Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there,
Speaker 1: and this is stuff you should know. We're about to
Speaker 1: lay our hands all over you. Who knows what will happen?
Speaker 1: Maybe nothing, who knows? Yeah? That was gross? How so
Speaker 1: lay your hands on me? That a bon Jovie song? Uh? No?
Speaker 1: Hold on? Who was that? Was that? Bon job? Oh?
Speaker 1: Thompson Twins? Maybe Jerry, did you hear she just said
Speaker 1: duff Leppard. No, I don't think that's pour some sugar
Speaker 1: on me, good cob. What it's wrong with you to
Speaker 1: pour some hands on me? No? Lay your hands on me?
Speaker 1: On me is like, Uh, I think it's a Tompson
Speaker 1: Twins song or something like that. Well, that's not the
Speaker 1: one I'm thinking of. I don't know what you're thinking of.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of the bon Jovi song. I'll be the
Speaker 1: bon Jovi song is dirtier than this song. Uh. Then
Speaker 1: Thompson Twins, Yeah, yeah, I would say so. Yeah, Thompson
Speaker 1: Twins were real clean cut, not bon Jovi. Ended up
Speaker 1: weirdly seeing bon Jovi in concert. Uh two times. I'll
Speaker 1: bet that was rid. I'll bet you're like, what am
Speaker 1: I doing here? Well? One time they opened up for
Speaker 1: thirty eight Special? How did I get here? Wait? Wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: wait a second, I'm sorry you walk right that's that way? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Does that mean you intended to be at the thirty
Speaker 1: eight Special concerts? Oh yeah, dude. Yeah. It was like
Speaker 1: twelve all right, way into the southern rock scene back then,
Speaker 1: and still am to some degree. I still like me
Speaker 1: them some thirty eight Special. Uh. And then bon Jovi
Speaker 1: opened up. It was before they were uh, you know,
Speaker 1: before they were bond VI, like they were opening up
Speaker 1: for bands. Well, sure, yeah. And then I saw them again.
Speaker 1: I won't name names, but I saw them again in
Speaker 1: high school at the peak of their fame, when a
Speaker 1: person at my high school had bought two tickets and
Speaker 1: could not get any of the girls at school to
Speaker 1: go with him. Weird, during the height of bon Jovi's fame. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so this guy must have been a real dog.
Speaker 1: I felt bad for this person, and so I went
Speaker 1: and saw bon Jovi with this person. And that's just
Speaker 1: the kind of guy I was back then. These days,
Speaker 1: I would have said buzz off. Are you still friends
Speaker 1: with this guy? Okay? Does he listen to the podcast? Uh? Maybe? Well,
Speaker 1: let's just edit out me calling him a dog. Then
Speaker 1: I'm sure he grew into a fine specimen. Okay. Well,
Speaker 1: as you know, I can play all of bon Jovi's
Speaker 1: Slippery when Wet on the Quaker oat Boxes in my
Speaker 1: air band. Oh that's right, yep. Although I never saw
Speaker 1: him in concert, well, I gotta say that that second Uh, like,
Speaker 1: I never would have paid to go see them, But
Speaker 1: it wasn't bad. Yeah, I wouldn't think it would be.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're they're they're pros. They know what they're doing.
Speaker 1: You know. So the first concert not so great. I
Speaker 1: mean for an opening band. You know, I got Runaway.
Speaker 1: That was kind of the only notable song they had
Speaker 1: at the time. Um, that Tom Petty's song. No, No No, No,
Speaker 1: She's a little Runaway. I didn't know it was. I
Speaker 1: thought that was Thompson Twins. This has been a great
Speaker 1: open Yeah, especially for people who are interested in faith healing.
Speaker 1: You're like, who are these guys. Let's get to it,
Speaker 1: shall we? Yes? Okay, so we're talking today about faith healing.
Speaker 1: We've actually talked about some of this before, I would
Speaker 1: refer everybody to our two thousand eight twenty minute long
Speaker 1: how Prayer Healing episode works? Remember of that. Nope, that
Speaker 1: that whole that cardiology study about intercessory prayer didn't ring
Speaker 1: a bell with you at all. A little bit that
Speaker 1: was that's where it found. It's it's purchased originally. So
Speaker 1: this is much much bigger, broader picture that we're looking at. Right,
Speaker 1: But when you talk about faith healing, there are basically
Speaker 1: two types that people kind of lump into two different categories.
Speaker 1: One is prayer. Right, There's this idea and it's it's
Speaker 1: a pretty widely held idea among people all around the
Speaker 1: world of different religions, of different cultures that by praying
Speaker 1: to God, you're kind of beaming some well wishes to
Speaker 1: God in the hopes that He acts as a bit
Speaker 1: of a satellite and beams them down onto the person
Speaker 1: you're you're praying for, whether it be like that they
Speaker 1: they the ants that have taken up residents in their
Speaker 1: cast go away, or um, that they get over their cancer,
Speaker 1: or that they have a better day than you know
Speaker 1: they're having, um, whatever it is. If you step back
Speaker 1: and look at it, what you're talking about is completely
Speaker 1: senseless as far as science is concerned. And it's a
Speaker 1: form of faith healing. It's it's saying I believe that
Speaker 1: by praying, I can affect something about this this person's
Speaker 1: physical or mental state, and that's one form of faith healing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and for me, I'm not a religious guy anymore as
Speaker 1: people know. But uh, if someone says to me for
Speaker 1: any reason that they're going to pray for me, depending
Speaker 1: on who it is in the mood I'm in, it
Speaker 1: can vary from me just sort of quality, Like I
Speaker 1: would never confront someone over that or say don't do that.
Speaker 1: I don't believe in that. You don't bear your teeth
Speaker 1: and hiss at him. But it might in my own
Speaker 1: brain either be like whatever all the way to you
Speaker 1: know what, I'll take that, thank you. Well, depending on
Speaker 1: what kind of um procedure you're going in for, somebody
Speaker 1: says that you may want to be like whoa, whoa,
Speaker 1: Just hold off on that one. Okay, what do you mean?
Speaker 1: So there was a study, Yeah, there was a study
Speaker 1: on intercessory prayer and it was a pretty good study
Speaker 1: using the scientific method that cut people up into three
Speaker 1: different categories. It was and I think two patients all
Speaker 1: receiving the exact same procedure coronary bypass surgery at six
Speaker 1: different hospitals, and three groups of people, um who I
Speaker 1: think like represented Catholics, uh nondenominational Christians, and I think
Speaker 1: Carmelite nuns were all approached and asked to pray for
Speaker 1: these people. These carmelized nuns, carmel lite nuns, they're not
Speaker 1: nearly as delicious they're they're regular nuns. So the the
Speaker 1: three groups prayed for these people, and they said they
Speaker 1: prayed for them based on their first name and last initial,
Speaker 1: so please help John C. To feel better. And then
Speaker 1: they specifically, all of them prayed specifically for a successful
Speaker 1: surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications. Those
Speaker 1: are the two the two requirements that they used their
Speaker 1: first name, last initial, and then they include that however
Speaker 1: else they wanted to pray is just totally fine. And
Speaker 1: they studied these groups that were actually prayed for and
Speaker 1: they divided them up into three groups. Right, there was
Speaker 1: a group that did not receive any prayer. There was
Speaker 1: a group that did receive prayer, but we're told they
Speaker 1: may or may not be receiving prayer. Then there was
Speaker 1: a third group that was that received prayer and were
Speaker 1: told that they were receiving prayer. And then when they
Speaker 1: went back and looked at these two patients, they found
Speaker 1: that the group that received prayer and knew they were
Speaker 1: receiving prayer fared worse than both to the other groups,
Speaker 1: and that actually the group that didn't receive any prayer
Speaker 1: at all fair the best of the three. So if
Speaker 1: you're going and getting a cardiac bypass surgery, you may
Speaker 1: want to say, just just don't pray for me this
Speaker 1: time around. Okay. Yeah, And was this a Grabster article? Yeah? Um,
Speaker 1: he points out in what we may get touch on
Speaker 1: this a bit more later, but he points out that
Speaker 1: it's just it's really tough to scientifically study intercessory prayer.
Speaker 1: And I don't remember if we covered that ten years
Speaker 1: ago or not. Um, but it's just, you know, sample
Speaker 1: sizes are tough. Um. The measuring of the health outcome
Speaker 1: like is hard because did they live for a week,
Speaker 1: did they live for the rest of their you know,
Speaker 1: what would have been a long long life. Uh. He
Speaker 1: mentions the sharpshooter effect, which is there are so many
Speaker 1: potential outcomes that anyone can group something together and say
Speaker 1: what we learned this, and then you know who's doing
Speaker 1: the praying, How hard are they praying, how long are
Speaker 1: they praying, what God are they praying to. It's just
Speaker 1: it's tough to study something like that. And if if
Speaker 1: prayer actually does have an impact, if there's a group
Speaker 1: that's a control group that's not being prayed for, how
Speaker 1: do you control for like the friends and family who
Speaker 1: are actually praying for them and interfering in the study.
Speaker 1: So there's you know, people have taken this quite seriously.
Speaker 1: They studied it seriously, but they've they keep running up
Speaker 1: into these conceptual walls as far as the structure of
Speaker 1: the study is concerned, and no one's been able to
Speaker 1: figure it out. But that coronary bypass study was about
Speaker 1: as close as any of them came. But even still,
Speaker 1: that one was fraught with methodological methodological problems. So intercessory prayer,
Speaker 1: out of all of the types of faith healing, are
Speaker 1: probably the most investigated through science and scientific studies pure
Speaker 1: viewed journal studies. The other side of faith healing is
Speaker 1: the kind that probably comes to mind when somebody brings
Speaker 1: up faith healing and that is usually an evangelical preacher
Speaker 1: putting his hands on you and casting out the demons
Speaker 1: or casting out the disease, or doing something to where
Speaker 1: the power of God is coursing through that person and
Speaker 1: getting rid of your disease or condition or whatever. That's
Speaker 1: the other type of faith healing, and that's the one
Speaker 1: that most people think of you. In the last however,
Speaker 1: many minutes that was had a great band name, and
Speaker 1: I wonder if you can guess what it was, cast
Speaker 1: the Demons Out? No, that would be the album title
Speaker 1: profitbly Lay evangelical Preacher, No no, no conceptual balls. Oh nice, Okay,
Speaker 1: that would be kind of like a Thompson Twins cover band. Uh.
Speaker 1: So you said he in the terms of the faith healers,
Speaker 1: and you generally see this more as a man that
Speaker 1: does this um in my research at least, But there
Speaker 1: was a woman UM in the sixties and seventies it
Speaker 1: was very popular named Catherine Coleman who UM was a
Speaker 1: faith healer. And you know, it looks like she should
Speaker 1: have been on the on he haa or something with her.
Speaker 1: This just great lacey long dresses that they were in
Speaker 1: the sixties and seventies. Uh, and in nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 1: they did a case study and again these are problematic
Speaker 1: but because of sample size, but they studied twenty three
Speaker 1: people that she supposedly healed, um and they found out
Speaker 1: later on that none of them were healed. And in fact,
Speaker 1: one woman, they do this this old trick where they're like,
Speaker 1: you know, get out of your wheelchair and walk over
Speaker 1: to me. Uh. And this woman in a wheelchair had
Speaker 1: spinal cancer. She threw off her back brace and ran
Speaker 1: across the stage. Uh. And then they followed up with her.
Speaker 1: Her spine collapsed the next day and she died four
Speaker 1: months later. So these mentioning that because all of these
Speaker 1: people are when you go to one of these performances,
Speaker 1: everyone thinks that they're healed, and no one here's the
Speaker 1: follow up story that's in that auditorium, right, Yeah, And
Speaker 1: a lot of the success stories are anecdotal for sure,
Speaker 1: with with little or no follow up, and when there
Speaker 1: is follow up, it's usually finds that that's not the case.
Speaker 1: But so how about this, chuck, Let's go take a
Speaker 1: commercial and when'll come back, we'll tell we'll tell everybody
Speaker 1: what it would be like to go to a faith
Speaker 1: healing sermon and then after that we'll talk about the
Speaker 1: skeptical view of the whole thing. Alright, so we promised to,
Speaker 1: um tell you what it's like to go to one
Speaker 1: of these faith healing Um what do you call them?
Speaker 1: I call them performances. But um, it depends on what
Speaker 1: type it is. It could be a service, a sermon,
Speaker 1: a revival. Um. Yeah, probably a revival is usually a
Speaker 1: good way to put it, which is also a sermon
Speaker 1: in a service. Uh. One thing you're gonna have in
Speaker 1: your pocket is some cash, money or a checkbook, alright.
Speaker 1: Imagine they probably take credit cards these days, because there
Speaker 1: is generally some kind of money changing hands at one
Speaker 1: of these events, whether or not you have paid a
Speaker 1: fee to get in or made a quote unquote donation
Speaker 1: while you were there to get up on stage and
Speaker 1: have your your chance to faint in front of thousands
Speaker 1: of people. Right. So usually, UM, we'll take Benny Hin
Speaker 1: as an example of what these things can be like.
Speaker 1: So Benny Hin is a he's a faith healer. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I believe he's nondenominational. But all of
Speaker 1: this stuff traces back. Actually I didn't realize this. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you did or not. But all evangelical,
Speaker 1: charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity actually finds its source in one
Speaker 1: place in nineteen o six called the Azeusus Street Revival.
Speaker 1: Have you heard of that? Yeah? And and we should
Speaker 1: point out you said charismatic. Um Ed is quick to
Speaker 1: point out that charismatic religion doesn't mean boy, that that
Speaker 1: person up there preaching shore has a lot of charisma.
Speaker 1: It's actually a form of Christianity that is rooted in uh, Pentecostalism. Yes,
Speaker 1: that that basically means that they believe that God is
Speaker 1: in the building that day and literally can do things
Speaker 1: in that room. Yep. So there's a lot so and
Speaker 1: this is actually I didn't realize this either until I
Speaker 1: started researching this article. There's a pretty big schism actually
Speaker 1: in Christianity today between Pentecostalism, which is a form of
Speaker 1: charismatic Christianity, and traditional Christianity. And with Pentecostalism and charismatic Christianity.
Speaker 1: Because you believe that God is in the room, you
Speaker 1: also believe that God can operate through you, and there's
Speaker 1: certain gifts that are available to you. There's the gift
Speaker 1: of knowledge, which is just you just know stuff because
Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit or God is telling you this. There's
Speaker 1: the gift of tongues called gloss alalia, where you suddenly
Speaker 1: start speaking in tongues. We cover that in earnest I
Speaker 1: don't think so. Man. If not, we definitely should. We
Speaker 1: did snake handling, which definitely fits a great one charismatic.
Speaker 1: It definitely does. But the basis of charismatic is that
Speaker 1: God is part of your everyday life and can do
Speaker 1: things to you, imbue you with divine ours. And one
Speaker 1: of those divine gifts is called the gift of healing. Now,
Speaker 1: not everybody has it, but potentially anybody could have it
Speaker 1: if if you your soul has been baptized anointed to
Speaker 1: where you are saved. Plus basically, and that's a big
Speaker 1: theme that you find in charismatic religion is that the
Speaker 1: more somebody speaks in tongues, the more somebody is able
Speaker 1: to heal through faith. The more somebody is wealthy, I
Speaker 1: think we need to do a prosperity gospel episode by itself,
Speaker 1: but this ties into that as well. The idea of
Speaker 1: all behind all those things is that those people who
Speaker 1: are the wealthiest who speak in tongues, the most who
Speaker 1: can faith heal? Are the are the ones who are
Speaker 1: UM who are saved more than other people. That's charismatic religion.
Speaker 1: The other side, the traditional origin religion that you're probably
Speaker 1: familiar with, is like WHOA, the scriptures, the Bible, that
Speaker 1: stuff doesn't talk about any of this, and it does,
Speaker 1: it is not in the way that you guys are
Speaker 1: interpreting it. So there's a real there's a collision going
Speaker 1: on in Christianity today between people who say God is
Speaker 1: part of your everyday life and other people say, no,
Speaker 1: God is in scripture and that's where you where you
Speaker 1: find your answers to God, not in you know, Holy
Speaker 1: Laughter or gloss Lalia or anything like that. And so
Speaker 1: there's this kind of traditional Christian group in America that
Speaker 1: is losing ground very quickly to charismatic Christians who are
Speaker 1: UM gaining more and more members, and one of the
Speaker 1: ways that they're doing that is through faith healing. Is
Speaker 1: that true? Is it growing? Yeah? Apparently one and every
Speaker 1: four American Christians is a UM Pentecostal. Now interesting, I
Speaker 1: think it's the fastest growing group in America by far.
Speaker 1: So none of this is new. This this all started
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century. As far as faith healing goes. Uh,
Speaker 1: people like John Alexander Dowie, Um, people like uh ru
Speaker 1: uh Hepapa Tippappetta. So I like the second one more tip.
Speaker 1: I'll bet Rule likes it more too. Uh. Frank Sandford
Speaker 1: not Fred Sandford, Benson Idahosa. These are all faith healers
Speaker 1: who have done everything from said I can he'll like
Speaker 1: raise people from the dead too. I am actually Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: So it kind of has run the gamut throughout history.
Speaker 1: People like Benny hen and um, who's the other guy, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Peter pop Off are some of the well not they've
Speaker 1: been around for a while too, but they're they're the
Speaker 1: the newer version of this nineteenth century um huckster. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so so as I was starting with the Benny
Speaker 1: Hint thing, that Benny Hints service or revival is about
Speaker 1: twenty four hours long. Man, they maybe actually a little
Speaker 1: longer because I think it can. It's usually of six
Speaker 1: services each about four and a half hours each. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we're talking like twenty seven hours of this revival.
Speaker 1: And the whole thing is basically stage. You're created or
Speaker 1: carried out in a way that you you're getting more
Speaker 1: and more excited, more and more jazzed, and and from
Speaker 1: the perspective of the believers who are there, the Holy
Speaker 1: Spirit is now coming to this place. And you've got
Speaker 1: all this, like all the its appearances going on through
Speaker 1: holy laughter where people are just ecstatically laughing and they
Speaker 1: feel so great, or they're speaking in tongues and they're
Speaker 1: writhing on the floor. The Holy Spirit is present in
Speaker 1: the building. Right and after everybody is good and worked
Speaker 1: up and the Holy Spirit is present, finally Benny Hin
Speaker 1: will come onto the stage and the revival really truly begins.
Speaker 1: Then then that's when the healing starts. Yeah, but here's
Speaker 1: the thing. Like growing up in church, like the Holy
Speaker 1: Spirit was in the room every Sunday, but it's just
Speaker 1: a different thing with these more um. I guess any
Speaker 1: kind of preaching as some kind of a performance um
Speaker 1: or sermon is. But like in the nineteen twenties is when,
Speaker 1: especially with Amy Simple McPherson, is when these really highly produced,
Speaker 1: dramatic stage shows started to kind of take place. I
Speaker 1: was I was reading about her. It blows my mind
Speaker 1: that she does not have multiple movies made about her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was extraordinarily interesting and she was based in l
Speaker 1: A too. That means we're really surprised there should be. Uh,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of I would cast who should
Speaker 1: I his career? Should I make Jennifer Lawrence would probably
Speaker 1: do a pretty good Amy simple McPherson. You think, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so. I think she could carry that. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: stay tuned. We'll see if you have the casting powers
Speaker 1: as well. What if it turns out to be Hugh
Speaker 1: Jackman very brave performance? Um so she Yeah, she really
Speaker 1: got things going in the nineteen twenties and she used
Speaker 1: everything from props like ships and and trojan horses to motorcycles. Um, Benny, hen,
Speaker 1: I mean did you watch did you go into too?
Speaker 1: A YouTube rabbit hole? With these things like he will
Speaker 1: he's one of the most um physically uh say, charismatic,
Speaker 1: but I don't want to confuse it, but in the
Speaker 1: true sense of the word charismatic, physically aggressive and charismatic.
Speaker 1: And that he's he's running all over the place, He's
Speaker 1: using his coat, his jacket. Two, he will wave it
Speaker 1: over the crowd and the first twenty rows of people
Speaker 1: will fall back into their seats as if blown by
Speaker 1: back by the spirit. Um. He will you know, put
Speaker 1: his hands on on a guy who will jump up
Speaker 1: and kick his feet out and land on his back.
Speaker 1: He'll get up and he'll do it again. He'll get
Speaker 1: up and he'll do it again. And they have what's
Speaker 1: called catchers on stage, these uh, these kind of big
Speaker 1: men usually who who catch these people and put them
Speaker 1: on the stage, help him back up again, and they're
Speaker 1: all a part of the if you've ever seen well,
Speaker 1: you never saw Fletch one, right, No? I didn't. Was
Speaker 1: there a preacher in Flesh one? No? And Fletch two.
Speaker 1: I'm waiting for you like, oh, no, I saw the sequel.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I didn't fledged two. That's what the
Speaker 1: story was, was what's his face? Arlie Army from Full
Speaker 1: Metal Jacket played a faith healer um who was using
Speaker 1: I mean, we can go ahead and say it here.
Speaker 1: A lot of these people use tricks like earpieces and
Speaker 1: there's someone off stage reading them cards that people fill
Speaker 1: in and say, Hi, I'm so and so and I
Speaker 1: have this ailment. And then they will put in the
Speaker 1: earpiece and they will say I'm thinking of someone. Uh,
Speaker 1: perhaps their name is James or Jim or Jamie and
Speaker 1: they have something wrong with their foot and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the guy who filled out that card says, oh,
Speaker 1: you're talking about me. Get him on stage, lay the hands,
Speaker 1: and by all accounts, these people are so caught up
Speaker 1: in this religious hysteri area of the moment and the
Speaker 1: drama that sometimes they do faint, right, So this is
Speaker 1: that's I'm glad you brought that up, because I think
Speaker 1: it's really important to get across. Like, the people who
Speaker 1: attend these revivals are true believers and they are caught
Speaker 1: up in What they would say is they would describe
Speaker 1: all this to the Holy Spirit flowing through them being
Speaker 1: at this revival, being you know, the part of the
Speaker 1: energy in the air. What skeptics would say is, well,
Speaker 1: actually this is all just part of a you know, masssteria,
Speaker 1: mass delusion regardless, it's basically two sides of the same coin.
Speaker 1: Whether it's divine or whether it's internal. These people are
Speaker 1: experiencing fainting. They are they are falling backwards, and to them,
Speaker 1: they feel like they're just being lifted right off of
Speaker 1: their feet. They are like experiencing this holy laughter or whatever.
Speaker 1: They're not they're not faking in in the sense that
Speaker 1: you and I would be like, Oh, these these people
Speaker 1: are faking. They're participating in something that is happening, that's
Speaker 1: connecting them to everybody around them and the people on
Speaker 1: stage at the very least in the ones that are
Speaker 1: the most legitimate. Well yeah, they're they're either that or
Speaker 1: they sometimes they are actual plants. Okay, So so here's
Speaker 1: so there's let me give you three examples. Benny Hin,
Speaker 1: Peter pop Off in Hobart Freeman. They represent three different
Speaker 1: versions of faith healers. Benny Hin, his thing is is,
Speaker 1: like you're saying, he runs around on stage and waves
Speaker 1: his coat. His thing is he is healing like a
Speaker 1: specific disease. At that moment, he'll be like, I can
Speaker 1: feel the cancer being healed in this room. And then
Speaker 1: after that he'll be like, who's felt that? Whose cancer was?
Speaker 1: Just He'll come on up here and somebody will run
Speaker 1: up and be like, you just here my cancer. Thanks
Speaker 1: a lot, right. He apparently does not use He was
Speaker 1: tracked by a documentary filmmaker and investigated pretty thoroughly back
Speaker 1: in two thousand. He apparently does not use plants. Um
Speaker 1: he apparently did. I don't really know enough about the
Speaker 1: guy to know how true his faith is, but it's
Speaker 1: it says a lot that he wasn't caught using plants
Speaker 1: or any kind of technical assistance whatsoever. People have planted
Speaker 1: people there though, that are healthy, like sting operations at
Speaker 1: Benny Hin shows. Yeah. Yeah, so that they would plant
Speaker 1: it like a whatever, some new show would plant someone
Speaker 1: in the audience, have them go up on stage and
Speaker 1: said they were healed, and he would tout them as
Speaker 1: being healed. And then when he's interviewed and said, hey,
Speaker 1: this person was a plant. They weren't even sick, and
Speaker 1: he said that she was sick and you healed. And
Speaker 1: his response was literally like, well, you know, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: just a man like you, and I'm trying to do better,
Speaker 1: and I'm always trying to do better. So that's not
Speaker 1: an answer. So that's actually a pretty pretty common um investigation.
Speaker 1: What they're doing is that's remember how we said like
Speaker 1: that the God or the Holy Spirit gives you divine gifts,
Speaker 1: and one of those gifts is the gift of knowledge. Well,
Speaker 1: what they were doing was challenging the idea that God
Speaker 1: was giving them information based on the idea, right, God
Speaker 1: wouldn't have given you this bad information That was a lie,
Speaker 1: so therefore you don't have this pipeline to God. I
Speaker 1: could see Bennie Hin just being like, hey, as happens, right,
Speaker 1: He's he's famous for the saying that, uh, the second
Speaker 1: category is exposed legitimate, straight up fraud, and that the
Speaker 1: poster child of that is Peter pop Off. He was
Speaker 1: he was exposed, exposed at the kind of the height
Speaker 1: of his earlier career. Yet he still makes a ton
Speaker 1: of money today selling holy water water. He don't he
Speaker 1: doesn't sell it. If you send a donation and as
Speaker 1: a thank you gifts, he'll send you your holy spring water.
Speaker 1: Get it right, So, and then people who have gotten
Speaker 1: this holy spring water come on and say, right after that,
Speaker 1: I got a check from the I R S that
Speaker 1: I wasn't expecting and now my house is paid off.
Speaker 1: Thank you Peter pop Off. Right, that's what he's doing now.
Speaker 1: So he went bankrupt getting caught red handed. The amazing
Speaker 1: Randy James Randy exposed Peter pop Off on Johnny Carson's
Speaker 1: Tonight Show in front of millions of people. Totally ended
Speaker 1: the guy's career right there. He went bankrupt very quickly afterwards,
Speaker 1: like he was. They were the ones using the earpiece. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So Peter pop Off was getting like you said, basically
Speaker 1: the premise of Fletch Too. His wife was going through
Speaker 1: prayer cards, saying people's names, saying the details they'd written
Speaker 1: down about what diseases they wanted cured and what their
Speaker 1: prayers were. And Peter Popoff was being fed this information
Speaker 1: through an earpiece. Well, he was pretending that he was
Speaker 1: getting this information from God the gift of knowledge and
Speaker 1: wowing people seven days a week, six days a week
Speaker 1: at his revivals and making a lot of money. James
Speaker 1: Randy went to one of his revivals Number one, inserted
Speaker 1: a plant in there a couple of times, a few
Speaker 1: different plants, so disputed his gift of knowledge. But then
Speaker 1: also made a recording of the radio transmission of his
Speaker 1: wife and then plays it on the Carson Show. So
Speaker 1: ends this guy's career. Um, this is in. By two
Speaker 1: thousand five, he was back to making like twenty four
Speaker 1: million dollars a year through divine debt relief. How did
Speaker 1: people not pick up on that in the audience, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think it's probably all I know how
Speaker 1: they pick up on it, And that's part of what
Speaker 1: makes this so sad is they are so desperate for health,
Speaker 1: good health that they will believe anything. They don't think,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this guy just called my name out
Speaker 1: of thin air, uh and said all these details that
Speaker 1: a weight that I wrote down on an index card
Speaker 1: on the way in and handed to somebody Like, they
Speaker 1: don't make that connection. So I think that's a pretty
Speaker 1: good point. They're either desperate to be he old or
Speaker 1: this is like their genuine belief that some guy has
Speaker 1: come in and been like, oh, this is what you believe, Well,
Speaker 1: let me figure out how to work that into my
Speaker 1: into my scam. Either way, it's it's I mean, don't
Speaker 1: you you shouldn't. Shouldn't. I'm not saying you are. I'm
Speaker 1: talking to you people out on podcast Lane her like
Speaker 1: what suckers, what chumps? That's that's not for you to judge.
Speaker 1: These these people are are in some cases being very
Speaker 1: much preyed upon. Oh yeah, not in all cases, though
Speaker 1: there are so so far, We've got Benny Hin, We've
Speaker 1: got Peter pop Off. I know it took me forever
Speaker 1: to be like that's not a that's not a typographical error.
Speaker 1: But I can't tell you how many times I tuned
Speaker 1: in to watch Benny Hill. I was like, man, when
Speaker 1: am I going to learn? They're both? And then the
Speaker 1: third type is um exemplified by a guy named Hobart Freeman.
Speaker 1: You would call these people utterly and complete true believers, right,
Speaker 1: they are the ones who die because they're walking the walk.
Speaker 1: Actually not Hobart Freeman. He died in part of complications
Speaker 1: from gang green and his leg that he wouldn't go
Speaker 1: get medical treatment from. So he was actually preaching sitting
Speaker 1: down and not walking at all. But he died. He
Speaker 1: he prayed over his sicknesses, his pneumonia, his gang green,
Speaker 1: and his leg. And he had something called faith assembly
Speaker 1: I believe in Indiana, and he was preaching that medical
Speaker 1: not just you know, come and get your your your
Speaker 1: faith healing. But medical interventions are not. It's not it's
Speaker 1: a sign of that's that's evil. That's basically a sign
Speaker 1: of a lack of faith in God. Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: he was to the point where he was like, don't
Speaker 1: even clean my wound, like that's medical treatment, and I
Speaker 1: refuse that, yea, And so he died. I'm not quite
Speaker 1: sure how old he was the problem is this is
Speaker 1: like he's an adult, he can make his own decisions,
Speaker 1: especially in the United States, where religious freedom is vehemently protected.
Speaker 1: It yea. The problem with him and his Faith Assembly
Speaker 1: was that he took like ninety people with him while
Speaker 1: he was doing this, including babies who were neglected um
Speaker 1: any kind of medical care, children who were um who
Speaker 1: died of easily treatable diseases, women who died in childbirth. UM.
Speaker 1: Ninety people they decided died and I think between five
Speaker 1: and ten years at Faith Assembly who probably otherwise would
Speaker 1: have lived had they sought medical treatment as well as
Speaker 1: as faith healing. Yeah. And this this is where it
Speaker 1: can overlap with Christian science. Um, they don't believe that
Speaker 1: medical science is uh. They issue medical science and medical
Speaker 1: um assistance right. UM. I guess depending on there may
Speaker 1: be a range. I don't know if I'm not. I
Speaker 1: don't know any Christian scientists, so I don't know if
Speaker 1: some of them are if they're a hardline there's and
Speaker 1: other people that are like, no, well we will take
Speaker 1: a little medicine for this and that. But ostensibly Christian
Speaker 1: scientists don't believe in medical intervention. UH. So there is
Speaker 1: some overlap there, but it's uh what they will say
Speaker 1: if someone dies, even a child. Is it's either God's
Speaker 1: will or in the case of faith healing, if it
Speaker 1: doesn't work, they will say that they didn't truly believe
Speaker 1: they would have truly They put the vain the blame
Speaker 1: back on the sick person and say, if you didn't, uh,
Speaker 1: if you didn't get healed by my hand, then that
Speaker 1: means you didn't truly believe in that you aren't devout,
Speaker 1: which is it's that's one thing if like you're a
Speaker 1: true believer faith healer, but if you're a con man,
Speaker 1: and that's how you're getting out of it is saying
Speaker 1: you don't have enough faith. What a crippling thing to
Speaker 1: do to some a person of faith. You know how
Speaker 1: despicable is that? Well? I think it was, um Benny
Speaker 1: hens Uh was it Benny Hinder pop Off, one of
Speaker 1: them's nephew. I read an article by him, and he's
Speaker 1: still very much a devout Christian, but he saw the light.
Speaker 1: He was a catcher for a while and to catch
Speaker 1: the people on stage and he was like, it wasn't
Speaker 1: until I met my wife, uh, and she couldn't speak
Speaker 1: in tongues and everyone was like, you gotta you can't
Speaker 1: marry her. She started opening his eyes too. I guess
Speaker 1: the um the other competing Christianity, which says, you don't
Speaker 1: speak in tongues, you don't um faith heal and he
Speaker 1: has put all that behind him and said that, I
Speaker 1: mean he feels guilt now for this lavish lifestyle. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the other part of this prosperity thing is they
Speaker 1: believe that God has is blessing them with all these
Speaker 1: riches and these Italian villas and the fleet of Mercedes
Speaker 1: in the driveway and the helicopter, and that it's all
Speaker 1: God's will. But he had a big, big problem with
Speaker 1: the fact that they would then in turn blame the
Speaker 1: people who didn't get healed because they weren't devout. It's
Speaker 1: really sad. Yeah, it is sad. So there's a few
Speaker 1: there's a few really bad nag get of outcomes from this.
Speaker 1: One is you might die because you aren't going to
Speaker 1: seek medical treatment. And even if you're going to a
Speaker 1: faith healer and you're not say like a Christian science adherent,
Speaker 1: but you you are a true believer in faith healing.
Speaker 1: If you go to a faith healer and they're like,
Speaker 1: we I just cured your cancer, you might be like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna go spend any more money on co
Speaker 1: pays for any follow up stuff. I'll just go home.
Speaker 1: I don't like going to the hospital. I hate chemotherapy.
Speaker 1: And then if that treatment was keeping you alive or
Speaker 1: prolonging your life, um, you might die from because you
Speaker 1: believe that the faith healer has healed you. Another one
Speaker 1: is that like you're you're losing money. If this stuff
Speaker 1: really actually doesn't work, then you're just throwing your money away,
Speaker 1: or put a different way, it's being conned out of you.
Speaker 1: That's another negative outcome of it. Um. And then yes,
Speaker 1: the injuries like Catherine Coleman and the woman with the
Speaker 1: spinal cancer whose spine color lapsed. Should we take a break?
Speaker 1: I think so? Man, all right, we're gonna take a
Speaker 1: break and come back and talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: psychic surgery and a bit more on Christian science right
Speaker 1: after this. Alright, So psychic surgery is something that we
Speaker 1: have not mentioned yet. Uh. This is uh. I guess
Speaker 1: it's a kind of faith healing. But um, if you
Speaker 1: ever saw or if you know anything about Andy Kaufman,
Speaker 1: or saw the movie Man on the Moon with Jim
Speaker 1: Carey as Andy Kaufman. You remember the scene where or
Speaker 1: if you grew up in the seven and eighties, you
Speaker 1: remember seeing this stuff on like sixty Minutes or PBS.
Speaker 1: It seems like it was a big thing. Then. Uh,
Speaker 1: these psychic surgeons will um use their hands. Um. Most
Speaker 1: of the time it's on your like your your belly,
Speaker 1: and you'll lay you down with your shirt off, and
Speaker 1: it looks like they are reaching into your body with
Speaker 1: their hands and pulling out organs or tumors or something, right,
Speaker 1: pulling out some sort of fleshy, meaty product. Right. So
Speaker 1: what's really going on with psychic surgeons is it is
Speaker 1: a complete fraud. They are masters of slight of hand
Speaker 1: and they are covering up um. If you've seen the video,
Speaker 1: they're always covering up what they're doing with the other hand.
Speaker 1: And they have blood packets in their hand, and they
Speaker 1: have like chicken gizzards or something tucked away that you
Speaker 1: don't see. And it's just a big slight of hand
Speaker 1: magic show. And in the Man in the Moon movie,
Speaker 1: it was very sad because Andy Kaufman was kind of
Speaker 1: at his wits end. I was trying to heal him,
Speaker 1: you know, get healed of cancer medically, and he took
Speaker 1: a chance traveled to where Philippines was at the Philippines,
Speaker 1: and Um, I saw the guy palming the chicken gizzards
Speaker 1: knew it was a fake. This is a very sad
Speaker 1: moment in his life and in that movie. So I wondered.
Speaker 1: I remembered that being the case in that movie too.
Speaker 1: But I had read like an account of his experience there,
Speaker 1: and from what I could gather, he he left for
Speaker 1: the Philippines feeling like the psychic surgery had worked. That
Speaker 1: the movie contrived or inserted that part. Yeah, because he
Speaker 1: spent I think six weeks over there getting almost daily
Speaker 1: psychic surgery, and he apparently improved. He started to gain
Speaker 1: some weight as spirits improved, so much so that he
Speaker 1: left the Philippines expecting to heal. But when he went
Speaker 1: back to the United States, he died pretty quickly after that.
Speaker 1: It was pretty sad in the movie at least. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really was, because he starts laughing at like the
Speaker 1: whole cosmic joke of the whole thing. Yeah, so, I mean,
Speaker 1: what can happen if some of these people maybe he
Speaker 1: did feel better. Uh, sometimes people do kick cancer. Um,
Speaker 1: and they will say it's because of the either intercessory prayer,
Speaker 1: the faith healing or both. Um. What skeptics will say
Speaker 1: is no, sometimes people heal from cancer. You know I do.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing that chuck. This is where science has
Speaker 1: kind of fallen down and allowed faith heeling to continue
Speaker 1: on basically unabated. They they don't have in science doesn't
Speaker 1: understand why some cancer spontaneously remits. They just don't. They
Speaker 1: They know that some types of cancer are more likely
Speaker 1: to undergo spontaneous remission. They also suspect that people may
Speaker 1: actually developed cancer and their body might overcome it and
Speaker 1: they will go their whole lives without realizing that they
Speaker 1: ever had cancer at some point, but they don't understand
Speaker 1: the mechanisms behind it. Where I feel like science has
Speaker 1: fallen down is this misunderstood. Frankly, faith based explanation has
Speaker 1: been has been used to replace another faith based explanation,
Speaker 1: which is that the Holy Spirit healed these people. They're saying, no,
Speaker 1: it's spontaneous remission. Well what is that? Well, we don't
Speaker 1: really know, but it's not the Holy Spirit. And I
Speaker 1: feel like that's that's just that that doesn't fly at all.
Speaker 1: And for people who believe in in faith healing when
Speaker 1: they hear spontaneous remission and they ask, well, you know,
Speaker 1: how does that work? And science as we don't know,
Speaker 1: but just trust us. That's what it is. That's not
Speaker 1: going to change anybody's view if you're a true believer
Speaker 1: in this kind of thing. Yeah. And it also points
Speaker 1: out that some of this could be due to the
Speaker 1: placebo effect, which can remember which show, but we've talked
Speaker 1: about that before. For sure, we did a placebo effect show.
Speaker 1: It was probably that one. Uh. And that's of course
Speaker 1: when fake treatments, uh, it seem like they have actual
Speaker 1: positive effects for the patient. Um. So some of that
Speaker 1: could be this. Some of it could be they have
Speaker 1: comfort therefore reduced anxiety, and it has been shown when
Speaker 1: you have reduced anxiety and stress, then that can um,
Speaker 1: that can help your your case medically. Um. Which is
Speaker 1: also actually I think why that first study you talked about,
Speaker 1: UM with the bad outcome didn't wasn't one of the
Speaker 1: explanations possibly that people it increased their anxiety. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: they gave them performance anxiety, Like they didn't want to
Speaker 1: let the people who were praying for them down right,
Speaker 1: or let God down. So they actually became anxious, which
Speaker 1: in turn created negative outcomes or complications from the surgery,
Speaker 1: Which is just someone surmising what that could mean, that
Speaker 1: outcome could mean. Right again again. So like if if,
Speaker 1: if science is taking it upon itself to two challenge
Speaker 1: faith healing, I don't think it's doing a very good
Speaker 1: job right now because the polace Evo effect that's not
Speaker 1: explained very well either. Um, the idea that anxiety can
Speaker 1: can lead to negative outcomes. These are things that it's like, yes, science,
Speaker 1: you're on the right track. Keep going. Don't just stop there.
Speaker 1: I hope not. I don't think so. But you do
Speaker 1: get the impression that if you ask a scientist about
Speaker 1: faith healing, they just throw out, well that that holy
Speaker 1: spirit thing, that's just mass illusion. There's spontaneous remission of cancer,
Speaker 1: so just leave it at that and you get a
Speaker 1: little pat on the head. I just don't think that works.
Speaker 1: So who knows, Maybe twenty years down the road, when
Speaker 1: we understand spontaneous remission, we can say no, you were
Speaker 1: not healed. This is what your body did. I think
Speaker 1: in that case, then the people say, well, yeah, God
Speaker 1: made my body do that through the faith healer. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's ever going to end well. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: there's also the ace that um, the Peter pop Offs
Speaker 1: of the world selling are sorry, not selling taking donations
Speaker 1: for Holy spring water. Um. At one point I think
Speaker 1: he was a an actual company. And then of course
Speaker 1: the government starts poking around the books and fraud claims,
Speaker 1: and then he re registers as a as a religious
Speaker 1: group and their religious protections in this country and exemptions
Speaker 1: from the i r S such that they can get
Speaker 1: away with some of the stuff. They don't have to
Speaker 1: show their books. It's tricky. Speaking of laws as well
Speaker 1: to um the the there are laws on the books
Speaker 1: that protect religious groups and I think like nine states
Speaker 1: from criminal negligent manslaughter, homicide charges for withholding um, withholding
Speaker 1: medical care from children. Yeah. It's weirdly. Just came up
Speaker 1: today actually in real time as we record today in
Speaker 1: the news. Did you see that in Idaho? I didn't.
Speaker 1: The article is called an Idaho and Idaho medical care
Speaker 1: exemptions for faith healing come under fire. Uh. And this
Speaker 1: was breaking news like three hours ago. Uh. There's a
Speaker 1: cemetery in Boise called Peaceful Valley Cemetery, six hundred grave
Speaker 1: sites and nearly a third of them are children. And
Speaker 1: while it's impossible to tell how many UM died because
Speaker 1: of UM negligent parents, uh, they think that a great
Speaker 1: many of them did. They've tried together corner reports, autopsy reports,
Speaker 1: UM advocates have tried to do this, uh, but basically, UH,
Speaker 1: they estimate that a hundred and eighty three Idaho children
Speaker 1: have died since the nineteen seventies because of parents withholding
Speaker 1: medical treatment. And I think they lead the nation in UM, yes,
Speaker 1: as more children die of faith based medical neglect in
Speaker 1: Idaho than any other state. And so they had a
Speaker 1: rally I think today where they had UM hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty three child's eyes caskets delivered I think to the
Speaker 1: capital steps and Boise, and they're calling on reform and saying,
Speaker 1: you know, you can't do this anymore. Like I know
Speaker 1: that parents like these children's can't advocate children's. These children
Speaker 1: can't advocate for themselves, so it's up to the parents
Speaker 1: to make sure that they get medical treatment if they
Speaker 1: need it. And and again though these parents will literally
Speaker 1: watch their kid die and say it was God's will right,
Speaker 1: And I mean like this, this country was founded on
Speaker 1: religious liberty, so there's just such a sticky situation where
Speaker 1: it's like, like, we have the technology to save your
Speaker 1: child and you're not letting us do it. And in Idaho,
Speaker 1: like you said, is the state that leads that. Other
Speaker 1: states don't have anything like that any and haven't for
Speaker 1: a long time. Some have loopholes that allow that, but
Speaker 1: say like, if if this happens to multiple children of yours,
Speaker 1: like your you've let more than one kid die as
Speaker 1: God's will, We're gonna actually come after you. And then
Speaker 1: other states, I think, like Florida and I can't remember
Speaker 1: the other state basically say yes, we're you're you're we're
Speaker 1: not going to criminally charge parents who withhold medical care,
Speaker 1: but the court can still come in and be like, uh, sorry,
Speaker 1: t Ys, your kid is getting this life saving medical
Speaker 1: care whether you like it or not. Well, apparently everything
Speaker 1: changed in nineteen seventy four. That was um the Federal
Speaker 1: Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, and at the time,
Speaker 1: the Department of HHS interpreted that to say that states
Speaker 1: must implement faith healing exclusions, and so in order to
Speaker 1: get uh federal funding, a lot of the states passed
Speaker 1: these faith healing exemptions so they could get funding, and
Speaker 1: later on the Department said, you know what we were
Speaker 1: send that interpretation. That's not what we meant. But it
Speaker 1: was too late at that point. Yeah, And and I
Speaker 1: think it was two thousand three was when they finally
Speaker 1: rescinded it. But and so all of these these exemptions
Speaker 1: are relics from two thousand three at the latest, I
Speaker 1: think of the nineties, a lot of them were removed
Speaker 1: to So I have a feeling that's not gonna be
Speaker 1: around for much longer. They'll probably be like one state
Speaker 1: that's like the holdout state, and I'll be surprised if
Speaker 1: it's not Idaho. But I don't think there's gonna be
Speaker 1: too many states with it around ten years from now
Speaker 1: or five years from now. I watched a lot of
Speaker 1: YouTube today, by the way, Yeah, yeah, I used to
Speaker 1: We used to watch. We used to watch in college.
Speaker 1: We would go to my friend Clay's house and he
Speaker 1: had VHS tapes of faith Healers and uh Peter pop
Speaker 1: Off for sure. And then although he wouldn't have Faith Healer,
Speaker 1: did you ever watch uh Robert Tilton? No, the name
Speaker 1: sounds familiar. You've probably seen the fart compilation. He was
Speaker 1: a televangelist in the eighties. He's still around, I think,
Speaker 1: but I think he might have been one of us
Speaker 1: went broken then cut rich again. But he was a
Speaker 1: televangelis in the eighties that had this great, great show,
Speaker 1: um something power. I can't remember what it was called.
Speaker 1: But no, we're talking about I know exactly what you mean.
Speaker 1: You'd probably recognize this guy. But Clay had a bunch
Speaker 1: of these dubbed and we would we would sit around
Speaker 1: late at night and watch Bob Tilton speaking tongues and
Speaker 1: stuff on his show. And he was I watched his
Speaker 1: bunch today. It took a stroll dumb memory lane. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really funny to watch Bob Tilton, I will say, so,
Speaker 1: what do you mean the fart accomplishing as he fared
Speaker 1: a lot as well. No, years later someone did a
Speaker 1: He would make all these funny faces and herkey dierky movements,
Speaker 1: and of course someone later on dubbed in farts every
Speaker 1: time he closed his eyes real tight or made a
Speaker 1: funny move, And it's that's funny to watch. But it's
Speaker 1: also funny just to watch Bob Tilton because he is
Speaker 1: like it's entertainment. It was hysterical but you know, people
Speaker 1: would write him big X and go broke and not
Speaker 1: be able to pay their mortgages because they're sending him
Speaker 1: money because they His whole deal was the prosperity thing,
Speaker 1: like you you will get rich if you if you
Speaker 1: send your money, it will come back tenfold. That kind
Speaker 1: of deal. Yeah, we definitely have to do an episode
Speaker 1: just on that. Back in the day, real quick, did
Speaker 1: you um, did you ever watch Cartoon Network when Adult
Speaker 1: Swim was just like an hour long block at night? Yeah? Sometimes,
Speaker 1: so there was like Space Ghost Coast to Coast was
Speaker 1: like I think their first show. Yeah, our friend Dave
Speaker 1: Wallis was one of the creators right before Space Goest
Speaker 1: Coast to Coast. They kind of dipped their toe in
Speaker 1: it where they would run old Space Ghost um cartoons
Speaker 1: just normal, but they would dub in like inappropriate laugh tracks,
Speaker 1: and it made it like one of the most bizarrely
Speaker 1: funny things you've ever seen. Like somebody would just deliver
Speaker 1: a line that was maybe mildly like like n S
Speaker 1: Space Ghost costoon fun, but then like the crowd in
Speaker 1: this the studio audience would just start laughing. It was.
Speaker 1: It was great stuff. Well, I just love that I'm
Speaker 1: like almost forty seven years old, and I have put
Speaker 1: myself out there in public as a learned, researched man,
Speaker 1: and there's nothing funnier to me than uh, Bob Tilton
Speaker 1: part compilation. Nice. Hey, what's funny? It is funny? That's right. Well,
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about faith heeling, Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like, go on to YouTube, maybe goes
Speaker 1: check one out yourself. Who knows? Who knows what will happen? Uh?
Speaker 1: And since I said who knows what will happen, it's
Speaker 1: time for listener, ma'am. I'm gonna call this using us
Speaker 1: in the classroom. We've got a few of these lately,
Speaker 1: which always makes us happy. Hey, guys, big fan recently
Speaker 1: saw you in San Francisco. It's sketch Fest and it
Speaker 1: was even better than what I've been hoping for. Uh.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I want to point out to people,
Speaker 1: when you come see us live, it is better than this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you get a free dumb dumb sucker just for coming. Well,
Speaker 1: they're funnier, they're more fun, they're funnier shows. Uh. You
Speaker 1: get to hear say dirty words here and there. Um,
Speaker 1: we drink a hundred percent more than we do in
Speaker 1: the studio. That's true. Anyway, he went to to San Francisco.
Speaker 1: Reason I'm writing is that I'm an eighth grade English teacher.
Speaker 1: My class has been reading about Harriet Tubman for the
Speaker 1: past few weeks. This morning, I woke up and saw
Speaker 1: that you release an episode about her. I knew what
Speaker 1: it was meant to be. It's part of my lesson plan.
Speaker 1: It was a bit nervous with my morning class because
Speaker 1: I hadn't listened to the episode yet, wondering if you
Speaker 1: might go off on some weird tangent that my students
Speaker 1: would be confused by. But you did an incredible job.
Speaker 1: I feel like that one was pretty tangent free. It
Speaker 1: really was we we Yeah, we stuck to the story.
Speaker 1: We were both a little awe struck. That's right. Despite
Speaker 1: all the distractions inherent and being a teenager, my students
Speaker 1: were absorbed and entertained by your explanation of this amazing
Speaker 1: person's life and our contributions to America. Today was many
Speaker 1: of my students first time listening to a podcast, and
Speaker 1: I'm so happy I was able to introduce them to
Speaker 1: Josh and Chuckla And that is President Rob Carter so,
Speaker 1: Mr Rob Carter's Class, I hope you enjoyed yourselves. I
Speaker 1: hope you started listening to our show regularly. You guys
Speaker 1: and gals are the best. Yeah, thanks a lot, Mr
Speaker 1: Carter and Mr Carter's Class. Did you call him President
Speaker 1: Rob Carter? No, I'm almost positive you said that was
Speaker 1: President Rob Carter. Really. Yeah, you just elected that gout
Speaker 1: of high office, so that would be a weird thing
Speaker 1: to say. You're welcome, President Carter. I just got a
Speaker 1: a gift of an edible arrangement from Hugh Jackman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so maybe he'll get this guy like your president. He
Speaker 1: can't wait for that. Amy simple McPherson role. I looked
Speaker 1: at her picture. I know you saw me over here.
Speaker 1: She I would go with Amy Adams. She do good. Sure.
Speaker 1: I think just about any actress working today, any of
Speaker 1: the big names, would do a pretty good job with it.
Speaker 1: There's some some pretty good actresses working today. Well, you
Speaker 1: know what, your your future is not in casting. You
Speaker 1: don't think so who shouldn't be, Josh, You do not
Speaker 1: think any of the anyone it should be pretty good, right,
Speaker 1: just you know, throw a dart. They're all talented. They
Speaker 1: are all talented. Who was the one in um La
Speaker 1: La Land. Oh wow, I want to say Emma Blunt,
Speaker 1: but that's not Emma Blunt. Emma Stone, Emma Stone. Emily
Speaker 1: Blunt was in Cicaro, right, Yes, and then Amy Adams
Speaker 1: was in a Arrival. Yes, Yes, she'd probably be pretty
Speaker 1: good at it too, But I still go with Jennifer Lawrence.
Speaker 1: Sounds like my dad. I feel like your dad right now? Hey, Well,
Speaker 1: at any rate, listen this episode? Shall we Yes? If
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with us, you can
Speaker 1: tweet to us at s Y s K podcast or
Speaker 1: Josh onm Clark. You can hang out with us on
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