WEBVTT - The Cognitive Dissonance of Exorcisms 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:13.960 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:16.600 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie. 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:18.800 You know, the other day I was feeling, uh, feeling 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:22.120 kind of like a bundle of nerves, and so after 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:25.599 work I decided to to go to the local y 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:29.320 c A and had an exorcism done. I've heard about 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:31.840 this class. Yeah, yeah, you just go in as a priest. 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:34.839 They just retry it in, pull the demon out of you. 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:38.680 That's cos you know, you're angst and then wham, the 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:41.920 rest of the evening you're just you know, carefree, laid back. 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:45.880 Doesn't it end in laughter yoga? Well, laughter yoga's next door, 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:47.919 but it's why so you can hear it. And it's 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:50.240 kind of hard sometimes to figure out which classes which, 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:52.839 Yeah is it exorcism, is it the laughter yoga? Is 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:54.920 it the children's karate class? I don't know. It all 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:57.400 kind of mills together. Yeah, yeah, well that's the wife 0:00:57.440 --> 0:01:00.680 for you. Yeah, but I jove exorcism. A lot of 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:02.959 people arguing it's not quite to the point yet where 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:04.600 you can go and take it at the y But 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:07.880 there are a lot of folks getting the devil yanked 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:10.920 out of him by various holy people. It's true. In 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:13.600 a two thousand and five gallop pole, they found that 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:17.160 of Americans believe that quote people on this earth are 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:22.160 sometimes possessed by the devil unquote. And they didn't necessarily 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:25.679 go and put this in their um straight up findings 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:28.319 as they normally do, because they couldn't quite construe what 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:31.000 that meant. The gallop pole was like, m do they 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:34.800 mean metaphorically possessed by the devil? Do they truly think this? 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:38.479 And yet there that figure stands. Yeah, I mean because 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:41.240 you can say, like, well, hey, that that guitarist, he 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:43.240 is a man possessed up there in the stage, But 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:46.480 it doesn't mean you actually think that the Lord of 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:51.440 Hell has inhabited his body to enable more creative guitar playing. 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:57.160 You know. Yes, Um, that's my own personal thing when 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:01.200 I'm when I'm exercising myself out to be as a bulb. 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:05.360 How do you exercise yourself? Do you like you have 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:09.360 like a prerecorded video mirror mirror? But then you can't 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:15.639 exercise yourself if you're possessed, Right, that's the devil exercising itself. Oh, 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:17.720 I don't know, Robert. It seems to me like there 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:21.240 are all sorts of rules here with this whole exorcism thing, 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:24.080 which we'll talk about in a little bit. But um, 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:27.359 but I think that's piqued our interests because it actually 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:30.200 has been on the rise exorcisms. Yeah, and you know, 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:34.680 we're at heart of science podcasts, so obviously we're not 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:36.720 going to be We're not asking the question are these 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:41.200 people really being possessed by demonic creatures from other planes 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:44.720 of existence? I'm just gonna go ahead and say, no, 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:47.520 that's not actually happening. But but that doesn't mean that 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:52.400 what's happening isn't real in in some senses, and isn't 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:55.119 really fascinating you to try and figure out, Yeah, why 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:58.040 someone would think they were possessed or another person would 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:00.359 tag that person is being in the same that we've 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:04.240 we've talked about alien abduction encounters, and you know, we're 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:07.000 pretty sure on the fact that and we definitely approached 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:09.240 the topic from the standpoint of no, they're not being 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:13.800 abducted by extraterrestrials and probed upon. But but what is 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:17.720 going on is interesting in terms of of their of 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:20.400 what's going on in their brain, how they're interpreting it, 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:23.640 how they're weaving it into their worldview. And there's some 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:25.919 similar stuff to discuss with exorcism. Yeah, and so we'll 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:27.799 be talking about that, We'll be talking about why it's 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:30.639 on the rise, We'll talk about what Mother Teresa has 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:33.040 to do with it, and why they can actually be really, 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:37.720 really dangerous. Yeah, and there's a as far as exorcism 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:42.600 goes again, ancient rights of exorcism exist in various cultures 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:46.000 throughout the world. It basically comes down to ideas that 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:51.560 there is an evil foreign force, spirit, a demon um 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:54.840 they're you know, various versions of this have inhabited somebody's 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:58.800 body and it needs to be removed, either sucked out 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:03.240 or banished um dependent by somebody who is holy. Now, 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:06.119 most people are pretty familiar with the with of course, 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:08.480 the movie The Exorcist or some of these more recent 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:11.120 exorcism movies that have made the rounds, and that's a 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:15.080 very you know, iconic vision of the the Catholic priest, 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:19.280 you know, climbing up the stairs, going in and encountering 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:23.040 a possessed child and uh and having all these uh 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:27.760 vomit and urine, which I call motherhood on a day 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:30.080 to day basis. That's right, that's just what I call it. 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:32.680 As male priests are freaking out, you guys are just 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:37.480 like Tuesday, right exactly. But yeah, I mean that is 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:39.479 the thing that I think most people refer to, and 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:43.560 it is a terrifying movie. Yeah, but not to get 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:46.000 on a whole discussion of horror movies thing, but I 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:48.560 actually think the most disturbing things in that movie are 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:52.120 not the oh my goodness, look what that child is 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:54.360 saying or doing. And I think there's some early like 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:57.120 the early moments where like the child is referring to 0:04:57.160 --> 0:05:00.560 an imaginary friend or is making this little um I 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:02.560 forget if it's like a little clay statue and it 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:07.640 resembles the vaguely resembles this uh this ancient demon statue 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:10.159 reference earlier in the film. Like, I think it's a 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:12.279 great film, but I think the moments that work best 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.839 or not those iconic crazy moments. No, no, well, and 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:17.280 it is a good build up in the way it's 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:19.479 filmed is really interesting. But yeah, yeah, but this is 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:22.440 not a discussion Exorcist. Sorry, no, no, I mean, but 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:25.080 we have to talk about it. It's huge in in 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:28.320 our parlance when we talk about these types of things. 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:30.360 But then there are there are various other cultures. UM 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:35.839 will take uh to take Judaism for instance. UM in 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:38.000 two thousand nine, just to just to give you just 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:41.039 a taste of another world of exercism. Uh. In two 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:44.680 thousand nine, uh Uh, famed Israeli master of the Kabbala, 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:53.280 Rabbi uh Dovid Batsori, attempted to remove a debuck. Uh. 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:56.120 It's like d y b b uk, which is which 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:58.760 is another you know idea like I say, demons and 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:03.039 evil spirit, cetera. He attempted to remove it from a 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:08.440 Brazilian man via the internet, like via via Skype, which 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:11.080 I which I really love because because we were talking 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:13.240 about this yesterday when we were prepping for this, and 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:15.400 and I was like, well, you know, people do um 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:18.880 like hypnotherapy through Skype, So I wonder if people can 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:21.240 do UM or at least you know, an attempt to 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:26.000 do exorcism through Skype. It seems possible. And sure enough, yeah, yeah, 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:30.360 and then you have this. That's the story that also 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:36.320 mentioned the two fishmongers in a really orthodox orthodox suburb 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:38.800 suburb of New York. They found a carp that was 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:40.640 talking about the end of the world and it was 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:43.599 singing yeah. And then what was There's some quote that 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:46.000 said two men do not share the same dream, and 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:49.640 so they both claim to have heard the carp speaking 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:53.320 in another language saying the end is near. So that's 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:56.039 what caused the fur because everybody's like, well, if two 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:59.320 people witnessed this, then it must be true. Yeah one 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:03.920 man singing are talking, that's just too yeah. Um. But 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:05.839 but then you have various other cultures that are that 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:09.679 are far removed from this. For instance, then in Bedouin tribes, 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:12.280 there's this tradition of like that they're really big into 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:15.080 the whole idea of the evil eye, like like somebody 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:17.240 gives you that weird stare like a stranger. You know, 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:21.000 we just caused No, no, well that's more like, yeah, 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:23.880 because you have an evil stare. Um. But but that 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:26.480 wasn't But but no, you get this evil stare, the 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:28.640 evil eye, and suddenly it's like you know, and for 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:30.280 us it just might kind of mess up your morning, 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:32.160 like whoa, why was the dude on marta stare at 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:35.440 me like that? But but in in some in bed 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:38.520 Win tradition that means like you kind of got this curse, 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:40.160 You've got this evil eye, and and you've gotta have 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:43.160 it removed. And then a female healer would actually take 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:45.520 it out of you and bring it into her. But 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:48.360 she's got enough like holy protections going on and she 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:51.920 can handle it. Yeah, she's probably got some other rituals. Yeah, 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:54.920 so you mean they're very all these different purging rituals. Um. 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:58.440 You know, they're involving everything from like salt water too, uh, 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:00.800 into rolling people up and runs and kind of beating 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:03.160 them with sticks kind of a thing. Um, just about 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:06.280 any way you could possibly imagine trying to coax a 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:09.120 demon out of somebody it's been trying. The latter one 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:13.040 is the one that I said sounded like boor at. Yeah, 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:14.600 but you do. You find it in all different cultures 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:18.560 of religions um, Islam, Hinduism, but we mostly think of 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:23.160 it in the Roman Catholic Church. And they define um 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:26.120 a sort of possession to look like something like this, 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:28.840 where you're speaking in a language that the person has 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:32.720 never learned. Uh. There's an extraordinary show of strength, a 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:35.400 sudden aversion to spiritual things like holy water or the 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:39.640 name of God and severe sleeplessness, lack of appetite, and cutting, 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:43.760 scratching and biting the skin. Okay, so those are sort 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:46.520 of the hallmarks that that Roman Catholicism looks for in 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:50.200 terms of possession. Um. And of course, with Worth's worth 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:54.880 noting that none of those things are are super natural. 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:58.200 You know, it's like anybody, anybody could could could have 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:01.040 those symptoms if they just really wanted to do one 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:03.439 more of their suffering. Well. And then also then we'll 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:06.200 talk about this a little bit later, there's also the interpretation, right, 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:09.600 so you how are you looking at the situation? What 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:12.599 are you interpreting it as if someone is speaking in gobbledygook? 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:16.680 Is that suddenly a language? Um? So there's that uh. 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:19.880 And then there's the question of what does an exorcism 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:22.680 look like according to the Roman Catholic Church, and for them, 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:26.240 it's a twenty four page ritual based on prayers in 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:29.439 which the priest invokes the name of Jesus, uses holy water, 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:32.160 the cross, and can alter the prayer depending on the 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:35.920 reaction that he gets from a possessed person. So it's 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:38.680 kind of it's a manual of sorts, but it's also 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:40.840 one of those things like Okay, hey, if they're not 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:44.880 doing this, go to kin to three A and try 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:51.280 this one. Y, Yeah, skip this and go forward. Um. So, 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:53.760 in a person who claims to be possessed must be 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:56.960 evaluated by doctors to rule out a mental or physical illness, 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:02.040 according to Vatican guidelines issued in and Pope Benedict sixteen 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:05.040 has supported wider use of exorcism in the Catholic Church 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:08.040 as of late, like I believe the last five years 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:13.040 or so, and this sort of wholesale return of Roman Catholicism, 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:17.880 Catholicism back to its roots, so to speak. Okay, so 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:20.000 there you go. That's that's what we're going to focus 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:23.880 on today, is this sort of Roman Catholicism. Um. But 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:28.480 also why people are submitting themselves to this practice. Yeah, 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:31.320 that's the thing, um, I mean, really, the more you 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:33.560 look at it, you look at this, this ritual, this 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:38.200 encounter between the person who either believes they have a 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:40.160 demon in them or is told they have a demon 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:42.720 in them, and in doing so, I think in many 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:45.120 cases come to believe they have a demon in and 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:47.960 the person sent to cleanse them off it the and 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:50.480 generally we're talking about an authority figure of some kind 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:53.040 at least in a spiritual sense. Yeah, and this is 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:55.120 sort of a social role playing, right. You know, we 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:57.679 talked about this a little bit, and you have a 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:02.439 very interesting take on this, which is particularly in earlier years, 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:05.959 although it still happens now. If you are ashamed of 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:09.160 something about yourself, right, and you can't quite square with 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:12.680 the reality that you're living in, UM, then you might 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:15.120 look at this part of yourself as part of your 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:19.439 personality and think that it is part of this demonic 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:22.200 possession because it's an easy way to sort of just 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:25.079 sweep it away without having to actually deal with this 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:28.120 part of your personality. Right. And this is what behavioral 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:33.079 psychologists refer to as cognitive dissidents, which is termed originating 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:36.000 the n and it's basically refers to the feeling of 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:40.960 discomfort the results from holding to conflicting beliefs UM. And 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:46.600 I think like the the most easily UM discussed example 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:50.680 of this is in in some societies, you'll have somebody 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:54.559 who has homosexual desires, but they live in a culture 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:58.600 or a subculture that that tells them that this is 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:02.079 not something that you that this is something you choose. 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.160 You cannot naturally feel this way, so you're in a 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:08.200 situation where you feel something, and you feel something real 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:11.160 inside you, but the world around you is telling you 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:13.760 that it cannot be. It cannot be a natural part 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:15.960 of you. Know, So it's not a natural part of you. 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:19.040 You need some sort of story to explain. It's some 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:21.760 sort of some sort of way to to deal with 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:24.400 that cognitive dissonance. Yeah, And typically your brain is going 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:26.800 to deal with it in one of three ways. One, 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:29.360 you may try to change one or more of your 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:33.240 behaviors or beliefs, um. Two, you may try to acquire 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:37.439 new information or beliefs to increase the consonants, which will 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:40.839 lessen the overall dissonance. Right. So whatever part of the 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:45.000 part that's making you uncomfortable, it could perhaps lessen that. Again, 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:47.480 this is a good example of well that the double 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.920 made me do it, right Yeah. Um. Three, you could 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:54.160 forget or downplay the importance of the cognition that's butting 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:58.480 up against the contradictory cognition. So when we're talking about 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:03.680 this exercist and really sort of falls into that second category. So, okay, 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:06.679 if it's not if I can't explain this this sexual 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:09.680 preference that I have, which is really butting up against 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:14.480 this um religion that I subscribed to. Then it must 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:19.440 be this outside force acting on which is sort of interesting. Yeah, 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:20.800 and I guess it's the kind of thing kind of 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:23.040 takes uh. I mean just yeah, the the idea of 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:25.520 the devil, Uh, it kind of goes goes back to 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:27.520 that whole idea that like the devil getting made me 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:30.360 do it. You know, So suddenly there's something that's not 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:32.760 really cool with you, Like maybe it's you know, it 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:35.400 could be anything. It could be uh, you know, your 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:37.520 your preference to to go out and have a drink 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:39.880 every now and then, or or you know the fact 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:41.920 that you're kind of a jerk sometimes you know, you 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:44.440 can just explain it away and blame it on some 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:47.800 external force that's not you, and you're like, well, hey, 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:49.640 you know I And then you know, it takes the 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:51.640 heat off of you. It's like I can't really help it. 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:55.280 The devil actually made me do that, so right, and 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:57.960 then you've got the whole social role playing right and um, 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:00.800 as you've already noted that the extra this was completely 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:03.680 iconic movie, you already have sort of a game plan 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:06.680 here for how you're going to be possessed UM and 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:10.520 through folklore, you know, two movies, there has been some 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:14.280 sort of UM guidelines so to speak to how you're 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:17.600 supposed to act. Right. It's kind of like the first 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:19.440 time you're pulled over by a police officer. You know 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:21.880 how it's gonna go because you've seen it happen and 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:25.640 on TV shows and movies, magistration and license right exactly, 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:30.160 UM or UM job interviews like that's another like classic, 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:31.920 like you go in, you meet somebody and you go 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:34.600 through these various exchanges. It's kind of like an exorcism, right. 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:37.720 And then it's that you know, you encountering this figure, 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:40.520 certain business is going to take place, and everyone pretty 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:42.880 much knows how it goes. You're both playing a role, right. 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:45.440 And so then you've got this social contract that you've 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:48.480 entered into, right because you're trying to lessen the dissonance, 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:50.800 and you say, okay, this must be this outside force. 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:53.360 All right, now, I'm going to enter into this sort 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:56.800 of confirmation bias world. And when I say confirmation bias, 0:14:56.840 --> 0:14:59.800 it basically means that you're gonna start to see patterns 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.320 where there may not be any patterns. Um. This is 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:09.040 from physicist Leonard Meledina's drunkards. Walk books quite interesting when 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:11.800 he talks about confirmation bias. He says, when we are 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:13.800 in the grasp of an illusion, or for that matter, 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:16.000 whenever we have a new idea, instead of searching for 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:19.720 ways to prove our ideas wrong, we usually attempt to 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:23.240 prove them correct. Psychologists call this the confirmation bias, and 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:25.800 it presents a major impediment to our ability to break 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:31.360 free from the mist misinterpretation of randomness. So I bring 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:36.080 this up just because if if someone again has this 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:39.400 part of their their self that they might be ashamed of, 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:42.800 or they have a mental illness, or um, they just 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:45.400 might have something going on with themselves that they can't 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:48.200 quite understand or pin down, then they could start to say, well, 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:51.880 I have this feeling in myself and uh, you know, 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:55.760 and I'm acting out in rage at times, and there 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:59.440 are irregularities in my personality. This is starting to fit 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:03.520 into possession, right. So it's very easy for the person 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:05.440 to go down that road, and it's very easy for 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:08.320 the person who is acting on that person as an 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:12.760 exorcist to start to cobble together those details too. And 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:15.240 this is I think really important too. And understanding the 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:19.120 past and how exorcisms came to be because think about 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:23.320 prior to UM, to neuroscience, to gosh, even like the 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:28.160 nineteen seventies, if someone had a toddler, if they had 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:31.320 night terrors, a parent could say, oh my god, my 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:34.800 kid must be possessed because my kid is acting like 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:39.400 she doesn't know me. She's spitting, she's biting, she's vomiting. 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:41.600 You know, I don't know that vomiting actually happens with 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:45.800 night terrors, but she's really upset, and people could easily 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:51.000 misinterpret that for her being possessed. UM and she's seventeen 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:55.000 fifty nine night terror. Yeah. So we're going to continue 0:16:55.000 --> 0:17:00.160 to discuss extitism, but first let's take this quick break. 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:06.160 This presentation is brought to you by Intel Sponsors of Tomorrow, 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:13.360 and we're back. It's it's worth it's worth stressing again though, 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:16.280 the power of the role playing aspect of all of this, 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:20.280 because I mean that encounter like it's such a I mean, 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.320 it's it's such an ego stroke. You know that at 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:27.560 a devil or the devil has inhabited me and it's 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:30.879 responsible for my problems. And now I'm gonna go to 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:32.919 somebody important and they're going to remove it from me, 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:37.080 and I'm gonna start fresh, um, and we're all going 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:40.960 to congratulate. Congratulate because the person who's doing it to 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:43.200 you has all the power, and then saying, oh, look 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:46.800 what I did, and you're saying, oh, thank you for vanquishing. Yeah. 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:50.879 I actually I wasn't present for an exorcism, but I 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:53.879 did like walk in on an exorcism once sort of 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:55.639 like an acknowledge it. And then I was like okay, 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:57.719 and then I walked in back into the next room. 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:00.359 I should probably back up and explain you should we 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:03.479 need Yeah. Uh So when I was in high school, 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:05.760 I had a brief period of light where I was 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:09.199 like really really into um into the church I was 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:11.919 going to at the time, which was a small Southern 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:15.679 Baptist church in in Tennessee. And uh well, I mean 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:17.720 it was a fair sized church for a small town, 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:19.639 but anyway, Southern Baptist church, and they would have this 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:24.160 thing for the youth on on weekend evenings, like maybe 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:25.880 it was like every Friday for a while or something. 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:27.239 But they would have a coffee shop, you know, kind 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:29.800 of like the old nineteen fifties Christian coffee shop. You know, 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:34.160 they have live acoustic music and kids would have cappuccinos 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:35.960 and stuff, and you know, and that's all well and good. 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:39.000 You know, I would you know, I might go to 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:43.399 something like that today. But but also we were like 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:46.840 a lot of teenagers that were really into this, uh, 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:49.560 this spirituality at the time and into what it into 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:52.720 what it might mean and uh. And you know, teenagers 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:55.520 think they're pretty important and they see the world they 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:58.119 want to fight the man or or stand up and 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:00.760 make a difference in the world. And so what better 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:04.600 way than like dealing with the devil head on, which 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:08.960 also plays into the whole angst, right, Yeah, the teenager's experience. 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:12.120 Not to mention naval gazinglin why am I here? Yeah exactly? 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:14.119 It like it, it plays into into all of that. 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:17.359 So so I remember like exploring something like I remember 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:19.600 going to a church we uh with a friend of mine. 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:22.480 We went down to check out this church and in Huntsville, Alabama, 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:24.840 and it was one of these where they would touch 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:29.400 people and they would fall down, not healed, but laughing hysterically. 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:32.880 Like everyone who was touched would fall down to laughing hysterically, 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:38.120 and and it was really something to behold because it 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:40.760 was you know, it was like this was the environment 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:43.240 everyone was acting, and this was the social contract of 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:46.040 this scenario where this man would would touch you and 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:49.720 heal you and like in a hysterical sense, and you 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:51.800 would you would fall down and then they'd come and 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:53.679 cover you with a blanket. And so if if that 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:56.479 is possible, then where you can where you can enter 0:19:56.480 --> 0:20:00.119 a social contract where a man's touch will bring ing 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:04.080 out this you know, this total positive response in you, 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:07.280 then it makes perfect sense that that the that that 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:09.720 that you would have an exit, that the exorcism role 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:12.360 playing scenario would work as well. But but anyway, so 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:15.760 one night I was at the coffee shop and and 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:19.840 my my friend there came up and he said, he said, hey, uh, 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:22.320 you should come check out in the back room. We 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:24.359 have we have this this guy and he has the 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:28.200 devil in him. We're going to exercise him. And uh. 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:30.080 And I was like, all right, you know, I'll check I'll, 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:32.720 you know, i'll I'm interested in saying this. So I 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:34.879 walked back there and sure enough, there's this guy, this 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:36.399 other kid, you know, I don't know, he's like, you know, 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:39.439 thirteen fourteen something like that, and uh, and he's just 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:42.199 setting there kind of look looking kind of dejected, you know, 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:44.600 like he's got some some heavy stuff on his mind. 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:47.320 You know, he's not you know, strapped to a bed. 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.520 He's not cursing and spitting or anything crazy. You know, 0:20:50.560 --> 0:20:53.400 he just looks like he's got some stuff he's dealing with. 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:56.440 And uh. And so I was kind of like, okay, cool, 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:59.680 I'll leave this to you guys. Um he took off. 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:02.240 You're like, I'm not saying around for the Well, yeah, 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:03.840 I don't know. I guess I felt like I probably 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:07.080 didn't have much to offer. My exorcism skills weren't very 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:09.760 good then and they haven't improved over the years. So um, 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:11.240 so I was not going to be much help. So 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:13.119 I just left them to carry it out. But it was, 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:14.720 you know, it was kind of like I can easily 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:18.280 imagine like a dude feeling like a teenager, feeling kind 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:21.320 of depressed, like a lot of teenagers do. And uh. 0:21:21.320 --> 0:21:24.240 And you're in an environment where like, hey, this might 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:26.639 be the problem and we can fix it, you know, 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:29.600