WEBVTT - #1935 Brainwashing, Mind Control & Hyperpersuasion - Professor Rebecca Lemov 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:02.480 I get a team. Welcome to another installment of the 0:00:02.560 --> 0:00:06.040 View Project. I am super excited, and you know that 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:08.119 I don't say that very often, so I must be 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:10.280 super excited because I do this seven days a week, 0:00:10.320 --> 0:00:13.320 and you talk to people. I've spoken to thousands of people, 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:17.119 and I am excited to talk to our guest today 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:20.360 because I've been doing a deep dive on her. I 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:24.880 listened to her recently on Rogan and went, Wow, wouldn't 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:27.200 I love to talk to her? Wouldn't I love to 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:30.920 talk to that lady? And I'm doing it. I'm doing it. Rebecca, 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:32.960 Welcome to the You Project. How are you? 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:36.840 I'm great? Thanks so much for the invitation, Craig. 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:41.279 Well, thanks for agreeing. Thanks for agreeing. Do you want 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:43.120 me to call your prof or Rebecca? 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:46.720 Rebecca's fine, Okay, yeah. 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:49.640 Well we appreciate you. Can you give my listeners a 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:53.600 quick snapshot of who you are? Obviously we're going to 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:55.520 do a deep dive into the newest book and all 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:57.760 of your research, but just tell them who you are 0:00:57.840 --> 0:00:58.400 if you would. 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:03.960 Sure. Well, my day job is being a professor, and 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:06.440 I teach in a field called history of science, which 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:09.039 is a pretty it's a pretty unique field where we 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:11.920 get to study the role of science, technology, and medicine, 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:16.800 but from a historical and historical perspective and just trying 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:21.000 to understand how these things work. And I teach at 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:25.399 Harvard in that in a department, a small department, but 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:29.119 as trained as an anthropologist, I have had many other experiences. 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:32.640 I've been a yoga teacher and student of yoga, and 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:36.920 I also consider myself a writer and basically a researcher. 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:43.080 Yeah, and I heard your interesting story about so you 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:45.440 still do Are you still doing yoga every day? Like 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:47.920 two hours morning in like an hour morning hour not 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:48.800 or something like that. 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:51.760 I do do the meditation for an hour in the 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:55.200 morning and an hour at night. And sometimes my yoga 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:57.320 practice has been slipping a little bit. But like you, 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:00.560 I have a background in athletics too, so I love 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:01.840 that too. 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:08.800 I heard with interest that for you having that practice 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:14.400 mains you need less sleep. Yeah, how does that work? 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:16.560 What's the science behind that? Do you know? 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:19.639 I don't know the science, and I didn't expect that 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:22.480 to be an outcome of learning to meditate. I've heard 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.200 it reported that other people have had this experience, but 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:29.640 also some people have not. And you can't really rely 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:33.919 on it happening. But for whatever reason, I went from 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:36.360 and it's fortunate because I think otherwise had to have 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:40.480 trouble fitting in the meditation. But I went from needing 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:42.680 a good eight eight to eight and a half hours 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:46.160 to needing about six and a half to seven maybe, 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:48.480 which is still I think a good amount of sleep. 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:52.560 It's just the meditation's almost like it satisfies the need 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:54.799 for sleep, or as I think of it, it's almost 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:58.440 a deep birth state that makes me feel rested. So 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:03.520 even when my job, travel or whatever vastly reduces my sleep, 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:05.840 if I can meditate, like while I'm on the airplane 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:09.000 or when I get there, it also helps regulate. I 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:12.760 don't know the science there, but maybe somebody has studied that. 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:16.440 You are like the picture of equanimity, being the calm 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:18.639 and the chaos. I feel like everything that I've read 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:21.560 about you and heard about you, like your life is 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:26.040 pretty chaotic, Your pretty biggest pretty pretty busy. Is that? 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:28.000 So I guess for you to be able to kind 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:31.280 of not take all the mayhem and the chaos and 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:34.320 the anxiety along with you is important, right. 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:39.120 Yes, it's really challenging. I do think what did I have. 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:42.800 I mean, it's kind of a joke at my university 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:46.040 that everybody kind of brags about how busy they are 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:48.120 and how hard it's going to be for them to 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:50.880 find the time to have coffee with you. And this 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:55.280 is and even the students highly scheduled, Like it's amazing 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:58.440 we see each other at all. But yeah, I try 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:02.200 to just create it human condition for a way that 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:07.720 it's enjoyable for myself in different ways, to ground myself 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:11.200 and try to create some calm just because otherwise I 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:13.040 couldn't stand to do to do it. 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:16.839 Are you still supervising payih stay students. 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:18.640 Yes, yes, definitely. 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:23.040 That's how many of those have you got at the minute? 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:27.880 I have about I've got about three for whom I'm 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:31.400 the primary advisor, and then I have about I don't know, 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.400 maybe six or seven. Quite a few just graduated. They 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:36.680 do all kinds of interesting things. It's actually one of 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.359 the great parts of the job is getting to know 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:43.960 these students. And I really love helping students figure out 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:49.280 what projects sort of suit them and how they're going 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.720 to do them. That's been something I didn't expect. So 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:55.320 there's and we're a pretty small department too. 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:58.400 I feel like if you can do your payah Dale 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:03.400 or whatever research that intersects with something that you genuinely 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:07.200 are fascinated with, rather than oh, this is a topic, 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:09.440 I'll do this topic because I want to get a 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:12.640 PhD and the university wants me to do this or 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:16.680 have been pushed in this direction. But like my research, 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:21.960 I'm absolutely fascinated with and so it's kind of exciting 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:24.680 and it's fun. It's not I mean, the work, you 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:27.599 know is hard on all of that, but it's it's 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:32.600 because I'm actually really curious about this, and it kind 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:35.360 of spills into my work. I'm a corporate speaker and 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:38.200 you know, do this every day. So I'm intersecting with 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:40.520 people and trying to understand people and trying to you know, 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:45.320 theory of mind and metaperception and metaaccuracy and metacognition, trying 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:47.359 to figure out how other people see the world and 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:51.120 how they think and process stuff. And that's my research. 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:54.880 Like it all kind of folds in together and this 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:59.039 nice little kind of cognitive soup, you know. I love that. 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:02.760 It's nice if you can. I mean, I think we 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:05.960 do have more choice sometimes in arranging our lives than 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:09.359 we think, and I've often found that it, including myself 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:12.240 when I was a graduate student. A lot of people 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:16.640 feel constrained by this imaginary you know they. I mean, 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:19.440 we all actually have committees that we have to get 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:23.640 our work approved by or whoever whatever authorities. But often 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.839 I found that people would imagine their committee saying, no, 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:29.000 you can't do that project, even though you really want 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:31.159 to do it. You have to do this compromise, or 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:33.840 you have to you have to suit the market, or 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:37.120 you have to project ahead what people will be hiring. 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:40.400 But I always think those choices so people seem to 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:42.840 be torn between what they really want to do and 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:47.120 then what they think will get them hired. But it 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:51.440 feels like canceling out just sheer enjoyment, and it should 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:54.320 be enjoyable. So I always try to be someone who 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:57.400 advocates for that doing the thing that you enjoy, because 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:00.800 then you never really lose out, even if you like it. 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:03.640 Took me quite a while to get a job after 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:06.360 my PhD, just because I did something pretty unusual. 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:10.520 Yeah, yeah, I've always felt like that. When I was 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:13.760 in my early twenties, I was working in fitness centers 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:17.240 and gyms, and I realized I wanted to work, but 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:23.119 I didn't want to be an employee. So the last 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:25.560 time I had a job, as in it i was 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:29.040 an employee was when I was twenty six, which was 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:32.000 thirty five years ago. So I've the last thirty five 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:36.160 years I've just been making shit up doc just figuring shit, 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:39.680 just figuring it out. But I think that when you're 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:44.040 kind of what you do, you know, what pays the bills, 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:47.320 intersex with what you like and what you're passionate about 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:50.840 and what you're curious about, then that sense of drudgery 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:55.080 that can come with work or research kind of. I mean, 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:58.480 you know, it's periodic. I guess not every day is 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:02.200 a Hollywood movie or a Disney sitcom, but but you 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.320 know it's for the most part. Yeah, I never get 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:07.360 sick of what I do, So, you know, I think 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:11.160 that's that's a bonus. So you've written, You've written a 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:12.840 bunch of books, but your new book is called The 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:16.360 Instability of Truth. By the way, can you understand my 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:18.360 accent clearly? Or am I talking too far? 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:19.760 No? I get it. 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:24.120 I like it, okay. So the Instability of Truth brainwashing, 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:28.960 mind control, and hyper persuasion. I loved your chat with Rogan, 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:33.600 as I said, and that wasn't brief that that was 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:36.520 three hours of my life that I actually enjoyed investing, 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:38.120 give or take three hours. 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:40.960 The thing I liked about it is it kind of 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:45.400 went somewhere like, yeah, even though it's long, I felt 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:49.079 like we got you know, made progress instead of sometimes 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:51.080 you feel like you're spinning your wheels or a long 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:53.720 conversation doesn't pay off anyway, That's how I felt. 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:56.880 Yeah, exactly. Well. The thing is I always say to people, 0:08:57.480 --> 0:08:59.959 irrespective of like whether or not it's a corporate gig le, 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:02.840 listening to Rogan or a podcast or a radio whatever 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:06.240 it is, is it good to listen to? Do you 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:09.440 want to keep listening? Like that's the you know, that's 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:12.560 the litmus test. And I did not want to stop listening. 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:14.960 And one because I started listening because I knew I 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:17.280 was going to chat to you, and then I went, oh, this, 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:21.200 excuse my language, this is fucking fascinating, and then I 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:25.240 couldn't stop listening. But it's great. So everyone have a 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:29.240 listen to Rebecca on Joe as well. What does the 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:33.640 instability of truth mean? Like, what was the why, what 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:34.680 was the premise for that? 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:37.800 Well, I was trying to think of a title basically 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:40.800 for a book about brainwashing, mind control and like the 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:45.120 question of whether how this connects to our current reality 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.719 or real you know, digital reality and things like that, 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:53.160 social media, and I was so trying different titles. I 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:56.840 was talking to my mom about what the book is about, 0:09:56.880 --> 0:09:59.240 and I said, it's kind of about the way. It's 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:03.000 not that we're on truth, but it were, it's an 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:06.360 instability of truth. The truth is not easily available at 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:09.840 all times, and it sometimes seems remote or it's sometimes 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:13.640 it seems really unstable. Is the word I want? And 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:16.880 she said, oh, write that down, and then she actually 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:19.840 wrote it down for me, and then that became the title. 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:22.720 But it's just that's it's just so just basically came out. 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:25.400 Of a conversation, how great is mum? 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:27.520 She's a great Yeah, she's a raider. 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:33.160 Too, So that was, well, yeah, truth is interesting because 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:37.480 there's there's the practical, you know, thing that's happening, the 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:40.720 objective truth. You know, it's like the light turned red. 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:45.840 That's the objective truth. Then there's my subjective experience of 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:49.160 that objective event. So there's my truth. My truth is 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:53.280 the world's against me every traffic light's turning red, this 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:56.560 is not fair. So, you know, trying to have an 0:10:56.600 --> 0:11:02.840 awareness of like where where does the objective thing finish 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:06.800 and where does my subjective experience of that start, because 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:10.559 I feel like a lot of us lack that consciousness 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:14.320 or level of awareness that what's going on in my 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:18.880 head is not the truth, the objective, global, universal truths, 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:21.160 but rather just my story of something. 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:25.520 Yeah, I think a lot of what we take to 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:27.840 be true is our perception. But it's not that I'm 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:31.480 a relativist or anything. I just think that we are 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:37.600 constantly we kind of create the reality tunnels in which 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:41.520 we live. I think that's an insight that even someone 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:47.760 like you know, the great psychedelic and psychedelic researchers of 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:50.480 the sixties and seventies thought about things like that. But 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.920 I think there's a lot of truth to that. Also 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:56.719 in my field. I mean, it's really helpful to be 0:11:56.760 --> 0:11:58.840 in a field like history of science, where they actually 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:02.880 have papers just looking at the history of objectivity and 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:05.520 it actually meant different things over time. So in the 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:09.319 seventeenth century, there was no sense that you know, technical 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:13.319 instruments gave you the objective or most exact truth. Truth 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:16.200 was not seen to be something that was exact. It 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:18.920 was seen to be something like if you could represent 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:24.160 a flower through its essence, that would be objective, not 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:28.480 you know, the hyper measure. You know, our focus on 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:31.679 measurement only came a bit later through what they call 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:34.160 mechanical objectivity. So anyway, it's helpful to be in a 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:35.800 field where they think about things. 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:40.040 Like that, trying to understand the mind of individuals and 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:43.360 trying to do science around it, you know, human behavior 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:47.880 and you know psychology, and it's kind of tricky, isn't it, 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:52.960 Because there's it's very difficult to measure and observe other 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:55.560 than like we observe, we don't really observe the mind. 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:58.160 We observe the byproduct of what's happening in the mind, 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:02.160 you know. And even with my mind research, sometimes I go, 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:06.680 this is kind of garbage just in terms of measurement 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:09.880 tools and stuff. You know. You like, yeah, yeah, because 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:13.280 you know, like you and Tiff and I can all 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:17.680 do the same kind of psychological assessment this morning or 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:20.640 our time this morning, and depending on how I'm feeling 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:22.400 and what I've eaten and how much sleep I've had, 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:24.480 you know, I'm going to get completely different data to 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:27.640 if the same person does the same test or protocol 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:29.720 a day or two or three later, we're going to 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:32.320 get different data and then different science. And it's like, 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:37.000 it's a really tricky area of research. I think the mind. 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:42.280 Yeah, that's been my obsession for the past couple decades, 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:45.480 aside from the brainwashing stuff, is really how do we 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:49.560 measure subjectivity? And how has science kind of dreamed of 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:55.240 getting tools that will allow you to actually extract that. 0:13:55.480 --> 0:14:00.360 I mean, it's one thing to wear someone or physically 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:02.640 test them, but if you want to take a sample 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:05.640 of their inner life or their inner thoughts, like, how 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:08.240 would they do that? And I got very interested in 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:11.760 things like the Rorshach test or dreams, you know, science 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:14.640 of dreams, things like that which were which were kind 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:21.480 of sampled and turned into scientific objects of study. But 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:24.400 it is a difficult it's a challenge that scientists often 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:28.520 want to take on, or psychologists especially, but often are 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:33.680 it's it doesn't always it's kind of awkward the results sometimes. 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:40.640 What are your thoughts around gratitude? I work with lots 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:44.360 of people who or quite a few people who've got 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:48.480 some significant disabilities and challenges, and when I spend time 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:50.720 with them, I mean when I spent well one. I 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:54.160 love spending time with them, but the volume on my 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:57.200 gratitude is always turned up a little bit when I leave, 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:00.960 because I walk away going I guess I can walk 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:04.160 Guess what. I can get up out of a chair, 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:06.480 I can open the fridge, I can turn on the tap, 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:12.000 I can you know, I live relatively pain free. I 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:15.720 don't have any massive debt, I'm not in threat. You know, 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:20.720 It's it feels like when we've got things really good, 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:24.040 we don't seem to have the same level of gratitude 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:27.080 as when we lose something and then get it back. 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:29.680 Perhaps I think it. 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:33.000 Is amazing what we are capable as human beings of 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:37.200 taking for granted, like it only takes you know, several 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:40.480 times in my life I've had injuries such as a 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:44.920 neck injury, where I can't actually for whatever reason. You know, 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:46.960 something you're so used to being able to do, like 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:49.080 turn your head, You take for granted that I can 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:52.720 turn my head, lift my head, not be in agony, 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:56.840 and then suddenly when you lose that capacity you and 0:15:56.880 --> 0:16:00.920 then hopefully get it back, you have incredible gratitude for it, 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:04.200 but we somehow it's elusive to be in that state 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:09.400 all the time. And I notice in myself, I mean, yeah, 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:13.000 my capacity to feel gratitude and to it's kind of 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:16.160 something you have to cultivate, like you're saying in your 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:18.520 work with I think that I think the world provides 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:23.920 us many opportunities to be grateful and also many opportunities 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:27.640 to complain, so you can, like I have this phrase 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:31.160 called the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, which I feel that 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:33.680 sometimes it's like a curse that descends on me. I'm 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:37.080 walking around and you know, I start I usually start 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:40.080 the semester where everything seems full of possibility and I'm like, 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:42.880 I'm so lucky I get to be paid to do 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:45.480 research on the things I want and you know, without 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:48.320 oversight to write about it. But by the end of 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:52.880 the semester, I feel like everything is heavy and concrete, 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:57.600 and I sometimes fine have trouble having gratitude for you know, 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:03.320 just these things. So I think it is well, noticing 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:05.679 when that happens is a good first step. 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:10.880 Yeah, it's finding the space between the thing that's happening 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:15.399 and us. And also I think sometimes realizing what's changed 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:17.560 over the last three months is not so much the 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:20.239 thing or the event or the situation or the goings on, 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.840 but me around it and then leading into that, like 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:27.920 what is that about? Even I work kind of a 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:31.840 little bit in the personal development space. I hate saying 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:34.679 that because it sounds cheesy, but anyway, I do. But 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:37.800 I'm always talking about you know, so much of personal 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:40.160 development and self help and all of that is focused 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:44.400 on the external situation, circumstance, what I have, what I own, 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:47.159 what I earn, what I'm getting, what people think, what 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:51.800 I look like, all that visible stuff and trying to 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:57.120 or having the awareness that I can build all of that. Perhaps, 0:17:57.720 --> 0:17:59.920 but maybe the thing that really needs to change is 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:02.600 not all the stuff that people see, but maybe the 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:06.160 stuff that people don't see. Because when I'm different, when 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:09.600 I am inherently intrinsically different than my experience of the 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:14.080 world is different, right, So true, we try to resolve 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:17.960 these internal issues with external stuff. If I have this 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:20.280 or do that or achieve that, or people think that, 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:24.679 or I have a million listeners per episode, or if 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:27.440 I whatever, then then I'm going to be X, Y 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:30.040 and Z. And then that happens and you're like, oh, 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:33.960 I'm still insecure. I've still got a big ego, I 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:37.000 still want people to love me. I feel still feel disconnected. 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:41.119 Yeah, yeah, it doesn't getting the thing you want to 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:43.399 be careful what you ask for getting the thing you wanted, 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:47.159 even in the positive way. I mean, it's also another 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:50.280 opportunity to realize that it wasn't the thing. It wasn't 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:52.440 the thing that you wanted, you actually wanted some kind 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:56.600 of internal state. I mean, a simple thing that happens 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:58.680 to me, I mean I happened to everyone. Is I 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:00.720 could walk out wearing an up for that, like the 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:03.840 day before I wore it and I felt awesome, and 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:05.679 then I'm We're in the very same thing. But I 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:08.000 just feel like I've made a terrible mistake that I 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:11.359 don't know. The only thing that's changed is my is 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:14.680 my attitude. Probably maybe a couple other factors. 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:19.480 Maybe you donate to get address. After all, Tiff not 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:29.200 Tiff doesn't do dresses. Chiff's a self proclimbed tomboy. Well, 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:34.800 tell us about your fascination with all the genesis of 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:37.960 your fascination with mind control. Where did that start? Did 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:41.480 something happen? Did you have an experience like where did 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:43.160 that come from. 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:47.720 Well, I think on two levels. I think I when 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:49.359 I published the book, I had to go back and 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:51.600 rethink all of this because it's been with me for 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:53.960 so long, I think about two and a half decades 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:57.080 that I've been Since I was finishing my dissertation. I 0:19:57.119 --> 0:20:01.280 wrote the conclusion about brainwashing, the last chapter I think 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:05.080 it was, and I started to think about brainwashing it 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:09.000 because I wrote my dissertation about conditioning and behavioral engineering 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:11.879 and the extent to which people can be controlled, or 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:15.280 first laboratory animals, and then how that could be extended 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:18.240 to people. So I thought brainwashing in a weird way. 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:20.280 I just thought of it as like an abstract Oh, 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:23.399 this would be a territory, or this is an extreme 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:29.160 version of unfreedom, yes, where you become someone who's not yourself. 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:32.160 And I guess I had always been interested in that question, 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:36.399 can you become someone? Can you become a different person 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:40.879 without realizing it, either slowly or very quickly, which is 0:20:40.920 --> 0:20:45.800 brainwashing tends to be radical transformation. But in my personal life, 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:50.359 I guess it's a thing where my research question also 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:53.679 became personal in the sense that I think around that 0:20:53.840 --> 0:21:00.360 time I fell into like a addiction just just out 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:05.159 of some difficult circumstances in my life, feeling like I 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:07.879 disappointed my family and just feeling like I had too 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:10.120 much to deal with and I would like to check 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:13.240 out for a while. And I did, and it was 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:19.400 kind of combined with a very negative relationship that was 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:24.399 involved with the drugs, and that period long, prolonged period 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:26.440 of I mean, it was just a couple of years, 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:30.480 but still it felt like and it relates to brainwashing 0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:36.199 in the sense that it became not obvious to me 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:38.480 that I would get out or that I deserve to, 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:44.960 And so I did become a different person. And then 0:21:45.080 --> 0:21:48.080 when I did, which was almost accidental in some ways, 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:55.000 I broke the spell of this terrible situation. I did 0:21:55.000 --> 0:22:00.879 feel incredible gratitude, but also it seemed amazing to me 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:05.920 that that had happened, you know, and it seemed like 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:09.360 that's worth trying, that understanding that would give me some 0:22:09.400 --> 0:22:13.800 sort of power or help I could maybe it would 0:22:13.840 --> 0:22:19.679 be helpful or compassion, I guess, for just understanding that 0:22:19.680 --> 0:22:21.000 this can happen to anybody. 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:25.919 Yeah. Yeah, it's so interesting because everybody wants to belong 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:29.800 as well to a group or something bigger than themselves. 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:33.600 And sometimes and whether or not that's a church or 0:22:33.640 --> 0:22:37.200 a social group or a different kind of religious group 0:22:37.359 --> 0:22:42.040 or like, we want connection, and sometimes in order to 0:22:42.080 --> 0:22:44.320 stay connected or be part of the group, we've got 0:22:44.320 --> 0:22:47.480 to conform to a certain ideology or philosophy or way 0:22:47.520 --> 0:22:51.440 of being or behaving or you know, socializing or worshiping 0:22:51.560 --> 0:22:55.040 or and then there's all of this pressure and guilt 0:22:55.200 --> 0:22:59.639 wrapped around. If you don't think like us or be 0:22:59.800 --> 0:23:04.000 like like you can't you can't question things because we've 0:23:04.160 --> 0:23:06.800 we've found the truth. So you're here, You're in the 0:23:06.800 --> 0:23:09.320 middle of the truth, right, So you don't need to 0:23:09.400 --> 0:23:11.399 learn anything more, you don't need All you need to 0:23:11.440 --> 0:23:14.239 do is like follow the path, right, and you're on 0:23:14.320 --> 0:23:18.359 the path, So why would you even Yeah, So I 0:23:18.400 --> 0:23:20.600 have an experience in a church where I went to 0:23:20.680 --> 0:23:24.680 when I was younger, which was very very culty, very culty, 0:23:24.760 --> 0:23:29.520 and even now, like one hundred years later, I still 0:23:29.560 --> 0:23:32.119 feel pangs of guilt when I talk about it, because 0:23:32.160 --> 0:23:36.600 I feel disloyal and unfaithful, like and I recognize it 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:39.840 for what it is, but there's still that I feel, 0:23:39.960 --> 0:23:41.920 you know, and there were not everything to come out 0:23:41.960 --> 0:23:46.040 of that was bad, of course, but so much coeresive pressure, 0:23:46.200 --> 0:23:51.520 so much manipulation, so much control, and so much like 0:23:51.560 --> 0:23:54.760 when I was young and quite I was probably an 0:23:54.760 --> 0:23:57.000 asset to the church. I was young and a bit 0:23:57.080 --> 0:24:01.680 dynamic and a bit whatever, like I was valuable to them. 0:24:02.200 --> 0:24:04.760 And so then there's just a lot of pressure and 0:24:04.800 --> 0:24:09.760 manipulation and coercion and bullshit, to be honest, to get 0:24:09.880 --> 0:24:12.800 you to be what they wanted you to be. And 0:24:12.840 --> 0:24:15.320 the moment that you would ask questions or say look, 0:24:15.320 --> 0:24:18.119 I don't really agree with that, will, they start to 0:24:18.200 --> 0:24:20.399 lose their grip and then they panic and then the 0:24:21.000 --> 0:24:25.399 screws get tighter. Yeah. And it's only in hindsight that 0:24:25.480 --> 0:24:27.600 I can look back and go, oh wow, I was 0:24:27.640 --> 0:24:31.400 in the middle of something, you know, really very very 0:24:31.440 --> 0:24:35.119 cultish and controlling and manipulative and in a way mind 0:24:35.240 --> 0:24:39.280 control because you're actually discouraged from thinking critically. 0:24:40.440 --> 0:24:43.720 Right, I mean, they can yeah, I think I relate 0:24:43.800 --> 0:24:47.320 to what you're saying. And subsequently I've been in various 0:24:47.560 --> 0:24:51.040 yoga groups that have elements of just you know, what 0:24:51.119 --> 0:24:55.040 you end up submitting to, even just the idea that 0:24:55.760 --> 0:24:58.520 a teacher should be allowed to say push you into 0:24:58.560 --> 0:25:02.120 this position, or you note that then there's a culture 0:25:02.200 --> 0:25:06.119 around that says this is what's acceptable, and people seem 0:25:06.160 --> 0:25:09.320 to be transformed before your eyes, and there's this idea 0:25:09.400 --> 0:25:12.800 that this, oh, this is perfectly. Maybe those other groups 0:25:12.840 --> 0:25:15.840 are cults, but we're we've found some sort of special 0:25:16.400 --> 0:25:19.960 route to to you know, personal transformation or whatever it is. 0:25:20.000 --> 0:25:22.920 Those things do change you, and hopefully they also give 0:25:22.960 --> 0:25:26.239 you some really really valuable experience. Because I love I 0:25:26.280 --> 0:25:29.800 love the fact that the word experience in English means 0:25:30.240 --> 0:25:33.119 in the in the old days, in the early modern period, 0:25:33.200 --> 0:25:38.080 it was a synonym for experiment. So you know, we 0:25:38.160 --> 0:25:42.639 all have these experiences that are in a sense very valuable, 0:25:43.800 --> 0:25:47.159 very valuable sources of information akin to experiments. And I 0:25:47.200 --> 0:25:51.600 think it's the most valuable thing is what you've personally experienced, 0:25:51.840 --> 0:25:54.880 if you can, if you can later make the most 0:25:54.920 --> 0:26:00.159 of it and not sort of beuh not not be 0:26:00.200 --> 0:26:00.840 stuck in it. 0:26:01.600 --> 0:26:04.520 Yes, you know what you learn from it about yourself 0:26:04.560 --> 0:26:07.320 and about other people. And for me, I look back more, 0:26:07.720 --> 0:26:10.840 you know, no regret. For me, I look back and 0:26:10.880 --> 0:26:14.920 it's just curiosity. And I think, like the like when 0:26:14.920 --> 0:26:17.520 you think about it, from when we're from when we 0:26:17.560 --> 0:26:21.000 could reason anything, from when we could process anything around 0:26:21.080 --> 0:26:24.280 us as children, as babies until now you and me 0:26:24.400 --> 0:26:31.159 on this conversation and Tiff is that we've been programmed, 0:26:31.480 --> 0:26:36.040 you know, and influenced and manipulated and coerced, and so 0:26:36.920 --> 0:26:42.560 my worldview is only partly my worldview. You know, I'm 0:26:42.600 --> 0:26:48.520 always looking at everything through the Craig window, thinking like, well, 0:26:48.560 --> 0:26:51.919 I know better, but most of us think, well, I'm objective. 0:26:52.040 --> 0:26:55.840 And it's like I say to people, you, really, objectivity 0:26:56.200 --> 0:27:00.280 on a personal level as almost impossible because you're looking 0:27:00.320 --> 0:27:03.399 through the subjective Craig window or Rebecca or Tiff window 0:27:03.560 --> 0:27:06.440 or and so everything that I'm looking at is at 0:27:06.520 --> 0:27:11.320 least informed or influenced or affected in some way by 0:27:11.359 --> 0:27:15.080 the totality of my experiences until now. And so for me, 0:27:15.160 --> 0:27:19.760 it's like consciousness and awareness is recognizing that, ah, this 0:27:19.920 --> 0:27:22.800 is just my version of the truth, and then trying 0:27:22.840 --> 0:27:25.040 to expand on that is the tricky bit. 0:27:27.640 --> 0:27:31.280 I agree, I mean, I think so, I agree that 0:27:31.320 --> 0:27:34.439 we've been programmed or we are being programmed, and I 0:27:34.480 --> 0:27:37.800 think that can both that that in itself can be 0:27:39.720 --> 0:27:43.560 something one wants to break free. And I'll just suxily 0:27:43.760 --> 0:27:47.919 talked about negative self transcendence and positive self transcendence, and 0:27:47.960 --> 0:27:50.280 he said, well, you know, it would be ideal if 0:27:50.320 --> 0:27:53.240 everyone could have positive self transcendence through some way of 0:27:53.240 --> 0:27:57.200 breaking or programming seeing, you know, being able to think 0:27:57.240 --> 0:28:00.840 for yourself and free yourself from the assumptions about the 0:28:01.080 --> 0:28:03.080 you know, the limited nature of the life you should 0:28:03.119 --> 0:28:07.159 leave or the the what you should accept, because inevitably 0:28:07.200 --> 0:28:10.240 it'll be limiting. That's what he felt. But he said, 0:28:10.240 --> 0:28:13.800 also there's negative self transcendent, which sometimes also breaks the 0:28:13.960 --> 0:28:17.520 pattern and therefore is to be valued even though it's 0:28:17.680 --> 0:28:21.600 a harder path. But also what you were saying reminded 0:28:21.640 --> 0:28:25.160 me of just this line from Walt Whitman where he says, 0:28:25.240 --> 0:28:28.000 I am a part of everything I have met. Yeah, 0:28:28.760 --> 0:28:32.719 which I really like because in a sense, we are 0:28:32.760 --> 0:28:39.160 constantly responding and remaking ourselves potentially at every moment, so 0:28:40.320 --> 0:28:43.040 there's some sense there. I think the mistake is to 0:28:43.080 --> 0:28:47.000 think that we're sort of very autonomous, you know, sort 0:28:47.040 --> 0:28:48.760 of sealed hermetically sealed. 0:28:49.560 --> 0:28:54.280 Yeah, and you like, I think about my beliefs, good 0:28:54.320 --> 0:28:59.000 and bad, you know, empowering, self limiting. Most of my 0:28:59.080 --> 0:29:03.880 beliefs I didn't choose them, they're just thereby social osmosis. 0:29:04.240 --> 0:29:06.920 You know, by like when you're ten years old, you 0:29:06.960 --> 0:29:09.640 have all these beliefs, and pretty much none of them 0:29:09.680 --> 0:29:11.800 you chose. Mum and Dad chose them for you, or 0:29:11.840 --> 0:29:14.719 your peers or friends or you know, and so you 0:29:14.760 --> 0:29:17.560 grow up in this world view looking through this window 0:29:17.640 --> 0:29:22.120 that you didn't choose, and so it's difficult in the 0:29:22.120 --> 0:29:27.440 middle of that to realize that that you didn't You 0:29:27.480 --> 0:29:30.520 didn't build this reality. You're just part of this reality. 0:29:31.480 --> 0:29:34.239 Right. That's why that's why I wanted to go to 0:29:34.400 --> 0:29:37.440 I thought anthropology seemed like the most interesting topic when 0:29:37.480 --> 0:29:40.720 I was preparing to go to graduate school. I thought, well, 0:29:40.720 --> 0:29:42.800 it would you could ask that question, would I be 0:29:42.920 --> 0:29:45.800 someone else? Is there some essence of who would I 0:29:45.880 --> 0:29:48.320 be someone else if I was raised an erratically different 0:29:48.400 --> 0:29:52.600 place at a radically different time. Just that in itself 0:29:52.680 --> 0:29:54.920 is kind of profound because we are so shaped by 0:29:56.120 --> 0:29:57.360 our environment. 0:29:58.280 --> 0:30:00.280 Yeah, I grew up in a really Catholic FA family. 0:30:00.320 --> 0:30:03.840 Initially that was my first part of religious call, right. 0:30:05.080 --> 0:30:07.080 And yeah, it's like I've said this many times on 0:30:07.120 --> 0:30:09.640 the show, but by the time I was ten, I 0:30:09.720 --> 0:30:12.000 knew that there was heaven and Helen purgatory, and I 0:30:12.080 --> 0:30:14.080 knew that if I died with a mortal sin on 0:30:14.120 --> 0:30:17.040 my soul. I'd burn in an eternal lake of fire forever. 0:30:17.120 --> 0:30:20.400 And that wasn't even a question. That was just that's 0:30:20.440 --> 0:30:22.960 what happened. That was like, that's a tree. It was 0:30:23.000 --> 0:30:24.800 like I knew that as much as I knew what 0:30:24.840 --> 0:30:29.720 a tree looked like. And I never questioned that because 0:30:30.280 --> 0:30:32.440 there was no reason to, because all the people I 0:30:32.480 --> 0:30:35.920 looked up to and trusted and loved, that was the 0:30:36.240 --> 0:30:43.880 you know, so the idea of thinking outside of that programming. Yeah, 0:30:43.880 --> 0:30:46.520 I don't know if that for some people, maybe that 0:30:46.640 --> 0:30:48.680 never happens or that never dawns on them. 0:30:49.760 --> 0:30:53.440 I think for some people, I think there are every person. 0:30:53.560 --> 0:31:00.080 I believe every person has invitations too. But sometimes it 0:31:00.120 --> 0:31:04.239 only comes with uh, with you know, severe grief or 0:31:04.280 --> 0:31:07.400 something where all of like the loss of a loved 0:31:07.400 --> 0:31:10.320 one or a spouse or a child, you know, just 0:31:10.440 --> 0:31:13.960 tragedies often strangely enough, have that effect where it just 0:31:14.040 --> 0:31:18.000 breaks the program. You see that nothing, nothing was important 0:31:18.000 --> 0:31:20.800 that I thought was important, Or you see that the 0:31:20.800 --> 0:31:25.239 thing you took for granted, uh you know, was was 0:31:25.280 --> 0:31:27.920 actually the thing you should have or might have focused on. 0:31:28.040 --> 0:31:34.040 So sometimes it's those things. But other times I think 0:31:34.120 --> 0:31:38.880 I think we are uh maybe so, I just I 0:31:38.960 --> 0:31:41.640 just took this course in at the University of Amsterdam, 0:31:41.680 --> 0:31:43.760 a two weeks two week course on the history of 0:31:43.840 --> 0:31:48.520 human consciousness and the psychedelic history of psychedelics research. But 0:31:48.640 --> 0:31:51.520 really one thing that they were it was quite a 0:31:51.560 --> 0:31:54.840 formal class, a lot of lecturing, and and these were 0:31:54.840 --> 0:31:57.840 by religious study scholars, and one of one of the 0:31:57.840 --> 0:31:59.600 points they were making is we think there are three 0:31:59.680 --> 0:32:04.080 base human drives, which is what is it, food, reproduction, 0:32:04.400 --> 0:32:05.680 shelter or something like that. 0:32:06.120 --> 0:32:06.320 Yep. 0:32:06.520 --> 0:32:09.120 But actually there's a fourth which is the alteration of 0:32:10.200 --> 0:32:13.760 one's consciousness, whether it's in small ways just through an 0:32:13.840 --> 0:32:17.600 amazing meal. But we we do seem and you can 0:32:17.640 --> 0:32:21.080 look back as far as Homo sapien sapient, or further 0:32:21.320 --> 0:32:26.160 to Neanderthal, the different types of human varieties that preceded, 0:32:26.560 --> 0:32:29.520 you know that they all seem to have this desire 0:32:29.640 --> 0:32:34.640 to break this kind of narrow the narrow mold of 0:32:34.680 --> 0:32:35.440 their programming. 0:32:37.600 --> 0:32:41.560 I think it's I think everyone at some stage thinks 0:32:41.640 --> 0:32:44.040 is this all there is? You know? Is like, is 0:32:44.080 --> 0:32:47.400 this is all that I know or there is to know? 0:32:47.520 --> 0:32:50.680 And obviously the answer is not the answers no to that. 0:32:50.720 --> 0:32:57.040 But I think also sometimes when our beliefs and our 0:32:57.120 --> 0:33:04.000 ideas and our stories essentially form our identity, then anyone 0:33:04.040 --> 0:33:07.080 who doesn't align with our ideas or philosophy or theology 0:33:07.160 --> 0:33:10.840 or whatever, especially when our sense of self is intertwined 0:33:10.880 --> 0:33:14.400 with that, it's almost like they become the enemy. Like 0:33:14.520 --> 0:33:17.760 when you think about anyone who has really strongly held 0:33:17.840 --> 0:33:23.480 belief or faith, and you know when who they are 0:33:23.840 --> 0:33:28.040 is essentially that the idea of well, well, you know, 0:33:28.120 --> 0:33:29.880 this is what I think or believe, but I could 0:33:29.920 --> 0:33:32.719 be wrong. Well, that's usually not on the table, you know. 0:33:32.840 --> 0:33:36.479 I think just the idea of opening yourself to the idea. 0:33:36.600 --> 0:33:40.280 Like I always say to people, I've been wrong thousands 0:33:40.320 --> 0:33:43.480 and thousands of times, so I'm probably going to be 0:33:43.520 --> 0:33:46.760 wrong about twenty things today. So the idea that I 0:33:46.840 --> 0:33:49.640 know and everyone that doesn't agree with me is wrong 0:33:50.520 --> 0:33:55.600 is really just an exercise in ego and insecurity and fear. Yeah. 0:33:55.600 --> 0:33:59.600 I think that's why brainwashing is an interesting phenomenon because 0:34:00.000 --> 0:34:03.320 will often mistake it, or even myself when I got 0:34:03.360 --> 0:34:05.800 into it, You mistake it as an ideal loot, a 0:34:05.840 --> 0:34:09.279 problem of ideas, someone got the wrong ideas they got 0:34:09.280 --> 0:34:12.160 bad ideas they got they fell for. They fell for 0:34:12.239 --> 0:34:15.040 a scam or a scheme or you know, a set 0:34:15.080 --> 0:34:19.040 a system that is just wrong or is bad thinking, 0:34:19.520 --> 0:34:21.400 or they weren't smart enough to see through it. But 0:34:21.560 --> 0:34:24.480 I think some of it so much of it riads 0:34:24.520 --> 0:34:30.120 on emotional identification, also the harnessing of trauma and of 0:34:30.600 --> 0:34:33.040 painful experiences in your life. And that's the thing that 0:34:33.080 --> 0:34:36.760 we often don't see. So that I try to argue 0:34:36.760 --> 0:34:40.479 that brainwashing is actually something that if you're only seeing 0:34:40.520 --> 0:34:43.320 it happening to other people and not applying the window 0:34:43.400 --> 0:34:47.360 to yourself, then you're probably missing the actual dynamics of 0:34:47.400 --> 0:34:48.840 how it works. 0:34:49.960 --> 0:34:54.319 Yeah, what's the relationship or the insection. I don't know 0:34:54.360 --> 0:34:57.440 what the right term is. But between the same mind control, 0:34:58.400 --> 0:35:01.480 if we had a hierarchy mind control and influence and 0:35:01.560 --> 0:35:05.840 manipulation and coercion, are they all first cousins? Like is 0:35:05.880 --> 0:35:07.359 it all in the same wheelhouse? 0:35:09.320 --> 0:35:12.120 Yeah? I think I would. I would say that sometimes 0:35:12.120 --> 0:35:16.160 there are just different words and they have different kind 0:35:16.200 --> 0:35:19.279 of intensity to them. I mean persuasion, I would take 0:35:19.320 --> 0:35:22.120 out a little bit. I would say there are aspects 0:35:22.160 --> 0:35:25.240 of persuasion that are and I even think there's possibly 0:35:25.360 --> 0:35:28.640 a kind of positive brainwashing or self transformation, as long 0:35:28.680 --> 0:35:32.160 as it's done with full consent, you can always leave. 0:35:32.200 --> 0:35:35.600 There's not an abusive relationship. And you could say many 0:35:36.320 --> 0:35:38.240 you know, there are ways that you could put yourself 0:35:38.280 --> 0:35:45.360 in a very intense situation and be transformed, but anyway, influence. 0:35:46.120 --> 0:35:49.880 There's a guy, there's a researcher named Steve Hassan who's 0:35:49.880 --> 0:35:53.279 also an exit counselor. He used to be a deprogramm, 0:35:53.320 --> 0:35:55.760 a cult deprogrammer, and before that he was a member 0:35:55.800 --> 0:36:00.360 of the Moonies and he is I'm actually backing to 0:36:00.440 --> 0:36:05.279 him on his podcast tomorrow because I actually know him 0:36:05.320 --> 0:36:08.400 because he lives in my area. But he used to 0:36:08.440 --> 0:36:11.880 come guest lecture in my class on brainwashing and he 0:36:11.920 --> 0:36:16.560 basically he has an instrument called the Influence Continuum, and 0:36:16.600 --> 0:36:19.160 it's kind of helpful and you can look it up online, 0:36:19.200 --> 0:36:23.479 but it helps you place identify certain features which would 0:36:23.520 --> 0:36:27.879 be extreme influence which is pathological on one side, which 0:36:27.880 --> 0:36:31.560 would be a high demand cult, or a dangerous abusive 0:36:31.600 --> 0:36:37.160 cult which is characterized by extreme hierarchy, the extreme sanction 0:36:37.400 --> 0:36:40.680 if you try to leave, also a abuse of a 0:36:40.760 --> 0:36:44.759 sexual and other types financial abuse, the use of love 0:36:44.800 --> 0:36:47.359 bombing thoughts, stopping all these techniques, whereas on the other 0:36:47.520 --> 0:36:52.080 end of influence would be actually more educational in a 0:36:52.080 --> 0:36:55.200 benign sense. And so he kind of lays that stuff 0:36:55.200 --> 0:36:58.879 out that you can so you can. I think it's 0:36:58.920 --> 0:36:59.680 a useful tool. 0:37:00.800 --> 0:37:04.640 Yeah, I think not all influence is bad. And yeah, 0:37:04.840 --> 0:37:08.200 maybe there is. Maybe there are some forms of mind 0:37:08.239 --> 0:37:12.880 control of sorts that I guess. Maybe it depends on 0:37:12.920 --> 0:37:16.279 the outcome for the individual, right is it. Maybe can 0:37:16.320 --> 0:37:19.279 there be a good outcome depending on I do think yeah. 0:37:19.320 --> 0:37:22.080 I mean if you said yeah, I would say definitely. 0:37:23.480 --> 0:37:25.880 And this is the thing that's tricky, and all this 0:37:26.040 --> 0:37:29.160 territory is tricky, and if it wasn't tricky and complicated 0:37:29.239 --> 0:37:32.960 and full of full of potential problems, it wouldn't be 0:37:32.960 --> 0:37:34.960 worth writing a book about. You could just write a 0:37:35.080 --> 0:37:37.880 Wikipedia entry and be done with it, like oh, done 0:37:37.880 --> 0:37:40.919 with brainwater. You know, it would be simple. But it's 0:37:41.040 --> 0:37:44.239 actually quite tricky because a lot of people, when they 0:37:44.320 --> 0:37:47.040 join a group that they would later call a very 0:37:47.880 --> 0:37:51.640 dangerous or abusive or a terrible cult, at the beginning, 0:37:51.719 --> 0:37:56.120 they people often feel great benefit and you can see 0:37:56.160 --> 0:37:59.000 the benefit in their lives, even as they're maybe they're 0:37:59.480 --> 0:38:02.840 they're bank account might be drained, but they feel freed 0:38:02.880 --> 0:38:06.520 of their programming. They feel empowered. Even the Manson girls, 0:38:06.680 --> 0:38:09.800 many people describe them, you know, later in the trial, 0:38:10.040 --> 0:38:12.080 so I write about the Manson family. 0:38:12.719 --> 0:38:14.960 Yes, so there. 0:38:14.800 --> 0:38:18.560 Were several of them when they were observed in the trial. 0:38:18.600 --> 0:38:22.200 People they used the word brandwashing in the trial to 0:38:22.520 --> 0:38:25.000 convict them and say they had been they were sort 0:38:25.040 --> 0:38:28.120 of mindless robots, but they were still responsible for carrying 0:38:28.120 --> 0:38:31.480 out the will of Charles Manson. But in their lives, 0:38:31.560 --> 0:38:35.719 many people surprisingly would describe them as extremely empowered and 0:38:35.800 --> 0:38:40.560 kind of radiating this kind of self assurance, which is 0:38:40.680 --> 0:38:43.520 interesting and not what you expect. And that's what really 0:38:43.560 --> 0:38:47.200 caught the public when they waltzed into the courtroom seemingly 0:38:47.280 --> 0:38:52.240 free of any type of conscience, wearing looking like hippies. Basically. 0:38:53.040 --> 0:38:57.279 Yeah, I remember you and Rogan talking about how when 0:38:57.280 --> 0:39:00.439 people often, as you said initially, when they go into 0:39:00.480 --> 0:39:07.879 these cults, they had this transcendent experience, this euphoric experience. 0:39:08.520 --> 0:39:11.799 And I had that. I had that the first time 0:39:11.840 --> 0:39:14.160 I went to this place that I told you about 0:39:14.200 --> 0:39:18.000 where I won't bore everyone with it, but it's like, oh, 0:39:19.000 --> 0:39:21.000 you know, it was a moment I thought, I don't 0:39:21.000 --> 0:39:23.239 know if it was spiritual. I thought it was spiritual, 0:39:24.040 --> 0:39:27.560 but it was definitely emotional and psychological. It was like 0:39:27.640 --> 0:39:33.600 there was this whole and yeah, I still remember that 0:39:33.719 --> 0:39:38.000 experience really quite clearly. And you're like, oh, and so 0:39:38.239 --> 0:39:42.000 even it's funny how that can happen, even in the 0:39:42.040 --> 0:39:47.400 middle of something that's perhaps you know, not as altruistic 0:39:47.440 --> 0:39:49.880 as it might, you know, try to. 0:39:50.920 --> 0:39:54.560 I think that's when it's really fascinating, and it makes 0:39:54.560 --> 0:39:56.919 it hard when you leave. I think people who leave 0:39:57.040 --> 0:40:01.520 cults often are it's extremely painful, even if they feel 0:40:01.600 --> 0:40:04.680 lucky to have escaped with whatever remains of you know, 0:40:04.800 --> 0:40:08.680 people stand for decades sometimes and they feel drained. There's 0:40:08.719 --> 0:40:11.799 a guy I wrote about named Ray Connolly who's a 0:40:11.840 --> 0:40:15.600 really wonderful person I met at a anti conference. He 0:40:15.680 --> 0:40:18.480 spent thirty five years of his life in the Children 0:40:18.600 --> 0:40:20.759 of God. But he said, at the beginning, yeah, it 0:40:20.800 --> 0:40:25.080 was this amazing connections. He felt filled with like a 0:40:25.120 --> 0:40:27.960 divine presence, He felt connected to others, He felt this 0:40:28.160 --> 0:40:31.080 love emanating from him, and it seemed it was so 0:40:31.239 --> 0:40:34.480 obviously true, and that when you leave, it's very hard 0:40:34.480 --> 0:40:38.279 to abandon those experiences as untrue or as manipulation. So 0:40:38.360 --> 0:40:41.120 I think you kind of have to. I believe it's 0:40:41.239 --> 0:40:44.319 legitimate to still value those experiences and just to say 0:40:44.400 --> 0:40:47.560 it's too bad that they were in a context of 0:40:47.600 --> 0:40:51.200 someone or a group that was ultimately extractive and trying 0:40:51.239 --> 0:40:54.960 to steal my vital yeah, my life forces, which is 0:40:55.040 --> 0:41:01.359 essentially how those groups do function. But really, sorry, it's 0:41:01.400 --> 0:41:03.680 just confusing. I think a lot of people do really 0:41:03.719 --> 0:41:06.120 struggle after they leave, too, because they don't have that 0:41:06.640 --> 0:41:07.960 connection and they miss it. 0:41:08.800 --> 0:41:11.920 Yes, and then you know that, like I had some 0:41:12.040 --> 0:41:19.200 experiences within my time that were great, amazing, like, and 0:41:19.239 --> 0:41:23.360 so there's the the like the experience is real, maybe 0:41:23.400 --> 0:41:25.360 the premise for what set me up for that, or 0:41:25.400 --> 0:41:28.799 maybe some of the stories around you know, But did 0:41:28.840 --> 0:41:32.280 you ever read or maybe you've even met But Megan 0:41:32.320 --> 0:41:35.920 Phelps Roper wrote that book, unfollow I. 0:41:35.880 --> 0:41:38.440 Haven't met her. I haven't, and nor have I read it, 0:41:38.440 --> 0:41:41.600 though I would like to. But I've heard her interviewed, 0:41:41.600 --> 0:41:44.560 and I guess I read an essay she wrote for 0:41:44.760 --> 0:41:47.799 maybe for The New Yorker about this experience. 0:41:48.480 --> 0:41:51.920 Yeah, such a good book, so great. I listened to 0:41:51.960 --> 0:41:54.759 it and Tiff, you had to listen to that, didn't 0:41:54.840 --> 0:41:57.920 yeh yeah, yeah, yeah great, and you liked it. 0:41:58.239 --> 0:41:59.240 I'll put it on my list. 0:42:00.080 --> 0:42:05.000 No, it's fantastic now something that Australians are not so 0:42:05.080 --> 0:42:08.520 familiar with. And I know we've got about fifteen minutes 0:42:08.520 --> 0:42:14.720 to go. So is mk Ultra, which was a secret 0:42:14.760 --> 0:42:21.640 CIA program that did some testing with mind control and 0:42:21.680 --> 0:42:29.200 brainwashing and psychological manipulation using LSD and other drugs. And 0:42:29.600 --> 0:42:32.520 could you unpack a little bit of that, because I mean, 0:42:32.719 --> 0:42:36.120 I don't know much about that at all. I've heard 0:42:36.160 --> 0:42:38.799 about it, but it's not something that we grew up 0:42:38.880 --> 0:42:42.280 learning about. Could you. Of course, we've got a global audience, 0:42:42.320 --> 0:42:45.239 but probably half our audience a Rossi's so could you 0:42:45.760 --> 0:42:46.719 talk to us about that? 0:42:47.640 --> 0:42:50.720 Yeah? Sure. And it actually surprises me that mk ultra 0:42:50.760 --> 0:42:54.120 has become a household word in the US, because when 0:42:54.200 --> 0:42:57.120 I started studying it, it was quite obscure. Also, it's 0:42:57.200 --> 0:43:00.759 just it's one of those programs that sounds like it 0:43:00.880 --> 0:43:04.960 sounds like a conspiracy theory that must be made up, 0:43:05.800 --> 0:43:08.480 but it's actually a very dark episode in the history 0:43:08.520 --> 0:43:12.880 of the US Central Intelligence Agency, which was quite new. 0:43:13.040 --> 0:43:15.560 So it was one of the first in depth programs 0:43:15.560 --> 0:43:22.320 that was funded clandestinely by the CIA right after actually 0:43:22.400 --> 0:43:26.640 during the armistice of the Korean War, so right after 0:43:26.680 --> 0:43:29.200 World War Two when the os SO, the OSS is 0:43:29.239 --> 0:43:32.719 the Office of Strategic Services that preceded the CIA, and 0:43:32.760 --> 0:43:38.120 once the CIA was was formed, initially as an intelligence 0:43:38.160 --> 0:43:43.239 agency and then quickly it kind of morphed into, you know, 0:43:43.360 --> 0:43:50.839 a covert operation organization. So mk Ultra arose out of 0:43:51.640 --> 0:43:54.600 a crisis about brainwashing that you know, hit the headlines 0:43:55.040 --> 0:43:59.040 and hit and it became a kind of an international obsession. 0:43:59.560 --> 0:44:03.799 These US and there are actually some Australian soldiers who 0:44:03.800 --> 0:44:08.000 were fighting in Korea because it was a UN coalition 0:44:08.239 --> 0:44:11.640 that sent soldiers and there were several Australians I think 0:44:11.640 --> 0:44:13.960 that were caught up in the brainwashing scandal too, So 0:44:14.000 --> 0:44:18.399 that would be interesting to look into. These soldiers were 0:44:18.719 --> 0:44:23.879 POW's prisoners of war held for several years behind north 0:44:23.920 --> 0:44:26.919 of the Yalu River in these prison camps, and many 0:44:26.960 --> 0:44:33.200 of them had been through experiences that were so really horrendous, 0:44:33.440 --> 0:44:36.000 at the edge of death, you know, just from starvation 0:44:36.120 --> 0:44:39.640 and lack of treatment for their wounds and exhaustion and 0:44:41.560 --> 0:44:43.960 neglect and so by the time they found themselves in 0:44:44.000 --> 0:44:48.400 these camps, they were they experienced further, they froze to 0:44:48.480 --> 0:44:51.960 death at night they were packed in, but ultimately they 0:44:51.960 --> 0:44:56.799 were Once the Chinese took over the camps, they they 0:44:58.320 --> 0:45:02.080 experimented and tried to see whether Maoist re education would 0:45:02.120 --> 0:45:05.480 actually work on Westerners as well as because Mao predicted 0:45:05.520 --> 0:45:08.280 it would work on all humanity except for the seven 0:45:08.360 --> 0:45:12.880 percent who were resistant to being properly re educated or 0:45:13.080 --> 0:45:16.560 thought reform. So it turned out that term that term 0:45:16.800 --> 0:45:23.600 really educated. Yeah, such a noble term exactly he thought it. 0:45:23.680 --> 0:45:26.560 He thought of it as an atom bomb that exploded 0:45:26.560 --> 0:45:28.960 in the soul of humankind and that but it had 0:45:28.960 --> 0:45:31.160 to be continually renewed. So they tried it out on 0:45:31.200 --> 0:45:35.600 these soldiers, especially the less educated, because they felt those 0:45:35.600 --> 0:45:39.319 were the equivalent of Chinese peasants. And several and at 0:45:39.360 --> 0:45:41.759 the end of it, twenty one US and I think 0:45:41.800 --> 0:45:47.319 of possibly a few Australian soldiers decided they would rather 0:45:47.440 --> 0:45:50.040 not return to their countries and would and they had 0:45:50.080 --> 0:45:53.480 become communists or at least wanted to try living in China. 0:45:53.520 --> 0:45:59.440 And this caused this. In addition to fifty nine pilots 0:45:59.480 --> 0:46:04.960 for the US Air Force who made these confessions. They 0:46:04.960 --> 0:46:10.239 made false confessions to having committed war crimes in front 0:46:10.280 --> 0:46:13.640 of the news cameras, newsreel cameras of the day. This 0:46:13.800 --> 0:46:17.040 caused in nineteen fifty three the head of the CIA 0:46:17.200 --> 0:46:19.360 and the head of the Secretary of State and the 0:46:19.360 --> 0:46:22.680 President of the US to secretly fund a program called 0:46:22.760 --> 0:46:28.160 mk Ultra, which took hold in nineteen fifty three. They 0:46:28.200 --> 0:46:32.720 developed this elaborate structure to fund it secretly through these 0:46:32.800 --> 0:46:37.400 cutout organizations. In my research, I've discovered several that nobody 0:46:37.440 --> 0:46:40.720 really knew about before. And their research covered one hundred 0:46:41.040 --> 0:46:43.799 something like one hundred and forty nine sub projects. And 0:46:43.840 --> 0:46:50.200 they specialized in sort of combinations of dragging people, including 0:46:50.239 --> 0:46:57.439 with LSD pushing into extreme sleeplessness, and also using hypnosis, 0:46:57.480 --> 0:47:01.520 and then combining the three of those and with many 0:47:01.560 --> 0:47:05.160 other techniques to see whether a human being could be 0:47:06.160 --> 0:47:11.360 basically alienated from themselves sufficiently to perhaps become a Manchurian candidate, 0:47:12.040 --> 0:47:15.520 meaning they could they would carry out a mission without knowing, 0:47:16.040 --> 0:47:18.319 without having any memory of it, Like could you turn 0:47:18.440 --> 0:47:23.520 somebody into basically losing could you get somebody to lose 0:47:23.560 --> 0:47:27.520 their agency completely? And become alienated from themselves and so 0:47:27.640 --> 0:47:30.680 dissociated that with a snap of the fingers, they would 0:47:30.760 --> 0:47:33.000 go into that state and then they would come back 0:47:33.040 --> 0:47:34.640 when you wanted them to, and they would have no 0:47:34.760 --> 0:47:39.040 memory of what they had done, perhaps assassinations, things like that. 0:47:39.239 --> 0:47:42.799 So this was a really dark program. Many, you know, 0:47:43.320 --> 0:47:46.920 people died as a result of it, and later the 0:47:47.000 --> 0:47:53.920 CIA discontinued it in about ten there was about ten years. 0:47:55.280 --> 0:47:58.480 Did the subjects or the people who were being who 0:47:58.520 --> 0:48:02.440 were used within the program, did they realize Rebecca what 0:48:02.520 --> 0:48:05.759 they were getting into or were they misled? 0:48:07.840 --> 0:48:10.879 Well, the subjects mostly didn't know that they were in 0:48:11.040 --> 0:48:16.640 this program. No, I mean they were sometimes mental patients. 0:48:16.960 --> 0:48:20.080 Sometimes they were mostly people who had no legal recourse 0:48:20.239 --> 0:48:23.759 against what was the experiments being done in them. The scientists, 0:48:24.320 --> 0:48:27.720 some of them knew very well, some of them were witting, 0:48:27.960 --> 0:48:32.239 or some of them knew, but they they thought of 0:48:32.280 --> 0:48:35.360 it as their patriotic duty, or they had some suspicion, 0:48:35.680 --> 0:48:37.800 you know, it wasn't quite confirmed because they were working 0:48:38.280 --> 0:48:42.839 someone like BF Skinner actually he you know, sometimes they 0:48:42.840 --> 0:48:46.120 would just fund they thought of leading scientists who were 0:48:46.120 --> 0:48:52.400 doing behavioral research. So maybe the scientists would half know 0:48:52.800 --> 0:48:56.440 that this Human Ecology Fund was actually the CIA, but 0:48:56.719 --> 0:48:59.080 in other cases they really had no idea. So because 0:48:59.080 --> 0:49:01.319 they would want to fund a left wing scientist who 0:49:01.320 --> 0:49:06.319 maybe didn't really want to participate in this program, but 0:49:06.520 --> 0:49:09.160 they're they're ended up participating. 0:49:11.160 --> 0:49:14.760 I heard you quote Socrates on Rogan. It's funny because 0:49:14.760 --> 0:49:17.880 in a part of my thesis, I just put you know, 0:49:18.200 --> 0:49:20.840 the big like because trying to understand thyself. You know, 0:49:20.880 --> 0:49:23.120 the beginning of wisdom is to know thyself or whatever 0:49:23.160 --> 0:49:28.200 he said, And my PhD is essentially around self awareness. 0:49:28.800 --> 0:49:31.839 But it's funny how the questions that we ask now, 0:49:32.480 --> 0:49:36.200 most of the questions that we ask about who humans 0:49:36.200 --> 0:49:37.920 are and how we are and why we are the 0:49:37.960 --> 0:49:40.040 way we are, and how the mind works and how 0:49:40.120 --> 0:49:44.040 we work as an organism among other organisms, like not 0:49:44.120 --> 0:49:47.479 a lot's changed in some ways from those questions from 0:49:47.880 --> 0:49:51.120 two and a half thousand years ago. I wonder how 0:49:51.200 --> 0:49:55.439 much we know about the mind that we didn't know then? 0:49:59.280 --> 0:50:01.120 That is a good question, I mean, in some ways, 0:50:02.600 --> 0:50:06.680 in some ways, uh, I think the I think that 0:50:06.760 --> 0:50:10.480 the investigation of the mind was profound then. I mean, 0:50:10.640 --> 0:50:13.399 Socrates is an example. You could go back. We don't 0:50:13.440 --> 0:50:16.360 always have evidence, but we can we have a sense 0:50:16.560 --> 0:50:19.720 of the types of explorations that were and in some ways, 0:50:19.760 --> 0:50:26.640 perhaps with cultural rituals that actually, you know, maybe I don't. 0:50:26.680 --> 0:50:28.880 I'm not an expert on this, but I could speculate 0:50:28.920 --> 0:50:32.120 that there's a kind of wisdom that was possible that 0:50:32.239 --> 0:50:37.960 actually gets becomes more difficult to achieve in modern societies 0:50:37.960 --> 0:50:40.319 where we don't have coming of age rituals, we have 0:50:40.600 --> 0:50:43.879 the ritual aspect of life is cut out. And that's 0:50:43.920 --> 0:50:48.520 another that's another motivating reason I had for becoming an anthropologist. 0:50:48.520 --> 0:50:51.000 I was curious, you know, what was what would it 0:50:51.000 --> 0:50:53.759 be like? Is it possible to think of a life 0:50:53.760 --> 0:50:57.600 that was I was structured by meaningful transitions instead of 0:50:57.640 --> 0:51:01.160 these kind of chaotic world that I seem too that 0:51:01.520 --> 0:51:03.480 you know, that I was faced by. But on the 0:51:03.520 --> 0:51:06.200 other hand, we do have certain advances and I guess 0:51:07.000 --> 0:51:12.760 understandings of certainly brand chemistry is more advanced. And also 0:51:12.840 --> 0:51:15.240 there's this yeah, go ahead, sorry. 0:51:15.040 --> 0:51:17.640 I was just going to say, when you like you personally, 0:51:17.680 --> 0:51:21.000 you look at a person or something that's going on, 0:51:21.800 --> 0:51:25.799 and obviously you're a renowned research or an academic, and 0:51:26.640 --> 0:51:30.239 you know, with a very with respect high IQ and 0:51:30.280 --> 0:51:31.759 all of that. But at the same time, you're a 0:51:31.840 --> 0:51:34.960 person who's done good stuff and bad stuff and made 0:51:35.000 --> 0:51:37.560 mistakes and got things right and got things wrong. And 0:51:38.680 --> 0:51:42.120 which is the lens that you analyze? Is A is 0:51:42.160 --> 0:51:45.320 it A is it a hybrid? Like when you're looking 0:51:45.360 --> 0:51:50.360 at stuff, do you ever rely on gut intuition? Just 0:51:50.640 --> 0:51:53.399 like I don't know, you know that that not politically 0:51:53.520 --> 0:51:58.400 scientific kind of lens because I do. But maybe. 0:51:59.640 --> 0:52:03.880 No, no, I completely. I actually think I'd be paralyzed 0:52:03.920 --> 0:52:06.839 if I didn't. And I've always done that ever since 0:52:06.880 --> 0:52:12.880 I was in college. I would use my intuition, or 0:52:13.440 --> 0:52:15.840 I will even just when I wanted to write a paper, 0:52:15.840 --> 0:52:18.919 I would just go to sleep. Half I'd go. I'd 0:52:18.960 --> 0:52:21.800 read as much as I could go half to sleep, 0:52:21.840 --> 0:52:24.080 put a notepad by my paper, and you go into 0:52:24.080 --> 0:52:27.239 a state called the hypnagogic state, something like that. And 0:52:27.440 --> 0:52:29.400 I'd always have an idea that would come to me 0:52:29.440 --> 0:52:32.360 when I was half sleeping that I couldn't even remember, 0:52:32.400 --> 0:52:34.839 and then when I woke up, there'd be written down, 0:52:34.960 --> 0:52:38.520 like some word or some little phrase, and then I 0:52:38.520 --> 0:52:42.080 would use that. And like even now I have to say, 0:52:42.080 --> 0:52:45.080 because it's so intimidating to think that you have to 0:52:45.120 --> 0:52:49.840 read every single thing, contemplate everything, and sort of be 0:52:50.000 --> 0:52:53.799 complete in your knowledge, I mean at every level. So 0:52:53.880 --> 0:52:57.080 I always think of it almost like like I think 0:52:57.120 --> 0:52:59.520 it's the areas where I'm weak or I feel a 0:52:59.600 --> 0:53:02.360 kind of stupid, or I just don't get things that 0:53:02.480 --> 0:53:06.000 are actually a strength, because that makes me want to 0:53:06.120 --> 0:53:09.520 investigate it. Like this doesn't totally make sense to me. 0:53:09.560 --> 0:53:13.080 It's almost like you have to have confidence in your gaps, 0:53:13.400 --> 0:53:15.800 in the things that you that you're just not getting, 0:53:15.920 --> 0:53:18.880 and that maybe that's worth investigating. 0:53:19.880 --> 0:53:22.719 And I know we've got to go. But it's so 0:53:22.800 --> 0:53:27.120 funny because really, when you think about marketing and branding 0:53:27.160 --> 0:53:30.640 and selling stuff, of course this is like all advertising 0:53:30.680 --> 0:53:34.080 and marketing is designed to manipulate people's thoughts or feelings 0:53:34.120 --> 0:53:36.839 to buy whatever it is that they probably hadn't thought 0:53:36.840 --> 0:53:40.760 about buying. So this is kind of low level mind control. 0:53:40.840 --> 0:53:44.040 I feel maybe I'm wrong, but it's like, you know, 0:53:44.840 --> 0:53:47.120 I talk to people about like a serial pack on 0:53:47.160 --> 0:53:51.040 the front of the cereal boxes, it's not information, it's 0:53:51.080 --> 0:53:53.920 it's a story. And on the back in that tiny 0:53:53.920 --> 0:53:56.920 little box down the bottom right hand corner, in that 0:53:56.960 --> 0:54:00.359 tiny little writing. That's where the information is. And if 0:54:00.360 --> 0:54:03.160 they wanted you to see the actual information about the 0:54:03.160 --> 0:54:05.560 contents of the box, it'd be on the front in 0:54:05.600 --> 0:54:09.840 big writing. And you know, so the front is mind control, 0:54:09.880 --> 0:54:13.360 the front is coercion manipulation. Hey, look there's an Olympian 0:54:13.440 --> 0:54:15.640 on the front of our pack, and it's got all 0:54:15.680 --> 0:54:18.680 these stars and ticks and all this amazing shits and 0:54:18.719 --> 0:54:21.640 it's going to make you five years younger. You should 0:54:21.719 --> 0:54:25.440 get this. I mean, it's kind of, if not control, 0:54:25.520 --> 0:54:29.560 it's definitely mind influence. Right, yeah, totally. 0:54:29.680 --> 0:54:32.480 But I think the more you know, more amazing than 0:54:32.520 --> 0:54:35.440 that is that it works. It still works even if 0:54:35.480 --> 0:54:38.360 you can identify it you still it still works on me, 0:54:38.760 --> 0:54:41.359 like I want to look like an Olympian or on 0:54:41.400 --> 0:54:44.319 some level I am buying into it. There's actually such 0:54:44.360 --> 0:54:48.160 an interesting history too on the where the emotional cell 0:54:48.280 --> 0:54:51.200 comes from, you know, selling through emotion as well as 0:54:51.239 --> 0:54:56.839 through information, and they're quite combined. But yeah, we do. 0:54:58.000 --> 0:55:00.960 We are subject to conditioning. It's sort of a human 0:55:01.680 --> 0:55:04.040 a deeply human quality. And the thing I like about 0:55:04.320 --> 0:55:07.120 the writer chess Off Milosh is he he just really 0:55:07.280 --> 0:55:10.320 and some great writers I think what makes them. Great 0:55:10.400 --> 0:55:14.399 is that they understand how deeply we are shaped by 0:55:14.440 --> 0:55:17.000 these things, even if we recognize it while it's happening. 0:55:18.200 --> 0:55:21.680 Yeah, well yeah, so oh, I talked to you for 0:55:21.680 --> 0:55:26.359 a long time. All right. The Instability of Truth, brainwashing, 0:55:26.400 --> 0:55:31.319 mind control and hyper persuasion is out now. Is it 0:55:31.400 --> 0:55:37.280 available on audio? Rebecca, Yes, there's a really nice audio recording. 0:55:38.239 --> 0:55:40.960 And I think her name's Patty Nolan, but she does 0:55:41.120 --> 0:55:44.319 she's like a voice artist. She's Okay, I'm going to 0:55:44.320 --> 0:55:45.960 get the book today. I'm going to listen to the 0:55:46.000 --> 0:55:48.000 book today, and then I'm going to send you another 0:55:48.080 --> 0:55:50.920 request in a few months and you'll go, no, I'm 0:55:50.960 --> 0:55:54.200 not going on that Australian show again. That was painful, 0:55:54.280 --> 0:55:55.960 but I don't care. I'm going to badger you. 0:55:57.520 --> 0:55:58.839 It's been so fun to talk to you. 0:55:59.200 --> 0:56:02.080 Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Tip Are 0:56:02.080 --> 0:56:02.719 you interested? 0:56:03.080 --> 0:56:05.279 Yeah, yes, come back. 0:56:05.320 --> 0:56:10.680 I think'll be back. Yeah, we'll say goodbye affair. But Rebecca, 0:56:10.719 --> 0:56:13.000 we really appreciate you. What time is it where you are. 0:56:14.000 --> 0:56:18.719 It's about six in the evening or I guess wait eighteen. 0:56:19.040 --> 0:56:22.040 I don't know what system aster in Australia uses. It's 0:56:22.080 --> 0:56:22.640 in the evening. 0:56:23.200 --> 0:56:27.920 Yeah, eighteen hundred six o'clock, six pm. We'll say goodbye affair, 0:56:28.200 --> 0:56:30.279 but for the moment. Rebecca, thanks so much for being 0:56:30.280 --> 0:56:31.160 on the You project. 0:56:31.800 --> 0:56:33.799 Thanks for having me. It was wonderful to talk to you.