WEBVTT - Kirk Allen and the Cooperative Illusion 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:13.280 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from HowStuffWorks dot com. Hey, 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:15.200 welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:17.840 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And Robert, I have 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:21.479 some very exciting news for you. Did you know that 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:24.560 at this very moment in the studio with us is 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:29.200 a minotaur that breathes rad on gas. Oh well, uh, 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:33.559 I'm gonna have to call your bluff on that one, Joe, 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:35.839 because I do not see a single minotaur in this 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:39.080 recording studio. No bluff, I speak the truth. There is 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:43.080 a minotaur in here. Now you can't see it because 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:46.400 it is invisible to the mall. But there is a 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:49.159 raid on gas breathing minotaur and he's right behind you. 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:51.400 Oh well, so all I need to do is bring 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:55.320 in say radon gas detector and then we can confirm 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:59.280 the existence of this fantastic beast. Well, unfortunately that that 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:02.200 would be a good id. But the rate on gas 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:05.199 that this minataar breathes out is not detectable by normal 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:08.920 chemical equipment. It's it's a different kind of chemical. It's 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:12.000 not it's not a physical chemical. Okay, Well, in that case, 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:14.440 let's bring in some sort of infrared camera, so we 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:17.160 can we can see this creature. Well, a funny thing 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:20.200 about this invisible mintaur is that its body is completely 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:23.000 consistent with the ambient room temperature, so it emits no 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:25.959 infrared radiation at all. Okay, well, let me get some 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:28.280 spray paint and we can sort of coat the general 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:30.400 part of the room that it is in. Then we'll 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:32.400 see its physical body. No, no, no, no no, you are 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:38.759 imposing an unfair materialistic bias on my minotaur. This minotaur 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:41.360 doesn't need to have paint stick to it. It has 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:43.399 a different kind of body. It has a kind of 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:46.920 ethereal body that paint goes right through. I'm beginning to 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:50.840 think that this minotaur has the magical ability to conveniently 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:54.280 weasel out of any practical experiment that I can devise. 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:57.920 Thou shalt not test the Lord thy Minotaur. No, no, 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:00.560 no, no no, actually I can. I can prove it to you. Okay, 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:03.440 I have a friend, you know, my friend Jeffrey. Have 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.120 you met Jeffrey? Is this another imaginary friend? No? No, no no, 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.560 Jeffrey's real. Jeffrey's got a buddy who met a guy 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:12.959 in Florida who saw the minotar and the minotar bit 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:15.320 him on the shoulder. Oh, so you're bringing Florida man 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:18.040 into this, but it bit him like you can even 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:19.960 I've seen the marks on his shoulder. I saw a 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:22.799 picture of them. I got it in an email forward. Well, 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:25.880 clearly the most likely explanation for these bite marks is 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:30.200 an imaginative beast. Thank you for finally acknowledging this, Robert, 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:32.520 Thank you. Now, I've been trying to get people on 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:34.680 board with my minotaur for a while, and it seems 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:37.120 like like people just don't want to go along with me. 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:39.840 But occasionally you meet the right kind of person, the 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:42.240 person who's willing to go the extra mile with you 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:45.839 and say, yes, I'll follow you down that minatar road. 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:48.760 Let's talk to you about your minotaur. Let's maybe we 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:51.800 can spin it off into a podcast or a multi 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:55.120 series TV show. Now, if you have already read the 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:58.640 books we recommended in our summer reading episodes this year, 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:01.079 you will be recognized what we just talked about is 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:03.800 quite similar to a chapter in the non fiction book 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:07.360 that Robert recommended this summer, which was The Demon Haunted 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:10.200 World Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan. 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:12.880 This was a nineteen ninety five book, and as I 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:15.639 discussed in that episode, it still speaks to us today. 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:18.400 There is most of it is not dated at all, 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:22.440 but there is this chapter where he begins by describing 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:24.800 a scenario where he's bringing somebody in and like our 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:27.480 minotaur saying, oh, well, there's a dragon in this garage. 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:32.000 And when tests are proposed to examine the possible existence 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:36.440 of this dragon, the same sort of excuses are made. Right, Well, 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:38.280 maybe we can put some flour on the floor and 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:40.320 see if it leaves tracks when it walks around. Oh 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:43.600 no, no no, no, this dragon levitates. Oh maybe we can 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:45.840 check to see if it breathes fire with thermal detectors 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:48.160 like you suggested, Robert, Well, no, no, no, the fire 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:52.200 it breathes as cold fire. And so Sagan in this chapter, 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:58.200 I think it presents a very clean, clear, positive vision 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:01.520 of what the skeptical minds mindset should be. And you 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:03.440 know I've said on the show before that I think 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:09.000 sometimes I have mixed feelings sometimes about like the skeptic identity, 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:12.240 because like I think it's a good thing to be skeptical, 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:13.840 and it's a good thing to be a skeptic, but 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:17.840 sometimes I see it becoming a community on the Internet 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:20.280 that seems to sometimes pat itself on the back a 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:23.480 little bit too much. Yeah, it becomes I think the 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:25.520 way I've discussed before, it's kind of like this party 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:29.680 pooper mentality, you know, whereas ultimately what Sagan proposes this 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:32.480 chapter is kind of it's more like, Oh, this dragon 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:36.440 sounds amazing, let me help you prove it. Let me 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:40.560 help you look at the actual evidence for this. Now, 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:43.320 unfortunately we do have to arrive at the conclusion that 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:45.479 there probably is not a dragon in the garage, and 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:47.880 there probably is not a rat on breathing minotaur in 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:51.440 the studio with us. And one of the lessons that 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:55.640 Segan draws from this is to be wary about claims 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:58.800 that seem to be extremely elastic, where there's always a 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:01.720 new excuse or why this one reason you want to 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:05.200 help investigate the claim wouldn't actually work. This often comes 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:09.680 up in say, investigations of psychic phenomena, where people will say, no, 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:12.640 I'm really a psychic, Yeah, I really do have dowsing 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:16.080 powers or something like that. So you try to set up, well, okay, 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:18.240 let's do a test. Let's do a controlled test to 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:20.400 see if you really can find water, and they're like, 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:22.880 oh no, no no, no, I can't do it right now 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:26.279 because there's static electricity in the air. No matter what, 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:29.720 there's always some excuse for why this test, in particular 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:33.080 this day doesn't work. But in today's episode, we wanted 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:36.080 to get to a particular story that Carl Sagan tells 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:39.599 in this chapter of The demon Haunted World. That is 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:43.839 a really fascinating development on this scenario where normally you'd 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:48.160 have a person who's presenting something that's probably not evidence based, 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:51.480 and then you've got an interlocutor who, in our original 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:54.800 example is somebody who's skeptical who's pushing back. But what 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:59.440 happens when say, social forces or biases or beliefs begin 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:02.600 to work on the interlock hut or too well? Yeah? 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:04.880 For instance, what if you had been sorry, Joe, But 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:07.480 what if you had been really convincing about that minute 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:10.120 tar you know, what if you were just so passionate 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:12.480 about it, give me another chance, like a try harder 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:14.040 where I will you know, maybe I started off just 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:16.840 kind of humoring you, and then I'm find myself actually 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:20.080 believing that it's here. Well, Sagan tells a story very 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:25.839 much like this, and it concerns author and psychoanalyst Robert Lindner, 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:28.640 who is called in by Los Alamos National Laboratory to 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:32.479 treat a gifted nuclear physicist referred to by the pseudonym 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:37.200 Kirk Allen. Now, this story is as it is presented 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:41.520 by Lindner himself, right, So he is obviously changing some 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:44.719 details to protect the identity of his patient, and so 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:48.200 it's not verifiable which elements of the story are fictionalized, right, 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:52.400 But he presents this as a sort of fictionalized version 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:55.680 of a true clinical encounter he had. Right. It's also 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:58.279 worth noting that most of the individuals in this story, 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:02.640 perhaps all of the individuals are now segan sadly passed away. 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:06.640 Linder lived nineteen fourteen through nineteen fifty six, and some 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:10.560 of the individuals that were later presumed to be or 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:14.880 suspected to possibly be Kirk Allen have also passed. So 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:17.960 there's not a lot of new information out there about 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:21.240 who who was actually being referred to, and to what 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:26.080 degree things were fictionalized to protect the individual's identity, and 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:29.480 also what could potentially have been tweaked just to make 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:33.640 a better story. Because Lindner wrote about this in his 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:36.840 book The Fifty Minute Hour, which is published in nineteen 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:39.400 fifty four, and also in a couple of articles for 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:42.760 Harper's Magazine. Both of those articles, Part one and Part 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:46.080 two Part two are available online right now. Are those 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:48.920 the ones called the Jet Propelled Couch? Yes, the jet 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:52.080 Propelled Couch, which is a fabulous, fabulous title. We'll try 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:55.160 to have links to those articles on the landing page 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:57.840 for this episode. It's stuffed toblermind dot com. Now, Robert, 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:01.280 I was unfamiliar with the story of Kirk Allen before 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:04.200 you suggested this topic for an episode, and I am 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:08.080 so glad you did, because this is really really interesting stuff. 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:10.560 I had never come across this story before it all, 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:13.960 and it really got my gears turning. Indeed, I was 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:18.200 not familiar with it until I read The Demon Haunted World. 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:21.000 Though this story has been around for a while obviously, 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:23.280 so I imagine some of you out there have heard 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:26.160 about it, so hopefully you'll enjoy revisiting it with us today. 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:29.920 So one thing we should probably point out is who 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:34.560 is Robert Lindner. Again, he was a practitioner of psychoanalysis, right, 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:39.559 which is somewhat controversial. Indeed, now he actually has some 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:43.720 pretty impressive things on his resume. Though. He wrote Rebel 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:47.400 without a Cause, The hypno Analysis of a Criminal Psychopath, 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:49.880 which is published in nineteen forty four, and it's the 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:52.760 book that inspired the title, and I should say the 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:56.000 title alone of the famous nineteen fifty five film starring 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:59.240 James Dean, not the story, not the story, just the title, 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:01.720 because there's a in the book where he says, quote, 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:04.920 the psychopath is a rebel without a cause, an agitator 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:08.480 without a slogan, a revolutionary without a program. You're harsh 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.920 and my buzz man. And he seems to have made 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:18.000 some legitimate contributions to understandings of gambling psychology, and Rebel 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:22.720 is also well regarded. It seems as just an early 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:26.600 work of psychoanalysis. He had an m A and a 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:30.120 PhD in psychology from Cornell. He served as chief psychologist 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:33.520 at a US penitentiary in Lewisbourg, Pennsylvania, and he later 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:37.280 operated a private practice in Baltimore, and through Rebel and 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:43.679 other works, he helped expand popular understanding and perceptions of psychoanalysis. Now, 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:45.840 obviously there are lots of reasons people have for being 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:51.240 skeptical of the psychoanalysis tradition in therapy. But he at 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:54.640 least was a person who had real legitimate clinical practice 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:57.400 with all these experiences, and we can learn from the 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:00.720 experiences even if you don't necessarily say, agree with his 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:05.360 framework for how to treat people. Correct. Now, this brings 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:09.680 us to Alan kirk Allen, again a pseudonym. Based on 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:13.719 Linder's writing, we can say Alan was something of a 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:17.040 science fiction fan a little bit. Yeah. He enjoyed a 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:20.240 rich in her world that was just full of spacefaring adventure, 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:23.680 and he was especially a fan of a specific sci 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:27.720 fi book series in which the main character shared his name, 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:32.559 according to Lindner. So you know, we'll get into how 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:36.280 some people have interpreted this, But obviously there are a 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:40.680 few different, very notable science fiction heroes from literature of 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:43.800 the time that that you know, John Carter is often 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:49.000 brought up as a possibility, but at any rate, he had. 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:52.120 He has an obsession, and this obsession seems to eventually 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:57.240 cross over into delusion or near delusion, with Alan believing 0:10:57.280 --> 0:11:00.280 that he actually pilots a spaceship in the future and 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:02.560 that he's a lord of many worlds, and then he 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:05.160 can think about it in just the right way and 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:11.080 transport himself centuries into the future. Reportedly, Alan was fairly balanced. 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:14.880 He had a reasonable work life imagination balance, but his 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:19.040 employers eventually became concerned that he was growing too distracted 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:23.559 and dreamy. He was writing about everything some He apparently 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:26.240 wrote some twelve thousand words on every aspect of this 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:31.559 future world of his so history, genealogy, biology, etc. Sagan 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:34.400 points out that one of these volumes had the title 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:37.960 the Application of Unified Field Theory in the Mechanics of 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:43.120 the Star Drive to Space Travel, which he says actually 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:47.559 sounded fairly interesting. Given this idea that Allan's alleged background 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:51.040 is insist is physics and he's a gifted physicist, it 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:54.440 would be interesting to see what sort of sci fi 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:59.760 propulsion system an obsessed physicist came up with. That is interesting. 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:02.640 But if that's the way we actually discover some sort 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:05.800 of warp drive is in the science fiction works of 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:08.960 a day dreaming nuclear physicist, well, you know, it's always 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:12.400 important to note the importance of sci fi in the 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:16.280 inspiration of actual scientists. I mean, you look, for instance, 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:19.520 just at some of the notable rocket scientists of the 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:24.560 twentieth century, and so many of them were especially as children, 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:27.600 just very in young people, you know, very inspired by 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:29.640 the sci fi of the time, and I think that 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:33.880 has continued to hold up with the scientists today. Absolutely. 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:36.840 But okay, so we've set this up where Kirk Allen, 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:40.440 this pseudonym for this physicist. He's doing his work, but 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:44.880 he's spending a lot of time daydreaming about this other 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:48.920 world and apparently is somehow convinced that it's to some 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:51.719 extent real and he can actually go there. He can 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:54.680 travel through time into the future and be a space lord, 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:58.200 flying from planet to planet and having adventures in the cosmos. Right, 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:00.560 So it reaches some sort of a tipping point and 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:03.360 his employers say, hey, you should go talk to somebody 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:05.480 about this. Why don't you talk to our friend Robert 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:09.360 here and and he will, you know, he'll work this 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:13.400 out with you. So that's pretty much what happened. Lynner 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:17.080 engages with Alan, talks to him at length about his 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:21.400 imagined world, and he realizes quote, in order to separate 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:24.480 Kirk from his madness, it was necessary for me to 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:28.160 enter his fantasy and from that position to pry him 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:31.520 loose from the psychosis. This sounds like a bad road, 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:34.360 I feel like, I feel like the guy in pet cemetery. 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:38.319 You don't want to go down that road. Yeah, he's said, 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:40.839 let me, let me go out on the ledge, let 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:43.320 me go walk into the flaming house. I don't know 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:46.360 where we were going at. We're discussing it, knowing what's 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:49.040 about to happen. Though, Well, I guess on the other hand, 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:51.240 we should be humble. I mean, this guy had clinical 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:57.520 experience and we don't exactly yes, but in retrospect it 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.960 ended up being perhaps a question will move because what 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:05.000 happened next is that, in discussions about Kirk's rich imagined 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:10.760 delusion became something more. He became, in Sagan's words quote 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:16.079 the psychoanalyst became a co conspirator in his patient's delusion. Yeah. 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.800 He describes, or Lindner describes how he would go through 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:23.680 all of these materials that kirk Allen provided for him, 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:26.520 and he would like get into the world and he 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:30.800 would start trying to find internal inconsistencies with like the 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:34.600 treatises that kirk Allen was writing about these space civilizations 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:36.760 and all that, and try to help him work out 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:41.120 the inconsistencies, and that this eventually led to him sort 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:44.120 of getting into that mindset of like, wait a minute, 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:46.480 how do I know this isn't true? How do you 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:50.320 know that somebody else isn't mentally traveling into the future 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:53.000 and becoming a space lord? That's right in the jet 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:58.200 propelled couch, Lindner writes, quote, the materials of Kirk's psychosis 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:01.960 and the Achilles heel of my personality met and meshed 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:05.880 like the gears of a clock. Quote. The transformation of 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:10.200 fascination into psychic distress alarmed me sufficiently to make me 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:13.600 take the necessary steps for extracting myself from my predicament. 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:17.680 It acted first as a spur to self analysis. Gradually, 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:20.240 by the use of this accustomed tool, I was able 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:23.440 to allay the more acute symptoms and to initiate those 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:27.320 insightful processes that lead to recovery. But before I had 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:30.440 completed this task, an amazing event occurred which, in the 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:33.480 space of one hour, not only broke what remained of 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:38.160 my spell, but marked the successful conclusion of Kirk's treatment. Well, 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:41.800 what broke the spell? So basically what's happening is that 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:45.160 that Allan is just sucking him into this world. Lindner 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:48.120 is falling into this delusion. According to Lindner. This is 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:52.880 Lenner's home take on the scenario. And then finally, Allan 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:55.680 just comes up to him and says, I'm sorry, it's 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:58.720 all fiction. I made it up. Stop believing in all 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:02.760 of this, because id it? So he's he admits that 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:06.320 I don't actually believe I travel into the future and 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:09.480 I'm a space lord and all that. I'm just daydreaming. 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:12.640 I'm just making up stories. Right. The patient ends up 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:15.120 being the one to say, I think this is because of, 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:17.920 you know, my loneliness as a child and my difficulties 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:20.680 with women. He broke the spell of his own purported 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:24.480 delusion in order to save his psychoanalyst, or at least 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:27.560 that's how Lindner framed it in his writings. Right, I 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:29.840 guess all we have is Lindner's story to go on, 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:32.600 so we don't know, but it I mean, assuming this 0:16:32.760 --> 0:16:36.480 is true, that's a heck of a story. Yeah, And that's, 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:38.400 of course one of the things about anything that is 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:40.440 a heck of a story. We also have to engage 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:43.520 a certain amount of skepticism. To what extent did one 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:47.560 perhaps tweak the truth to make it a better story. 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:51.160 That remains an open and unanswered question. Well, it does 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:55.960 make me think about how so the pillars supporting a 0:16:56.040 --> 0:17:01.080 propositional belief like Kirk can travel into the future and 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:03.360 be a space lord and all that, and he goes 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:07.439 to all these galactic civilizations. The pillars supporting a belief 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:11.080 like that are not just the contents of the belief 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:14.560 itself and the evidence for it, but it's also social, right. 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:18.400 I mean, we believe all kinds of things for essentially 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:23.480 social reasons, because, like, it would be really socially problematic 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:26.680 to be skeptical in some scenarios, right, Like, you may 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:30.199 have plenty of scenarios where somebody you love tells you 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:33.840 something that you don't think is likely true, but you 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:37.400 kind of believe them because of your relationship with them, right, Right, 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:40.159 And sometimes, especially if emotions are heightened, you kind of 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:43.119 have to play along. Right. If you're at someone else's 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:46.479 funeral and someone tells the bereaved everything happens for a reason, 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:48.800 you know, it's not my place to come in and 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:52.439 start dismantling that nonsense, you know, Right, I'm more inclined 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:55.080 to just simply nod and you know, pretend I didn't 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:58.080 hear it, right, I mean, yeah, the relationship sort of 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:00.600 govern what gets said. And also we know that leaving 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:03.679 is not always such a I don't know, such a 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:08.440 clear transactional process, like like Sagan depicts in his chapter 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:10.680 where he's like, well, somebody comes to you and says 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:13.479 I've got a dragon in my garage, and you know, 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:15.480 you get to have this dialogue with them. Well, do 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:18.000 you really what if somebody comes to you and says 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:20.760 I have a dragon in my garage. But there's somebody 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:23.840 in your family and it's somebody you care about, you 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:27.679 don't really believe them. But also you've had this conversation before, 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:30.639 and trying to argue with them is really difficult, and 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:32.639 so you just kind of go along with it for 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:35.199 a bit. And then by going along with it you 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:37.240 start to kind of wear down your own defenses and 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:39.200 you're like, well, how would I know if they didn't 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:41.680 have a dragon? Yeah, I mean one of the things 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:45.520 Sagan ends up comparing it to is is a magic trick. Yeah. 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:48.280 You know, when you have a magic trick, you have 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:50.800 two sides. You have the magician, you have the audience, 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:53.720 and there is a contract between the two. It takes 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:56.240 both for that magic trick to happen and there's this. 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:58.880 You know, obviously there's a with the magic trick, there's 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:03.200 a suspicion of disbelief, but there is this relationship that's 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:06.800 going on, and in this relationship between Alan and Lindner, 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:10.560 we see what can happen when the energy kind of shifts. 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:14.879 According to to Linder himself, and when Linder asked him 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:18.479 why he kept going on with it, Alan replied, quote, 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:21.359 because I felt I had to, because I felt you 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:23.480 wanted me to. That's got to be a hard blow 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:25.560 to a therapist. Well, I mean he got part of 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:28.119 a book in two Harper's Magazine articles out of it, 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:30.320 so you know, it made for a great story. Like 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:32.520 we said, I mean, this certainly makes me think about 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:35.600 what we've covered when we talked about the Satanic panic 0:19:35.680 --> 0:19:39.879 before the idea that children were often coming up with 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:42.920 children or even adults were coming up with elaborate stories 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:48.080 of Satanic ritual abuse, basically in sessions where it seemed 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:50.920 like in retrospect, they were being led by the people 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:53.240 who were talking to them. You know, there was sort 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:57.080 of a meme among some police investigators and some therapists 0:19:57.560 --> 0:19:59.800 that this kind of stuff was going on, and so 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:02.560 they were they were almost encouraging people to hit the 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:05.160 hit the tropes over and over again. And was there 0:20:05.160 --> 0:20:07.600 a pentagram on the floor. You know, Well, it reminds 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:13.560 me of Walter Stevens's book Demon Lovers about witchcraft persecution. Yeah, 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:18.320 and he pointed out was quoting some particular individual or 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:21.600 another who pointed out that that the the story that 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:26.520 was extracted from suspect suspected witches were always the same 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:30.560 because there was a particular story they wanted to extract. Yeah, 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:33.639 you can't. You can't imagine that all of these suspected 0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:36.960 witches came up with the same story. Yeah, it had 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:39.800 to be there in the people who were extracting it, right, right, 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:41.080 and they and it had to be a story that 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:46.200 fit existing motifs and and sort of supported existing arguments. Now, 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:50.119 I guess that's not exactly analogous to hear because Alan 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.120 had his own mythology. But it seems like Lindner once 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:55.840 he got into it, as saying he was coaxing it. 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:58.560 He was asking, you know, keep it coming. All right. Well, 0:20:58.560 --> 0:20:59.960 on that note, we're going to take a quick break. 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:02.880 Can we come back. We'll discuss some ideas about who 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:09.000 Kirk Allen might have actually been all right, we're back, 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:12.720 all right, So Robert, you've got some theories to present 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:15.080 on who Kirk Allen might have been. I assume it 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:19.600 was not William Shatner. No, I think the shad is 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:22.360 in the clear on this one. But yeah, so we've 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:26.880 had a few suspects pop up over the decades since 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:31.040 this case first came up. What were the possibly fictionalized, 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:34.960 possibly true clues that Lindner gave that he had the 0:21:34.960 --> 0:21:37.960 same name as the hero of a science fiction story, right, 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:40.359 so we have that to go on. And of course 0:21:40.440 --> 0:21:44.040 Lynner said that he was a nuclear physicist, which some 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:46.640 theories like stick to that and say, all right, let's 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:49.359 look for a physicist. Others say, well, that could be 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:53.160 the fictionalized element. Let's look for other individuals who say, 0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:55.600 may have worked somewhere where they had a particularly high 0:21:55.800 --> 0:21:59.680 security clearance or in other or were engaged in something 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:03.480 simil but not identical to the work described in the 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:06.320 jet propelled couch. I wonder if it was the pivotal 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:11.040 Manhattan Project researcher Flash Gordon's. Well, see, that's the kind 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:13.720 of thing that would be a red flag. Of course, 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:16.480 the other aspect being the idea that kirk Allen wrote 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:19.240 a lot, and therefore it makes sense to look at 0:22:19.280 --> 0:22:23.479 writers individuals who were highly published in sci fi of 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:25.720 the time. And so for this reason, one of the 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:28.320 key candidates that's been brought up over the years was 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:31.399 a man by the name of Paul Line Barger aka 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:35.720