WEBVTT - Repeat After Me 0:00:15.396 --> 0:00:25.076 Pushkin. Okay, I think we are recording. Yeah, are you 0:00:25.116 --> 0:00:32.236 controlling the recorder with your butt? Correct? Last summer coronavirus summer, 0:00:32.636 --> 0:00:36.476 the last Archives. Dauntless producer Ben Natt of Haffrey came 0:00:36.516 --> 0:00:42.076 to visit me in Vermont picture woods fields, goats, dogs, 0:00:42.436 --> 0:00:45.676 a barn cat. The state was pretty much locked down, 0:00:46.356 --> 0:00:48.436 and I couldn't let him in the house. So we 0:00:48.516 --> 0:00:52.156 sat as vermontra say, a cow's length apart, on the 0:00:52.236 --> 0:00:55.236 porch of a cabin in the woods. Benn had driven 0:00:55.276 --> 0:00:57.676 up in a pickup truck loaded with all of his 0:00:57.756 --> 0:01:02.076 fancy recording equipment, but in the cabin where there's no electricity, 0:01:02.356 --> 0:01:07.316 the conditions for recording were a little primitive. That's like 0:01:08.036 --> 0:01:14.076 we just need cornea. This is like fully regressed last 0:01:14.156 --> 0:01:19.996 Archive recordings. This is the last archive, nineteenth century edition. Okay. 0:01:19.996 --> 0:01:22.196 So the conditions were grim the way, so much of 0:01:22.196 --> 0:01:25.196 the conditions in the pandemic were grim. But Ben had 0:01:25.196 --> 0:01:29.876 come a long way to tell me a story. It's 0:01:29.876 --> 0:01:34.676 the trappings of a ghost story basically. Also, we see 0:01:34.716 --> 0:01:37.276 we have a chicken in the yard. Don't let the 0:01:37.356 --> 0:01:41.116 chicken in. Wh'll never get the chicken. Yeah, there's a strong, 0:01:41.196 --> 0:01:46.036 no chickens in the Last Archive roll. This episode, Ben's 0:01:46.036 --> 0:01:48.116 going to tell you that story, the story he told 0:01:48.156 --> 0:01:50.956 me on the porch of that cabin in Vermont, a 0:01:51.076 --> 0:01:54.796 ghost story, a story I'd never heard before, but which 0:01:54.916 --> 0:01:58.956 honestly is like the most last archive thing ever. Should 0:01:58.956 --> 0:02:01.876 I do the thing here? Yeah, you tell the people. 0:02:03.196 --> 0:02:07.116 Imagine a place, a cabin in the backwoods of the mind, 0:02:07.476 --> 0:02:13.116 lined with cupboards, stocked with proof, cluttered with weird stuff, magnets, 0:02:13.836 --> 0:02:22.156 a deck of cards with strange symbols, old radios, WI 0:02:22.316 --> 0:02:25.636 on the door, weirdly, even on the door of that cabin. 0:02:25.916 --> 0:02:30.516 Who reads the Last Archive? I'm Jill Lapoor and I'm 0:02:30.556 --> 0:02:33.996 Ben Matafaffrey. This podcast has been going through the last 0:02:34.036 --> 0:02:38.316 century of American history, decade by decade. This season is 0:02:38.356 --> 0:02:41.676 all about doubt, and with this story of Ben's, we've 0:02:41.676 --> 0:02:45.476 reached the nineteen fifties. I think of the nineteen fifties 0:02:45.516 --> 0:02:48.716 as an age of conformity and also of persecution for 0:02:48.796 --> 0:02:52.236 the nonconforming. So you've got your suburbs and your Barbie 0:02:52.236 --> 0:02:54.796 dolls and your hula hoops and your heyday of liberalism. 0:02:55.076 --> 0:02:57.396 But you've also got your red lining and your housing 0:02:57.436 --> 0:03:00.316 covenants to keep black people out of those suburbs. The 0:03:00.436 --> 0:03:03.076 nineteen fifties was a time when it seemed somehow important 0:03:03.076 --> 0:03:06.116 to pretend that things were one way when they were 0:03:06.116 --> 0:03:10.236 really another way. That's what grabbed me about Ben's we 0:03:10.236 --> 0:03:12.556 think of the nineteen fifties is a time of intellectual 0:03:12.596 --> 0:03:17.676 consensus and rigidity when actually, well, I don't want to 0:03:17.676 --> 0:03:24.276 give it all away, Okay, Ben, take us there. Step 0:03:24.316 --> 0:03:27.356 through the door to a living room in the town 0:03:27.396 --> 0:03:32.116 of Pueblo, Colorado, ten thirty five pm, November nineteen fifty two. 0:03:32.796 --> 0:03:35.596 There's a man leaning over a woman. She's lying on 0:03:35.636 --> 0:03:41.156 a couch, and he's speaking into a microphone. Now, we're 0:03:41.196 --> 0:03:44.316 going to turn back. We're going to turn back through 0:03:44.356 --> 0:03:48.236 time and space, just like turning back in the pages 0:03:48.236 --> 0:03:51.596 of a book. And when I next talked to you, 0:03:51.596 --> 0:03:54.356 you will be seven years old, and you will be 0:03:54.396 --> 0:04:00.916 able to answer my questions. That's the voice of Maury Bernstein, 0:04:01.156 --> 0:04:04.196 a thirty three year old business man. He works in 0:04:04.236 --> 0:04:08.596 the farm and industrial equipment business. Handsome, straight laced, he's 0:04:08.636 --> 0:04:14.796 got curled black hair. Now, now you're seven years old, 0:04:15.476 --> 0:04:20.916 are there any nice boys that you like? That voice 0:04:20.956 --> 0:04:24.476 belongs to a twenty nine year old housewife named Virginia Tie. 0:04:24.836 --> 0:04:29.076 She seems ordinary enough at first that night in nineteen 0:04:29.116 --> 0:04:31.476 fifty two, she could have stayed home with her husband, 0:04:31.636 --> 0:04:34.036 a local businessman, or they could have gone to a 0:04:34.076 --> 0:04:37.556 bridge game, a cocktail party, or a dance. Maybe she 0:04:37.596 --> 0:04:40.996 should have, but instead she's here on the couch in 0:04:41.116 --> 0:04:45.836 Murray Burnstein's pitch black living room. I want you to 0:04:45.876 --> 0:04:50.196 keep on going back and back and back in your mind, 0:04:51.036 --> 0:04:55.036 and surprising as it may seem, strange as it may seem, 0:04:55.076 --> 0:04:57.756 you will find that there are other scenes in your memory. 0:04:58.356 --> 0:05:01.076 There are other scenes from far away lands and list 0:05:01.116 --> 0:05:06.316 in places in your memory. Bernstein's doing something called hypnotic 0:05:06.316 --> 0:05:09.636 age aggression. After the World Wars, it been used as 0:05:09.636 --> 0:05:12.796 a way of helping soldiers deal with trauma. But the 0:05:12.836 --> 0:05:16.596 woman Burnstein was age aggressing, Virginia Tie, didn't have any 0:05:16.636 --> 0:05:20.036 known trauma, And honestly, that's not what burn scene was. 0:05:20.076 --> 0:05:23.716 After he'd read a book that said that hypnotic age 0:05:23.716 --> 0:05:30.476 aggression could help people remember past lives as in reincarnation. 0:05:32.676 --> 0:05:36.276 Now you're going to tell me what scenes came into 0:05:36.356 --> 0:05:44.516 your mind. What did you see scratch the paint offer 0:05:44.596 --> 0:05:48.436 on my bed. It was a little bid. Don't my 0:05:48.636 --> 0:05:52.676 nails on? Harry post into struandess why did you do that? 0:05:53.956 --> 0:06:00.276 I don't know, it's just mad an awful spank. And 0:06:00.316 --> 0:06:05.956 what is your name? Fridy? Your name is what? Fredy? 0:06:07.156 --> 0:06:13.676 Don't you have any other name? Pride Murphy? Where do 0:06:13.716 --> 0:06:20.676 you live? Ireland? Do you know what year it is? Eighteen? 0:06:20.716 --> 0:06:28.636 Ohs Bernstein had done it. He had discovered Virginia tis 0:06:28.716 --> 0:06:32.636 past self. She was named Bridy Murphy, born in Ireland 0:06:32.716 --> 0:06:36.396 in seventeen ninety eight, died in eighteen sixty four, and 0:06:36.476 --> 0:06:39.676 then resurrected in nineteen fifty two and caught on tape 0:06:39.716 --> 0:06:43.036 like a ghost. That tape is incredible to listen to, 0:06:43.916 --> 0:06:50.196 but not as incredible is what happened next. So I 0:06:50.276 --> 0:06:52.356 kind of just don't even get from the start, like 0:06:53.796 --> 0:06:57.196 nineteen fifties businessmen, yeah, and occult, Like I don't even 0:06:57.196 --> 0:06:59.396 see how those two things good? Yeah, exactly, That's what. 0:06:59.596 --> 0:07:03.156 That's what I was really curious about, because it's this Well, 0:07:03.196 --> 0:07:05.516 I'll get to what happened, but this is who more 0:07:05.556 --> 0:07:09.876 he is. Ever since he was a kid, Maury Bernstein 0:07:09.996 --> 0:07:14.996 had led a charmed life. His family ran a successful 0:07:15.036 --> 0:07:19.116 business selling industrial equipment flipping scrap metal in Pueblo Steeltown. 0:07:19.716 --> 0:07:22.636 Bernstein knew one day he'd take over the family business. 0:07:23.796 --> 0:07:27.036 He was a straight a student, star athlete. People said 0:07:27.076 --> 0:07:29.916 he looked like Frank Sinatra. He was so good at 0:07:29.956 --> 0:07:31.956 Yo Yo's that he got a job at the local 0:07:31.996 --> 0:07:35.196 department store, showing them off on the sales floor. I 0:07:35.236 --> 0:07:38.316 guess he saw more doing something you wanted to do 0:07:38.356 --> 0:07:42.916 it too. Bernstein graduated from Wharton in nineteen forty one, 0:07:42.956 --> 0:07:44.916 and he headed back to Colorado to help run the 0:07:44.916 --> 0:07:48.156 family business. He got married to a woman named Hazel Higgins, 0:07:48.276 --> 0:07:50.476 a made to order wife, a maid to order life 0:07:51.116 --> 0:07:54.436 until one night Bernstein went to a party with a 0:07:54.476 --> 0:07:57.836 man who said he was a hypnotist. The man asked 0:07:57.836 --> 0:08:00.916 if anyone wanted to try it, and, as Bernstein later wrote, 0:08:01.156 --> 0:08:03.756 a tall, attractive blonde girl spoke up and offered to 0:08:03.796 --> 0:08:07.916 be his subject. So the first scientifically relevant detail in 0:08:07.956 --> 0:08:11.756 this investigation the unknown is that the first time Bernstein 0:08:11.796 --> 0:08:15.556 witness the shypnotism, it involves an attractive blonde lady. That 0:08:15.716 --> 0:08:18.636 the women are attractive in some Doris Day way is 0:08:18.676 --> 0:08:23.116 not incidental to this story. Bernstein's journey began that night 0:08:23.796 --> 0:08:30.676 with that blonde woman. The hypnotist put her so deep 0:08:30.716 --> 0:08:33.276 in a trance that her fiance could do anything and 0:08:33.356 --> 0:08:36.796 she wouldn't flinch. He made loud noises, tickled her, put 0:08:36.836 --> 0:08:40.596 mustard on her face. It's pretty creepy, But the sexual 0:08:40.636 --> 0:08:43.516 politics here are not really subtext so much as like 0:08:43.756 --> 0:08:47.796 bold faced headline text. And honestly, you could make a 0:08:47.836 --> 0:08:51.316 diorama of pseudoscience or even just psychology through the ages, 0:08:51.636 --> 0:08:54.596 and it would be this same scene, men experimenting on 0:08:54.636 --> 0:08:58.476 women over and over again. This was what first got 0:08:58.476 --> 0:09:04.636 Bernstein curious about hypnosis, the control it also raised for him, 0:09:04.676 --> 0:09:08.116 he said, a whole train of questions. He later wrote, 0:09:08.716 --> 0:09:11.156 if this thing is true, if this is a fact, 0:09:11.436 --> 0:09:14.316 then why is it not more widely used? His suggestion 0:09:14.436 --> 0:09:17.076 is so powerful in this state, then is this not 0:09:17.196 --> 0:09:20.076 a powerful weapon for good? If the human mind can 0:09:20.116 --> 0:09:24.516 be so directed, so molded, so impressed, then why does 0:09:24.556 --> 0:09:28.436 not every doctor understand the fundamentals of hypnosis? What is 0:09:28.476 --> 0:09:34.116 the reason that science does not show more interest? But 0:09:34.276 --> 0:09:37.116 science had expressed a lot of interest for a very 0:09:37.156 --> 0:09:40.636 long time. So before we get back to Bernstein and 0:09:40.676 --> 0:09:44.756 his discovery of reincarnation, let's take a brief tour through 0:09:44.756 --> 0:09:51.396 the past lives of hypnotism, beginning specifically in Austria in 0:09:51.436 --> 0:09:56.836 the eighteenth century with a man named Franz Mesmer. Mesmer 0:09:56.956 --> 0:09:59.396 was a physician who believed that there was a mystical 0:09:59.596 --> 0:10:03.076 invisible fluid and all living things that was magnetized by 0:10:03.116 --> 0:10:06.316 the planets and the stars. If the fluid got blocked up, 0:10:06.516 --> 0:10:08.676 you got sick. And I mean, this wasn't all that 0:10:08.756 --> 0:10:11.556 different from a lot of other cutting edge science. The 0:10:11.636 --> 0:10:14.116 late eighteenth century was a time when lots of invisible 0:10:14.196 --> 0:10:17.596 laws were getting discovered, the conservation of mass, the existence 0:10:17.596 --> 0:10:21.796 of oxygen, the power of electricity. Ideas like Mesmer's fluid 0:10:21.876 --> 0:10:25.796 had been around for centuries, but he had invented a 0:10:25.836 --> 0:10:29.236 new therapy that could get the fluids flowing again. He'd 0:10:29.236 --> 0:10:32.556 bring people over to his drawing rooms. He'd wear purple 0:10:32.676 --> 0:10:35.796 robes and move his hands or magnetize iron rods over 0:10:35.836 --> 0:10:38.836 their bodies. He'd send them into trances to cure them. 0:10:39.636 --> 0:10:43.596 This is where the term mesmerized comes from, and Mesmerism 0:10:43.796 --> 0:10:46.316 took off all across Europe as a sort of combo 0:10:46.596 --> 0:10:50.516 party trick and miracle cure. It got really popular during 0:10:50.556 --> 0:10:53.036 the very decades that women were first fighting for the 0:10:53.156 --> 0:10:56.276 right to vote, and then it had a very long afterlife. 0:10:58.916 --> 0:11:03.436 You have he kind of like Mesmer to Freud, to 0:11:03.636 --> 0:11:08.156 bf Skinner of just men who were like, it really 0:11:08.236 --> 0:11:11.476 is bugging me that women are gaining some power outside 0:11:11.516 --> 0:11:14.076 the household, in the family. So I wonder if ict 0:11:14.076 --> 0:11:16.756 I'd just put them to sleep, and then everything will 0:11:16.796 --> 0:11:20.236 be about like their sexuality, and I'll just make suggestions 0:11:20.316 --> 0:11:24.236 to them. Over the next century, all sorts of eminent 0:11:24.276 --> 0:11:27.836 doctors started using trans states to treat hysteria in women, 0:11:28.356 --> 0:11:31.636 a made up therapy for a made up condition. Eventually, 0:11:31.716 --> 0:11:35.516 a fluid free version of Mesmerism got somewhat legitimized under 0:11:35.556 --> 0:11:39.516 a new name, hypnotism. Freud used it on his patients. 0:11:39.956 --> 0:11:44.516 Hypnosis is one of the foundations of psychoanalysis. Maury Bernstein 0:11:44.916 --> 0:11:49.236 he was really just another disciple of Franz Mesmer. A 0:11:49.316 --> 0:11:53.196 couple of centuries after Mesmer conducted his first experiments, Bernstein 0:11:53.396 --> 0:11:56.596 started practicing on his wife Hazel and claimed to have 0:11:56.636 --> 0:11:59.556 cured her over headaches. He said he'd help people with 0:11:59.596 --> 0:12:05.276 all sorts of things migraines, insomnia, stuttering, hysterical paralysis, but 0:12:05.356 --> 0:12:09.396 it didn't stop with hypnosis. Before long, he started getting 0:12:09.396 --> 0:12:14.116 into stranger things, things mainstream science hadn't yet proven, like 0:12:14.596 --> 0:12:19.756 extrasensory perception past lives. In a way, he grew frustrated 0:12:19.836 --> 0:12:24.956 with science. Back on the porch in Vermont, Jill and 0:12:25.036 --> 0:12:27.876 I were batting around a different set of mysteries. What 0:12:28.076 --> 0:12:30.116 lies behind the appeal of all this stuff about the 0:12:30.196 --> 0:12:34.276 human mind esp or clairvoyants or auras or who knows 0:12:34.276 --> 0:12:37.276 what else? Do you ever refer to this stuff as 0:12:37.356 --> 0:12:40.716 yah yah? No? So I had a roommate in graduate 0:12:40.796 --> 0:12:43.436 school he was pretty into this stuff because she was 0:12:43.436 --> 0:12:46.716 in her peachd program in history. There were various like 0:12:47.356 --> 0:12:49.236 slightly occulty things. I mean, I had a lot of 0:12:49.316 --> 0:12:51.476 roommates when I was younger who were into like primal 0:12:51.516 --> 0:12:55.396 scream therapy, like just whatnot. Like I had roommate who 0:12:55.396 --> 0:12:57.796 was a wicked or just just like, I'm so not 0:12:57.916 --> 0:13:01.316 that person, but I like those people, like I like 0:13:01.436 --> 0:13:03.516 the challenge that they present, and I also just like 0:13:03.596 --> 0:13:08.396 their individualism. Anyway, this wonderful roommate and her girlfriend always 0:13:08.436 --> 0:13:11.356 called it yah yah and that everyone has at some 0:13:11.476 --> 0:13:13.876 level a yah ya, like just like it's like just 0:13:13.916 --> 0:13:17.316 like a thing that you do that makes no real 0:13:17.396 --> 0:13:21.116 sense and just reveals that there is no order in 0:13:21.116 --> 0:13:23.916 your mind, like that is also no order in the universe. 0:13:23.996 --> 0:13:26.196 Like like just like it's okay because we all have 0:13:26.236 --> 0:13:29.436 a yaya, but some people have too many of them anyway. 0:13:29.676 --> 0:13:33.476 I like that Marie Bernstein was the guy from yo 0:13:33.556 --> 0:13:38.276 yo's to yaya's. Yeah, a lot of yaya. He did 0:13:38.396 --> 0:13:41.516 have a lot of yahya's. Most of them were harmless, 0:13:42.276 --> 0:13:54.956 but not all Thanks to Maury Bernstein, I'm now forever 0:13:54.996 --> 0:13:57.116 going to think of the nineteen fifties as the age 0:13:57.436 --> 0:13:59.996 not of the Barbie Doll or the yo yo, but 0:14:00.116 --> 0:14:03.356 the age of the yaya. Why so much ya ya? 0:14:04.756 --> 0:14:07.236 I think partly because all sorts of World War two 0:14:07.276 --> 0:14:10.476 technology was making its way in the nineteen fifties into 0:14:10.516 --> 0:14:15.836 modern life. Atomic energy, microwaves, mainframe computers, thinks whose workings 0:14:16.036 --> 0:14:19.996 were invisible. They seemed like miracles, and that made it 0:14:19.996 --> 0:14:24.516 seem as if anything was possible. Knowledge depends on observation, 0:14:25.156 --> 0:14:29.116 but all those innovations, with their invisible workings must have 0:14:29.156 --> 0:14:32.716 made people feel a little doubtful. We think of the 0:14:32.796 --> 0:14:35.956 nineteen fifties as a super buttoned up time. But Maury 0:14:35.996 --> 0:14:39.516 Bernstein and his Yahya's kind of shows the lie. Here's 0:14:39.556 --> 0:14:43.316 this put together businessman who learns about hypnosis and then 0:14:43.356 --> 0:14:47.556 basically begins practicing the occult. And he wasn't the only one. 0:14:47.876 --> 0:14:50.316 There were other seekers out there too. Some of them 0:14:50.316 --> 0:14:54.156 were even scientists at serious universities. Back then, it wasn't 0:14:54.276 --> 0:14:58.116 entirely weird to be interested in what Bernstein was interested in. 0:14:58.116 --> 0:15:02.116 In some circles, it was cutting edge. By nineteen fifty two, 0:15:02.356 --> 0:15:05.996 in North Carolina, a psychologist named doctor J. B Ryan 0:15:06.236 --> 0:15:10.116 was making his own investigations into the unknown. Ryan headed 0:15:10.196 --> 0:15:13.836 up the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory, and he'd been doing this 0:15:13.916 --> 0:15:17.076 research for a long time since before the Second World War. 0:15:17.796 --> 0:15:20.756 Bernstein was a big fan. He'd first heard about jb 0:15:20.956 --> 0:15:24.156 Ryan's lab in the nineteen thirties, around when Ryan was 0:15:24.236 --> 0:15:29.596 part of conducting experiments in telepathy using the radio. What 0:15:30.276 --> 0:15:33.436 telepathy dove would have to play a part in personal enters, 0:15:33.476 --> 0:15:38.476 the success controls? These are some of the questions I seen. 0:15:38.516 --> 0:15:42.876 Its foundation seeks to explain. Here's how it worked. Ryan 0:15:42.956 --> 0:15:45.196 had a deck of special cards, each with a different 0:15:45.196 --> 0:15:48.476 symbol on the back. Three wavy lines, a star, a square. 0:15:49.076 --> 0:15:51.636 He'd hold up a card and ask subjects whether they 0:15:51.716 --> 0:15:54.636 knew what symbol was hidden on it. He figured he 0:15:54.636 --> 0:15:58.196 could calculate the probability that someone would randomly guess the shape, 0:15:58.516 --> 0:16:02.436 But if someone guessed correctly more often than probability predicted, 0:16:02.916 --> 0:16:06.476 Ryan thought they must have special powers, and some people 0:16:06.516 --> 0:16:09.596 really seemed like they did. He began to wonder just 0:16:09.636 --> 0:16:12.956 how many he tested his students, kids in his neighborhood. 0:16:13.236 --> 0:16:16.556 But to find out how widespread telepathy truly was, you'd 0:16:16.556 --> 0:16:19.236 have to test a lot of people at once. That's 0:16:19.236 --> 0:16:24.556 where the radio came in. If you wish to test 0:16:24.676 --> 0:16:28.116 or extrasensory perception and telepathy in your own family circles, 0:16:28.756 --> 0:16:32.396 university EESC cards identical with all you in the Amazing 0:16:32.436 --> 0:16:35.636 Test by Doctor J. B. Ryan are now available at 0:16:35.716 --> 0:16:39.476 stores everywhere. The head of the radio company it was 0:16:39.516 --> 0:16:43.716 called Zenith, saw an opportunity. People could use versions of 0:16:43.796 --> 0:16:47.036 Ryan's cards to test themselves at home, and NBC would 0:16:47.076 --> 0:16:50.476 run a version of his test on the air. A 0:16:50.596 --> 0:16:54.196 supposedly telepathic person in the radio studio would look at 0:16:54.196 --> 0:16:56.756 a card and try to communicate to the radio audience 0:16:56.796 --> 0:17:01.956 what was on it, But silently using only telepathy. People 0:17:01.956 --> 0:17:03.916 would write into the show with their answers, and the 0:17:03.956 --> 0:17:07.116 company tallied them up. If you think about it, radio 0:17:07.236 --> 0:17:09.916 already is just a bunch of invisible waves flying through 0:17:09.956 --> 0:17:11.756 the air to tell you things in the first place, 0:17:12.596 --> 0:17:16.436 So why not to let Patheva Radio see if pathodians 0:17:16.436 --> 0:17:20.436 there mine comes through face to you and write down 0:17:20.476 --> 0:17:23.476 your impressions in consecutive order as quickly as you get them. 0:17:24.156 --> 0:17:27.396 Five and dime stores sold out of the esp cards, 0:17:27.436 --> 0:17:31.596 and many many more people, not just scientists, were beginning 0:17:31.636 --> 0:17:34.916 to think for themselves about all the weird possibilities the 0:17:35.036 --> 0:17:40.956 mind might hold. I mean, the other thing that's weird 0:17:40.996 --> 0:17:46.876 about the twentieth century version of this weird possibilities of 0:17:46.876 --> 0:17:52.796 the mind is mass communications allows these practitioners or parapsychologists 0:17:53.116 --> 0:17:55.116 to kind of go to the people with their evidence 0:17:55.556 --> 0:17:58.236 in a way that's different. Yeah, right, And it's a 0:17:58.276 --> 0:18:00.916 thing that scientists haven't dealt with yet. And enough of 0:18:00.916 --> 0:18:03.356 them are kind of cautiously open to the idea that 0:18:03.436 --> 0:18:05.996 maybe there is such a thing as ESPN brain control. 0:18:06.036 --> 0:18:08.236 That they don't write it off. Some of them do, 0:18:08.356 --> 0:18:10.596 but not everyone. Right, Like where you might have like 0:18:10.676 --> 0:18:14.556 the itinerant quack who goes from village to village. In 0:18:14.596 --> 0:18:16.956 the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, it is still kind 0:18:16.996 --> 0:18:19.516 of the royal society that's going to decide whether or 0:18:19.516 --> 0:18:22.516 not that's a legit. But in the twentieth century jb. 0:18:22.676 --> 0:18:24.796 Ryan can have new frontiers of the mind stuff and 0:18:24.836 --> 0:18:27.556 he can go in the radio and somehow the people 0:18:27.676 --> 0:18:31.916 get to decide like whether this stuff is legit. Ryan 0:18:32.036 --> 0:18:34.396 was showing how you make a case for the existence 0:18:34.436 --> 0:18:38.276 of the supernatural to the public, and the public was listening. 0:18:39.916 --> 0:18:43.036 After those radio experiments, Ryan began to get a lot 0:18:43.076 --> 0:18:47.396 of publicity, like this article in Life magazine. By some 0:18:47.716 --> 0:18:52.036 doctor Ryan has been compared to Copernicus, Galileo Newton, Darwin, Freud, 0:18:52.116 --> 0:18:55.276 and other pioneers. By others, he is regarded as a 0:18:55.356 --> 0:18:59.556 misguided crackpot and either a deliberate or an unconscious fraud. 0:19:00.236 --> 0:19:03.676 That article was actually pretty positive about Ryan, but it 0:19:03.756 --> 0:19:06.556 also ran with this gem of an editor's note. Life 0:19:06.596 --> 0:19:09.556 senators did not commit themselves to accept into his point 0:19:09.596 --> 0:19:12.276 of view, nor do they presume to act as jury 0:19:12.276 --> 0:19:14.196 on the matter of whether or not the existence of 0:19:14.716 --> 0:19:20.796 esp is a proven fact. Today, we probably have a 0:19:20.836 --> 0:19:23.116 better sense of where the line falls between kookie and 0:19:23.196 --> 0:19:27.556 legit or do we why is it called like when 0:19:27.596 --> 0:19:30.396 does paris psychology become a thing? Or when is it 0:19:30.436 --> 0:19:34.796 called that? Or when is it like institutional and when 0:19:34.836 --> 0:19:37.596 does it get jettisoned from institutions? Like we do not 0:19:37.676 --> 0:19:40.556 have a department of Paris psychology at Harvard University, but 0:19:40.636 --> 0:19:44.156 Harvard did have William James, the father of American psychology 0:19:44.396 --> 0:19:46.996 at least until his death in nineteen ten, and he 0:19:47.036 --> 0:19:50.676 had some pretty out there beliefs. I think William James 0:19:50.716 --> 0:19:54.316 has a major influence obviously in all of American psychology, 0:19:54.316 --> 0:19:56.636 but especially at the turn of the century. You know, 0:19:56.676 --> 0:19:59.956 when William James dies, he asks Henry James to stay 0:19:59.956 --> 0:20:02.196 in Cambridge for six weeks because William's going to try 0:20:02.236 --> 0:20:05.796 and communicate from the grade beyond, which I love just 0:20:05.876 --> 0:20:07.916 because that was one of the last things that he 0:20:07.996 --> 0:20:12.396 did was take a scientific approach to what was not 0:20:12.436 --> 0:20:14.956 even a philosophical question so much as a religious or 0:20:14.996 --> 0:20:17.516 spiritual one. So I think that there's like a strong 0:20:17.636 --> 0:20:21.476 strain of there wouldn't be a need for parapsychology in 0:20:21.516 --> 0:20:24.836 the early nineteen hundreds because it's only just split off 0:20:24.836 --> 0:20:30.116 from philosophy. All psychology was para. It's very hard to 0:20:30.156 --> 0:20:34.236 prove definitively that something's not real, especially when science kept 0:20:34.236 --> 0:20:37.196 expanding the range of things you could believe in. So 0:20:37.356 --> 0:20:40.036 a lot of scientists kept their minds at least tentatively 0:20:40.076 --> 0:20:45.436 open to things we now think of as Koukie jb 0:20:45.636 --> 0:20:48.716 Ryan's mind was more open than most. People used to 0:20:48.716 --> 0:20:51.436 write to the lab at Duke about strange happenings in 0:20:51.436 --> 0:20:55.316 their lives, and he took them seriously. Here's a letter 0:20:55.396 --> 0:20:59.476 from nineteen forty nine. We have in our congregation a 0:20:59.636 --> 0:21:03.916 family who are being disturbed by Poulter Guy's phenomena. The 0:21:04.036 --> 0:21:07.916 phenomenage present only in the boy's presence. I had him 0:21:07.956 --> 0:21:11.236 in my home, Perrish moved with him, one threw him 0:21:11.276 --> 0:21:14.516 out his bed shook whenever he was in it. Words 0:21:14.556 --> 0:21:17.116 appeared on the boy's body, and he has visions of 0:21:17.196 --> 0:21:19.796 the devil and goes into a trance and speaks in 0:21:19.996 --> 0:21:24.356 strange language. Believe it or not, that letter is about 0:21:24.396 --> 0:21:28.076 the boy, an actual kid who inspired the horror movie 0:21:28.556 --> 0:21:37.196 The Exorcist. Anyway back to would be Paris psychologist Maury 0:21:37.236 --> 0:21:41.196 Bernstein from his home in Pueblo Bernstein wrote letters to 0:21:41.276 --> 0:21:43.756 Ryan and sent him reports on the hundreds of experiments 0:21:43.796 --> 0:21:48.076 he'd run. In nineteen fifty two, Ryan invited Bernstein and 0:21:48.156 --> 0:21:51.236 his wife to visit the Paris Psychology Lab and stay 0:21:51.276 --> 0:21:54.996 for a week. For Bernstein this really was like meeting 0:21:55.036 --> 0:21:59.036 Copernicus or Galileo. But to a lot of actual scientists 0:21:59.236 --> 0:22:01.796 there wasn't much daylight between A jb Ryan and a 0:22:01.876 --> 0:22:05.956 Maury Bernstein. A lot of Ryan's fellow scientists did not approve, 0:22:06.396 --> 0:22:11.636 including one of the most famous psychologists of the twentieth century, B. F. Skinner. 0:22:13.236 --> 0:22:16.356 Skinner is the behaviorist who, among other things, like putting 0:22:16.436 --> 0:22:21.556 rats in complicated cages. He didn't have time for Ryan's pseudoscience. Also, 0:22:21.756 --> 0:22:24.316 he figured out that under the right conditions you could 0:22:24.356 --> 0:22:27.076 see through the mass produced sp cards they were printed 0:22:27.116 --> 0:22:30.316 on super thin cardstock. Skinner, in front of his students, 0:22:30.516 --> 0:22:33.436 guessed one hundred out of a hundred cards correctly. He 0:22:33.516 --> 0:22:36.036 tore Rhine apart in reviews, and he also wrote him 0:22:36.036 --> 0:22:40.636 privately to damn his work. This is only another example 0:22:40.676 --> 0:22:42.756 of the kind of thing which is responsible for the 0:22:42.796 --> 0:22:45.316 failure of many of us to take your work seriously. 0:22:45.716 --> 0:22:49.276 I say that in all friendliness. Skinner and his fellow 0:22:49.276 --> 0:22:52.916 behaviorists were reacting to the messiness of theories like Rhins 0:22:53.036 --> 0:22:56.276 or Freud's. They thought there was only one way you 0:22:56.276 --> 0:23:00.076 could know scientifically what was going on inside another person's mind. 0:23:00.916 --> 0:23:04.276 That was to observe their behavior. A lot of behaviorists 0:23:04.356 --> 0:23:08.476 studied animals and then applied those lessons to humans. Their 0:23:08.516 --> 0:23:12.876 experiments hugely influential, but they ran on principles that seem 0:23:12.916 --> 0:23:15.996 to ignore the very things that distinguish humans from rats. 0:23:16.996 --> 0:23:19.276 Most people want to believe in something more than what 0:23:19.316 --> 0:23:23.076 they can see with their own eyes. Maury Bernstein certainly did. 0:23:23.836 --> 0:23:26.836 He wrote, now, at last, there is scientific evidence that 0:23:26.916 --> 0:23:29.756 men are something more than bodies, that they have minds 0:23:29.796 --> 0:23:35.196 with freedom from physical law, freedom from the physical That's 0:23:35.196 --> 0:23:39.396 why back in Pueblo, Bernstein decided to run a different 0:23:39.436 --> 0:23:43.556 set of experiments to find out what happens to us 0:23:43.916 --> 0:23:50.876 after we die. Your name is what Freddy? Just months 0:23:50.916 --> 0:23:54.756 after Bernstein left Ryan's lab, Virginia Ties had for that 0:23:54.876 --> 0:23:59.876 first faithful hypnosis session, an experiment to explore whether we 0:23:59.916 --> 0:24:04.556 live once or over and over again? Do you know 0:24:04.596 --> 0:24:10.956 what year it is? Bernstein pushed, improbed, and eventually out 0:24:10.956 --> 0:24:13.356 of a twenty nine year old American's mouth came a 0:24:13.476 --> 0:24:18.236 nineteenth century Irish woman. What are you studying? Oh to 0:24:18.316 --> 0:24:22.396 be a lady? What are some Irish words? What's great? 0:24:22.916 --> 0:24:26.436 What does that mean? Oh? So a little cup that 0:24:26.636 --> 0:24:31.716 you drink out of and you wish shot it? Very 0:24:33.116 --> 0:24:38.316 very Irish. From these bits and pieces, Bernstein tried to 0:24:38.316 --> 0:24:43.276 discern the very fabric of the universe. You remember the 0:24:43.356 --> 0:24:52.476 day you died? That was awesome day. I remember this. 0:24:52.796 --> 0:25:00.236 Brie was to church and observed. Truly. I was so 0:25:00.316 --> 0:25:02.956 excited when I found out that Bernstein had recorded his 0:25:03.036 --> 0:25:08.476 hypnosis sessions. But then listening to the tapes felt invasive, voyeuristic. 0:25:09.156 --> 0:25:12.756 Bernstein thought of himself as communing with the dead, But 0:25:12.876 --> 0:25:17.036 the more you listen, the creepier it sounds. Can you 0:25:17.116 --> 0:25:19.916 tell us what happened after your death? How? What was 0:25:19.956 --> 0:25:24.196 it like? Would you like where you were? Yes? Was 0:25:24.236 --> 0:25:29.556 it better than your life on earth? Oh? It wasn't. 0:25:28.716 --> 0:25:37.356 Oh that primal scene woman on couch, man leaning over 0:25:37.436 --> 0:25:43.516 her mesmer Freud's skinner. Bernstein the sexual politics of the 0:25:43.556 --> 0:25:48.956 psychological laboratory. All these men experimenting on all these women, 0:25:51.276 --> 0:25:56.476 like there's this um. I remember when Harvard brought over 0:25:56.516 --> 0:26:00.796 the German experimental psychologists. You go Munsterberg to found its 0:26:00.796 --> 0:26:05.156 experimental psychological Laboratory, because William James was all, I don't 0:26:05.316 --> 0:26:07.796 do that kind of thing. He would do all this 0:26:07.916 --> 0:26:11.396 experiments on women. Gertrude Stein was at Radcliffe. Then she 0:26:11.596 --> 0:26:14.676 knows and she writes this thing she chose, like I 0:26:14.796 --> 0:26:17.756 think doing like a senior thesis or something. She's like, yeah, 0:26:17.796 --> 0:26:21.196 but he just likes to tie up women. It is 0:26:21.436 --> 0:26:26.276 literally infantilizing. What do you say when you want a 0:26:26.356 --> 0:26:36.036 drink of water? Oh? Well, like other than Stein, aren't 0:26:36.036 --> 0:26:39.876