaker 2: I'll put it on my list.
Speaker 1: No, it's fantastic now something that Australians are not so
Speaker 1: familiar with. And I know we've got about fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: to go. So is mk Ultra, which was a secret
Speaker 1: CIA program that did some testing with mind control and
Speaker 1: brainwashing and psychological manipulation using LSD and other drugs. And
Speaker 1: could you unpack a little bit of that, because I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know much about that at all. I've heard
Speaker 1: about it, but it's not something that we grew up
Speaker 1: learning about. Could you. Of course, we've got a global audience,
Speaker 1: but probably half our audience a Rossi's so could you
Speaker 1: talk to us about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Sure. And it actually surprises me that mk ultra
Speaker 2: has become a household word in the US, because when
Speaker 2: I started studying it, it was quite obscure. Also, it's
Speaker 2: just it's one of those programs that sounds like it
Speaker 2: sounds like a conspiracy theory that must be made up,
Speaker 2: but it's actually a very dark episode in the history
Speaker 2: of the US Central Intelligence Agency, which was quite new.
Speaker 2: So it was one of the first in depth programs
Speaker 2: that was funded clandestinely by the CIA right after actually
Speaker 2: during the armistice of the Korean War, so right after
Speaker 2: World War Two when the os SO, the OSS is
Speaker 2: the Office of Strategic Services that preceded the CIA, and
Speaker 2: once the CIA was was formed, initially as an intelligence
Speaker 2: agency and then quickly it kind of morphed into, you know,
Speaker 2: a covert operation organization. So mk Ultra arose out of
Speaker 2: a crisis about brainwashing that you know, hit the headlines
Speaker 2: and hit and it became a kind of an international obsession.
Speaker 2: These US and there are actually some Australian soldiers who
Speaker 2: were fighting in Korea because it was a UN coalition
Speaker 2: that sent soldiers and there were several Australians I think
Speaker 2: that were caught up in the brainwashing scandal too, So
Speaker 2: that would be interesting to look into. These soldiers were
Speaker 2: POW's prisoners of war held for several years behind north
Speaker 2: of the Yalu River in these prison camps, and many
Speaker 2: of them had been through experiences that were so really horrendous,
Speaker 2: at the edge of death, you know, just from starvation
Speaker 2: and lack of treatment for their wounds and exhaustion and
Speaker 2: neglect and so by the time they found themselves in
Speaker 2: these camps, they were they experienced further, they froze to
Speaker 2: death at night they were packed in, but ultimately they
Speaker 2: were Once the Chinese took over the camps, they they
Speaker 2: experimented and tried to see whether Maoist re education would
Speaker 2: actually work on Westerners as well as because Mao predicted
Speaker 2: it would work on all humanity except for the seven
Speaker 2: percent who were resistant to being properly re educated or
Speaker 2: thought reform. So it turned out that term that term
Speaker 2: really educated. Yeah, such a noble term exactly he thought it.
Speaker 2: He thought of it as an atom bomb that exploded
Speaker 2: in the soul of humankind and that but it had
Speaker 2: to be continually renewed. So they tried it out on
Speaker 2: these soldiers, especially the less educated, because they felt those
Speaker 2: were the equivalent of Chinese peasants. And several and at
Speaker 2: the end of it, twenty one US and I think
Speaker 2: of possibly a few Australian soldiers decided they would rather
Speaker 2: not return to their countries and would and they had
Speaker 2: become communists or at least wanted to try living in China.
Speaker 2: And this caused this. In addition to fifty nine pilots
Speaker 2: for the US Air Force who made these confessions. They
Speaker 2: made false confessions to having committed war crimes in front
Speaker 2: of the news cameras, newsreel cameras of the day. This
Speaker 2: caused in nineteen fifty three the head of the CIA
Speaker 2: and the head of the Secretary of State and the
Speaker 2: President of the US to secretly fund a program called
Speaker 2: mk Ultra, which took hold in nineteen fifty three. They
Speaker 2: developed this elaborate structure to fund it secretly through these
Speaker 2: cutout organizations. In my research, I've discovered several that nobody
Speaker 2: really knew about before. And their research covered one hundred
Speaker 2: something like one hundred and forty nine sub projects. And
Speaker 2: they specialized in sort of combinations of dragging people, including
Speaker 2: with LSD pushing into extreme sleeplessness, and also using hypnosis,
Speaker 2: and then combining the three of those and with many
Speaker 2: other techniques to see whether a human being could be
Speaker 2: basically alienated from themselves sufficiently to perhaps become a Manchurian candidate,
Speaker 2: meaning they could they would carry out a mission without knowing,
Speaker 2: without having any memory of it, Like could you turn
Speaker 2: somebody into basically losing could you get somebody to lose
Speaker 2: their agency completely? And become alienated from themselves and so
Speaker 2: dissociated that with a snap of the fingers, they would
Speaker 2: go into that state and then they would come back
Speaker 2: when you wanted them to, and they would have no
Speaker 2: memory of what they had done, perhaps assassinations, things like that.
Speaker 2: So this was a really dark program. Many, you know,
Speaker 2: people died as a result of it, and later the
Speaker 2: CIA discontinued it in about ten there was about ten years.
Speaker 1: Did the subjects or the people who were being who
Speaker 1: were used within the program, did they realize Rebecca what
Speaker 1: they were getting into or were they misled?
Speaker 2: Well, the subjects mostly didn't know that they were in
Speaker 2: this program. No, I mean they were sometimes mental patients.
Speaker 2: Sometimes they were mostly people who had no legal recourse
Speaker 2: against what was the experiments being done in them. The scientists,
Speaker 2: some of them knew very well, some of them were witting,
Speaker 2: or some of them knew, but they they thought of
Speaker 2: it as their patriotic duty, or they had some suspicion,
Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't quite confirmed because they were working
Speaker 2: someone like BF Skinner actually he you know, sometimes they
Speaker 2: would just fund they thought of leading scientists who were
Speaker 2: doing behavioral research. So maybe the scientists would half know
Speaker 2: that this Human Ecology Fund was actually the CIA, but
Speaker 2: in other cases they really had no idea. So because
Speaker 2: they would want to fund a left wing scientist who
Speaker 2: maybe didn't really want to participate in this program, but
Speaker 2: they're they're ended up participating.
Speaker 1: I heard you quote Socrates on Rogan. It's funny because
Speaker 1: in a part of my thesis, I just put you know,
Speaker 1: the big like because trying to understand thyself. You know,
Speaker 1: the beginning of wisdom is to know thyself or whatever
Speaker 1: he said, And my PhD is essentially around self awareness.
Speaker 1: But it's funny how the questions that we ask now,
Speaker 1: most of the questions that we ask about who humans
Speaker 1: are and how we are and why we are the
Speaker 1: way we are, and how the mind works and how
Speaker 1: we work as an organism among other organisms, like not
Speaker 1: a lot's changed in some ways from those questions from
Speaker 1: two and a half thousand years ago. I wonder how
Speaker 1: much we know about the mind that we didn't know then?
Speaker 2: That is a good question, I mean, in some ways,
Speaker 2: in some ways, uh, I think the I think that
Speaker 2: the investigation of the mind was profound then. I mean,
Speaker 2: Socrates is an example. You could go back. We don't
Speaker 2: always have evidence, but we can we have a sense
Speaker 2: of the types of explorations that were and in some ways,
Speaker 2: perhaps with cultural rituals that actually, you know, maybe I don't.
Speaker 2: I'm not an expert on this, but I could speculate
Speaker 2: that there's a kind of wisdom that was possible that
Speaker 2: actually gets becomes more difficult to achieve in modern societies
Speaker 2: where we don't have coming of age rituals, we have
Speaker 2: the ritual aspect of life is cut out. And that's
Speaker 2: another that's another motivating reason I had for becoming an anthropologist.
Speaker 2: I was curious, you know, what was what would it
Speaker 2: be like? Is it possible to think of a life
Speaker 2: that was I was structured by meaningful transitions instead of
Speaker 2: these kind of chaotic world that I seem too that
Speaker 2: you know, that I was faced by. But on the
Speaker 2: other hand, we do have certain advances and I guess
Speaker 2: understandings of certainly brand chemistry is more advanced. And also
Speaker 2: there's this yeah, go ahead, sorry.
Speaker 1: I was just going to say, when you like you personally,
Speaker 1: you look at a person or something that's going on,
Speaker 1: and obviously you're a renowned research or an academic, and
Speaker 1: you know, with a very with respect high IQ and
Speaker 1: all of that. But at the same time, you're a
Speaker 1: person who's done good stuff and bad stuff and made
Speaker 1: mistakes and got things right and got things wrong. And
Speaker 1: which is the lens that you analyze? Is A is
Speaker 1: it A is it a hybrid? Like when you're looking
Speaker 1: at stuff, do you ever rely on gut intuition? Just
Speaker 1: like I don't know, you know that that not politically
Speaker 1: scientific kind of lens because I do. But maybe.
Speaker 2: No, no, I completely. I actually think I'd be paralyzed
Speaker 2: if I didn't. And I've always done that ever since
Speaker 2: I was in college. I would use my intuition, or
Speaker 2: I will even just when I wanted to write a paper,
Speaker 2: I would just go to sleep. Half I'd go. I'd
Speaker 2: read as much as I could go half to sleep,
Speaker 2: put a notepad by my paper, and you go into
Speaker 2: a state called the hypnagogic state, something like that. And
Speaker 2: I'd always have an idea that would come to me
Speaker 2: when I was half sleeping that I couldn't even remember,
Speaker 2: and then when I woke up, there'd be written down,
Speaker 2: like some word or some little phrase, and then I
Speaker 2: would use that. And like even now I have to say,
Speaker 2: because it's so intimidating to think that you have to
Speaker 2: read every single thing, contemplate everything, and sort of be
Speaker 2: complete in your knowledge, I mean at every level. So
Speaker 2: I always think of it almost like like I think
Speaker 2: it's the areas where I'm weak or I feel a
Speaker 2: kind of stupid, or I just don't get things that
Speaker 2: are actually a strength, because that makes me want to
Speaker 2: investigate it. Like this doesn't totally make sense to me.
Speaker 2: It's almost like you have to have confidence in your gaps,
Speaker 2: in the things that you that you're just not getting,
Speaker 2: and that maybe that's worth investigating.
Speaker 1: And I know we've got to go. But it's so
Speaker 1: funny because really, when you think about marketing and branding
Speaker 1: and selling stuff, of course this is like all advertising
Speaker 1: and marketing is designed to manipulate people's thoughts or feelings
Speaker 1: to buy whatever it is that they probably hadn't thought
Speaker 1: about buying. So this is kind of low level mind control.
Speaker 1: I feel maybe I'm wrong, but it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I talk to people about like a serial pack on
Speaker 1: the front of the cereal boxes, it's not information, it's
Speaker 1: it's a story. And on the back in that tiny
Speaker 1: little box down the bottom right hand corner, in that
Speaker 1: tiny little writing. That's where the information is. And if
Speaker 1: they wanted you to see the actual information about the
Speaker 1: contents of the box, it'd be on the front in
Speaker 1: big writing. And you know, so the front is mind control,
Speaker 1: the front is coercion manipulation. Hey, look there's an Olympian
Speaker 1: on the front of our pack, and it's got all
Speaker 1: these stars and ticks and all this amazing shits and
Speaker 1: it's going to make you five years younger. You should
Speaker 1: get this. I mean, it's kind of, if not control,
Speaker 1: it's definitely mind influence. Right, yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: But I think the more you know, more amazing than
Speaker 2: that is that it works. It still works even if
Speaker 2: you can identify it you still it still works on me,
Speaker 2: like I want to look like an Olympian or on
Speaker 2: some level I am buying into it. There's actually such
Speaker 2: an interesting history too on the where the emotional cell
Speaker 2: comes from, you know, selling through emotion as well as
Speaker 2: through information, and they're quite combined. But yeah, we do.
Speaker 2: We are subject to conditioning. It's sort of a human
Speaker 2: a deeply human quality. And the thing I like about
Speaker 2: the writer chess Off Milosh is he he just really
Speaker 2: and some great writers I think what makes them. Great
Speaker 2: is that they understand how deeply we are shaped by
Speaker 2: these things, even if we recognize it while it's happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well yeah, so oh, I talked to you for
Speaker 1: a long time. All right. The Instability of Truth, brainwashing,
Speaker 1: mind control and hyper persuasion is out now. Is it
Speaker 1: available on audio? Rebecca, Yes, there's a really nice audio recording.
Speaker 1: And I think her name's Patty Nolan, but she does
Speaker 1: she's like a voice artist. She's Okay, I'm going to
Speaker 1: get the book today. I'm going to listen to the
Speaker 1: book today, and then I'm going to send you another
Speaker 1: request in a few months and you'll go, no, I'm
Speaker 1: not going on that Australian show again. That was painful,
Speaker 1: but I don't care. I'm going to badger you.
Speaker 2: It's been so fun to talk to you.
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Tip Are
Speaker 1: you interested?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, come back.
Speaker 1: I think'll be back. Yeah, we'll say goodbye affair. But Rebecca,
Speaker 1: we really appreciate you. What time is it where you are.
Speaker 2: It's about six in the evening or I guess wait eighteen.
Speaker 2: I don't know what system aster in Australia uses. It's
Speaker 2: in the evening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, eighteen hundred six o'clock, six pm. We'll say goodbye affair,
Speaker 1: but for the moment. Rebecca, thanks so much for being
Speaker 1: on the You project.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me. It was wonderful to talk to you.