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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Seger,

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Speaker 1: and today we are revisiting one of our favorite, maybe

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Speaker 1: not favorite topics, demons. Yeah, this is what's what's funny

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Speaker 1: about this is, I remember when when you and I

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Speaker 1: first started recording together, we at some point said, oh,

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Speaker 1: we should do an episode on demons. And I even

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Speaker 1: have some like preliminary notes that I ran across yesterday

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Speaker 1: for a demon's episode. Yeah, and I think early on

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Speaker 1: we kind of decided, oh, there's not we can't really

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Speaker 1: do just a demon episode, and it for a while

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Speaker 1: we kind of didn't discuss demons. But then recently we've

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Speaker 1: had a couple of episodes. We did the Exorcism episode

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Speaker 1: Exorcism Addorcism and uh, and here we are talking about

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Speaker 1: demons again, proving that yes, there is plenty to talk

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Speaker 1: about um in terms of science and the human psychology

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Speaker 1: and demons. So we kind of proved ourselves wrong in

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Speaker 1: that one. Yeah, exactly. Well, today's episode is primarily based

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Speaker 1: on a new study that we got our hands on,

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Speaker 1: and we want to go through it because it's a

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Speaker 1: really interesting look at how the belief in demons, despite

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Speaker 1: whatever religion you participate in, the belief in demons may

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Speaker 1: possibly contribute to negative mental health effects. Uh. And that

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Speaker 1: is especially interesting give it in light of like things

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Speaker 1: that we've talked about related demonology before Exorcism. Obviously we

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Speaker 1: talked about mental health in that episode, but we've also

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Speaker 1: talked about satanic panic on the show. I think one

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Speaker 1: of the first episodes I did before I was even

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Speaker 1: a host on this show, we did Grimoires. Is that right,

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Speaker 1: talk a little bit about this satanic panic before you that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Grimoires was one of the first ones I did. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So we've covered a lot of territory with this. If

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Speaker 1: you haven't listened to those episodes, I recommend going back.

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Speaker 1: But oh yeah, John d Yeah, yeah, I guess he

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Speaker 1: was technically trying to talk to Holy angels. But that's true.

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Speaker 1: But a lot of the same texts do get referenced

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Speaker 1: in between a lot of these things. Uh. And this

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Speaker 1: is very much grounded in present day, although we will

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Speaker 1: occasionally refer to some you know, demonic concepts from the past, right. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And one of the things that I think is especially

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Speaker 1: drawing me to this topic over and over again. And

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Speaker 1: I've mentioned this on the show before, is that I

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Speaker 1: am working on a comic book series is actually about

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Speaker 1: like the occult and exorcism and demonology. So I'm kind

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Speaker 1: of constantly have out of the corner of my eye,

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Speaker 1: I'm looking out for new information surrounding these topics. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean same here. I'm I've always been fascinated by

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Speaker 1: demons and um, I have a few different writing projects

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Speaker 1: that have involved them over the years. And uh and

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Speaker 1: and just I think our personal history cost of this too.

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Speaker 1: We talked about on the on the show before about

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Speaker 1: your experience with snow blindness and a supernatural interpretation of

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Speaker 1: that sort of ye, and then my own experience. It's

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Speaker 1: growing up in the first Baptist Church and especially during

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Speaker 1: high school, they're being some friends who were carrying out

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Speaker 1: quote unquote exorcisms, and there were tales about demons, uh

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Speaker 1: and at work in the world around us. We go

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Speaker 1: in depth into those stories, into the exorcism addercism episode,

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Speaker 1: and that's not that old, so I kind of feel

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Speaker 1: like we we shouldn't repeat them here. So if you're

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Speaker 1: you know, they're not necessary to understand this episode, but

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Speaker 1: we might refer back to them occasionally just as our

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Speaker 1: subjective experience, because I think that that is definitely going

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Speaker 1: to be how we uh what lens we look at

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Speaker 1: this study through, because this study is pretty fascinating. Now,

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Speaker 1: as far as specific demons go, we've we've again, we've

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Speaker 1: talked about demons here on the show. We often dip

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Speaker 1: our toes into the waters of mythology and folklore and

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Speaker 1: discuss a few, uh on the podcast. On the blogs,

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Speaker 1: we discussed just some of the following demons, the wind

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Speaker 1: to Go, the Wutong Shin, fox fear, It's Google's gin

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Speaker 1: Incubi Succubi, uh, you are Raju, Lucifer bahamat Uh. We figured, hey,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna look at this study, let's just roll out

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Speaker 1: a couple of additional demons, sort of podcast versions of

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Speaker 1: demon trading cards almost that you can you can you

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Speaker 1: can appreciate with this before we dive into the study.

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Speaker 1: And Robert's too humble to mention this, but I will

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Speaker 1: mention that most of those that you just mentioned have

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Speaker 1: Monster of the Week entries over on our site Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com. So if you want

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Speaker 1: to learn a little bit more about those things are

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Speaker 1: just dive down the monster rabbit hole that Robert's created

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Speaker 1: on the site. Go ahead over there. So all right,

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Speaker 1: So the one that I picked is actually the one

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Speaker 1: that I've been researching the most for that project that

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Speaker 1: I'm working on. Uh. And this comes from the Lesser

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Speaker 1: Key of Solomon, And there's a so we've we talked

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Speaker 1: about this in the Grimoire episode. Lesser Key of Solomon

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Speaker 1: is a book supposedly containing a sort of occult knowledge

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Speaker 1: passed on by King Solomon. But first section is the

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Speaker 1: rs Gisha. I think that's how it's pronounced, but I'm

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Speaker 1: not a hundred percent sure. It's it's old timey, old

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Speaker 1: timey Grimoire talk. But anyways, so basically that first section is, uh,

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Speaker 1: this it just contains descriptions of seventy two demons that

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Speaker 1: Solomon was said to have evoked. He used like a

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Speaker 1: religious magic to summon them, and then he confined them

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Speaker 1: into a bronze vessel, and then he sealed that with

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Speaker 1: magical symbols. Uh, and then he basically made these demons

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Speaker 1: work for him. So this is a you know, I guess,

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Speaker 1: a bit of mysticism that takes the Bible stories from

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Speaker 1: the Bible and transmutes them. So my favorite and the

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Speaker 1: one that I'm really focused on for this project I'm

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Speaker 1: working on, is a demon known as Zagan and he

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Speaker 1: has the rank of king and president. Uh So, there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of various ranks in terms of like what

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Speaker 1: how they fit into a hierarchy with one another, all

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Speaker 1: these seventy two demons of Solomon's uh in king and

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Speaker 1: President is pretty much like the highest one. Uh So,

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Speaker 1: zagain is uh he and we we were talking about

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Speaker 1: this beforehand, like they all have various legions, but they're

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Speaker 1: more powerful than one another based on what the number

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Speaker 1: of legions that they command are. And their legions are

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Speaker 1: like lesser demons. Yeah, and this makes me think, surely

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Speaker 1: somebody may have already done this, but this would make

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Speaker 1: the Demons of the Gramore's perfect for trading cars, especially

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Speaker 1: since you have all those fabulous woodcut illustrations of them. Yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: the there's the wood cut illustrations from I think somebody

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Speaker 1: did them after the Lesser Key of Solomon was originally created.

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Speaker 1: But then there's also all of the seals that are

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Speaker 1: in the Lesser Key of Solomon that like show the

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Speaker 1: various like inscriptions that you're supposed to use in order

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Speaker 1: to seal these particular demons up in this brass canister. Wow,

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Speaker 1: I can I can picture it right now? Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: then and then down there bottom. How many legions do

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Speaker 1: they have? Look on the car, Well, Zagan has thirty

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Speaker 1: three legions. These are also his superpowers. Are you ready?

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Speaker 1: He can make men witty. He can turn wine into

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Speaker 1: water and water into wine, so he's a little Jesus

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Speaker 1: ey there. But he can also turn blood into wine.

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Speaker 1: So imagine this like he can turn your blood and

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Speaker 1: your body into wine. That would hurt and probably kill

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Speaker 1: you too. That would definitely, I mean, if it's a

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Speaker 1: demon doing I don't know. There's so many additional magical

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Speaker 1: questions come into play there, like does that mean that

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Speaker 1: my body is like a wine based circultory system now exactly? Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: His other powers are that he can turn metals, any

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Speaker 1: metal into a coin that are made of that metal. Right, So,

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Speaker 1: if there's like gold or he can turn it into

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Speaker 1: gold coins. He's just like, uh, this like magical coin

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Speaker 1: making process. Uh. And then the last thing about is

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Speaker 1: again that I think is pretty interesting, is he takes

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Speaker 1: the form of a griffin winged bull, but then he

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Speaker 1: like eventually turns into a man. So there's like various

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Speaker 1: interpretations of him where he sort of looks like a

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Speaker 1: minotaur with wings. Oh yes, yes, I think I've seen

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Speaker 1: these before. Yeah, so that's again. I've got some text

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Speaker 1: here from the the actual book itself. It's pretty difficult

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Speaker 1: to read because it's, like I said, it's in that

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Speaker 1: old timy kind of writing where it says like the

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Speaker 1: sixty first spirit is called zagain he is a great

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Speaker 1: king and president and appearith in first ye form of

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Speaker 1: bull with griffin wings, you know, stuff like that. Um,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, it's basically all the things that I mentioned earlier.

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Speaker 1: It's just a list of his superpowers. This is really

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Speaker 1: like like if you look at the Lesser Key of

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Speaker 1: Solomon with a bit of skepticism, it's it's like the

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Speaker 1: official handbook to the Marvel universe. Now what. The one

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Speaker 1: thing that's interesting about this particular demon, especially in terms

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Speaker 1: of where we're gonna be talking about today, is that

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Speaker 1: this seems to be very much a wizard demon right

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Speaker 1: in that there wasn't anything really negative there, unless you

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Speaker 1: count turning wine into water, like if that's the worst

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Speaker 1: case scenario or possibly the blood in your body that

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Speaker 1: same like the most dangerous one. Yeah, but for the

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Speaker 1: most part, it's this is a powerful entity that a

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Speaker 1: wizard would enter into a careful pact with and have,

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Speaker 1: if not control over, then at least a lot of

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Speaker 1: guidelines set in place. Yeah, Like I imagine like the

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Speaker 1: idea was sort of that, because keep in mind, there's

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Speaker 1: seventy one other demons like this, Like you would summon

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Speaker 1: one demon first that could create gold or from copper

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Speaker 1: or or something like that. Right, this is all alchemical.

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Speaker 1: It's very John d And then you're like, oh, but

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Speaker 1: I've got this gold or but I can't just spend it.

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Speaker 1: I can't just go to town and drop this, you know,

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Speaker 1: on the table at the local bar. I know, I'll

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Speaker 1: summons again and I'll keep him bound in the seal,

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Speaker 1: and then he'll turn these all into coins for me.

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Speaker 1: So being a wizard, a demonic wizard was was was

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Speaker 1: really kind of like being a project manager. Yeah, it's funny.

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Speaker 1: That is kind of how the lesser key of Solomon

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Speaker 1: portrays Solomon in a lot of cases. Yeah, Like at

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Speaker 1: least how he the way in which he used demons

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Speaker 1: and angels. You know, it's like a recipe book. I

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Speaker 1: like to imagine him doing like a big like a

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Speaker 1: Google meeting with all of these everybody's teleworking in from

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Speaker 1: whatever layers of the abyss they're occupying, and he's like,

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Speaker 1: all right, where are we on the progress a progress

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Speaker 1: for this project? Do we have the ore? When are

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Speaker 1: we When are we actually pressing these into coins and

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Speaker 1: moving on to step three? Step three is turning his

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Speaker 1: blood into a wine. So if this is an example

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Speaker 1: of a demon this very much under control, we certainly

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Speaker 1: have plenty of other demons that are out of control.

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Speaker 1: Like this is kind of the rich man's demon versus

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Speaker 1: the the everyman's demon. Well, I think yeah, it's worth

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Speaker 1: remembering too that like the Lesser Key of Solomon, wasn't

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Speaker 1: like a mass produced book, right, Like there were only

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Speaker 1: a few copies of this. We talked about this in

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Speaker 1: our grim Wire episode, and they were mainly owned by

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Speaker 1: a rich, learned gentleman. So for for my pick, I

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Speaker 1: figured I might entertain an Eastern demon for the second

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Speaker 1: selection here, and I'm gonna buck my recent trend of

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Speaker 1: focusing on Chinese or Indian myth and instead turned to

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Speaker 1: the island nation of Japan. Oh yeah, they've got some

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Speaker 1: really quoted in mythology. So the the Only is probably

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Speaker 1: the best known or one of the best known Japanese demons.

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Speaker 1: And you can you can split up split hairs over

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Speaker 1: the definition of demon or spirit or evil spirit, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: But I think for the most part the Only lines

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Speaker 1: up with the demonic definition, and I think it suits

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Speaker 1: our purposes here. Since is Carol Rose describes in her

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Speaker 1: book Spirits, furious lepricuns and goblins. You have two varieties

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Speaker 1: of owning. First there's the ghaki, which comes from Hell

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Speaker 1: and drags souls of the dying down to Hell. And

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Speaker 1: then there's also a terrestrial version of the owning that

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Speaker 1: shifts its shape, assumes human forms to torments specific individuals

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Speaker 1: and they made themselves. Be quote, the distorted souls of

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Speaker 1: women who have died of excessive grief is the ones

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Speaker 1: I know mostly from dungeons and dragons. Yeah, they're in

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Speaker 1: the Monster Manu. I have to say some of my

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Speaker 1: earliest encounters with the japan These monsters were in the

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Speaker 1: the Monster Manual supplement for what I can't remember the

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Speaker 1: name of their eastern uh so it orient it was

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Speaker 1: it was the orient for adventure it is now it

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Speaker 1: would now be offensive. I forget. I have the book though,

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Speaker 1: Yeah it was. It wasn't Kootoa, but it sounded something

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Speaker 1: like you had a caved in character. Ah, there we go. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I remember just being fascinated by the monsters in there,

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Speaker 1: and then later learning more about, you know, their actual

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Speaker 1: models in in myth and folklore and and the monster

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Speaker 1: Man did a pretty knock up job. I thought of

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Speaker 1: bringing these to life in the game system, but the

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Speaker 1: only was definitely in it. Now, these particular only the

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Speaker 1: terrestrial ones. They bring misfortune, They spread disease, especially plague,

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Speaker 1: and there's a ceremony the Shinto only yarrachi, and this

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Speaker 1: as well as conversion to Buddhism can drive the only out. Now,

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Speaker 1: this is in terms of possession, right, not in terms

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Speaker 1: of like if an ony, like if an one is

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Speaker 1: haunting your home or something like that, or is that

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Speaker 1: also my understanding? It is it's like haunting a home,

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Speaker 1: haunting a region, more or less plaguing an individual and

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Speaker 1: individual's household. Got it. Now? In the in the former example,

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Speaker 1: the Gacy, we see a vision of a demon that

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Speaker 1: partially embodies the fear of death but also seemingly increases it,

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Speaker 1: so you're gonna die, yes, but also like terrifying monster

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Speaker 1: is going to drag you to hell as it happens.

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Speaker 1: Surely there's got to be some some Japanese horror films

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Speaker 1: that have incorporated the one. I guess maybe we're just

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Speaker 1: not like super aware of them. Well, there are a

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Speaker 1: number of Japanese films that deal with the the with

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Speaker 1: the the The yo Kai you know, broadly categorizes these

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Speaker 1: different monstrous spirits, some more comical than others. Uh, there's

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Speaker 1: and I want I want to say there have been

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Speaker 1: a couple of black and white Japanese heart films, earlier

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Speaker 1: horror films that definitely explored this idea of an only

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Speaker 1: we gotta we gotta do a trailer Talk episode based

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Speaker 1: around stuff like that. Yeah, for those of you who

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Speaker 1: don't know, we do every Friday, well almost every Friday,

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Speaker 1: at eleven am Eastern Standard time, we do a trailer

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Speaker 1: Talk Facebook live episode where Robert, Joe and I talk

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Speaker 1: about the preceding weeks podcasts in relation to movie trailers,

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Speaker 1: basically monster movie trailers related to this. So I'm assuming

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Speaker 1: we will do something based on demonology in the coming

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Speaker 1: weeks for this one. Now, I want to also drive

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Speaker 1: drive home that terrestrial only that we mentioned there. That's

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Speaker 1: a firm Eastern example of a demon that spreads earthly

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Speaker 1: misfortune and can be driven away or defeated via religious practice. Okay,

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Speaker 1: that's important related to the study that we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about today. I know some of you are like, guys,

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Speaker 1: you've been talking about D and D and weird monsters

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Speaker 1: for ten minutes now where we'll get there. But but yeah,

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Speaker 1: as long as it's an evil supernatural power, it doesn't

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Speaker 1: necessarily have to be codified as a demon per se.

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Speaker 1: It applies to this study right Like another one real

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Speaker 1: quick from the Japanese traditions and from the Monster Manual

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Speaker 1: is of course the Kappa the cop about the sort

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Speaker 1: of monkey like turtle creature with a little intention in

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Speaker 1: the top of its head filled with this water that

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Speaker 1: gives it you power or is its life force, And

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Speaker 1: it's basically one of those demons and these existing and

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Speaker 1: just demons or evil spirits that exist in most folk traditions.

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Speaker 1: Hangs out around water, so it's associated with drownings and

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Speaker 1: misfortune related to swimming and being working around water, but

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Speaker 1: you can if you encounter one of these things, the

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Speaker 1: legend goes, you can defeat it by bowing to it

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Speaker 1: like a nice low bow. And then when the kappa

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Speaker 1: bowels to you, it will spill the water from its

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Speaker 1: head and lose its power. So it's kind of like

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Speaker 1: a golem, like the way that like if you wipe

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Speaker 1: the golems, uh, the inscription on the golems head off

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Speaker 1: of it like becomes inanimate again, like if the water

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Speaker 1: falls out, it just kind of dissipates. Yeah, and and

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Speaker 1: the thing I love about this is that essentially you

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Speaker 1: defeat the demon by the use of strict Japanese adequate,

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Speaker 1: which I'm gonna have to research this more a bit,

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Speaker 1: but I'm instantly drawn to that that idea of it.

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Speaker 1: You're not necessarily using religion here to defeat this demon,

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Speaker 1: but this demon may be defeated by proper etiquete. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Well it's a very proper demon, all right. So we've

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Speaker 1: rolled out a couple of demonic examples here. Uh, and

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Speaker 1: now it's uh, I think it's about time to move

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Speaker 1: on with the discussion of the study. Yeah, so the

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Speaker 1: paper in question here, it just came out in seventeen.

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Speaker 1: It's called Demonic Influence the Negative Mental Health Effects of

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Speaker 1: Belief in Demons, and it's by Fan Hoo, Ni Knee

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Speaker 1: and Daniel Vier Olson, and they both come out of

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Speaker 1: Purdue University's Department of Sociology. Real brief abstract here, but

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Speaker 1: we're going to really break down this paper. Uh. Their

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Speaker 1: research indicates that among young adults, belief in demons is

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Speaker 1: one of the strongest negative predictors of mental health. They

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Speaker 1: also found that belief in demons can lead to lowered

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Speaker 1: mental health. But they also are very clear and they

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Speaker 1: clarify lowered mental health itself does not necessarily lead to

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Speaker 1: a greater belief in demons. So if you're uh, if

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Speaker 1: you're depressed, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're more likely

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Speaker 1: to believe that demons exist. Right, and in this and

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Speaker 1: the time and time again in the study, they tackle

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Speaker 1: this idea, you know, because you might ask the question,

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Speaker 1: where you is it really possible that belief in demons

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Speaker 1: leads to ill mental health or is it just a

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Speaker 1: situation where someone who already is suffering from some sort

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Speaker 1: of mental health scenario, Uh, they are more likely to

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Speaker 1: believe in demons. They tackle that and there's a there's

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Speaker 1: actually a lot to this study, Like there's some interesting

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Speaker 1: sort of cognitive science to this study as well that

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Speaker 1: I think is really important. Um, you know, we are

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Speaker 1: obviously using the demon framework because it's attractive to us, right,

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Speaker 1: but I think that this has broader implications as well,

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Speaker 1: just for like mental health in general. Oh yeah, So

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Speaker 1: all right, you're probably saying, well, who believes in demons? Right? Who?

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Speaker 1: Who are these people that are affected? Maybe some of

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Speaker 1: you listening are those or and you're thinking, well, I

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Speaker 1: believe in demons, and I feel fine, you know, uh,

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Speaker 1: but here's some statistics for you. According to Baylor University,

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Speaker 1: they conducted a religion survey in two thousand seven, and

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Speaker 1: they found fifty four percent of the United States absolutely

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Speaker 1: believes that demons exists. That is a surprisingly high number

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Speaker 1: to me. I'm I'm very surprised by being over half

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Speaker 1: the population. Yeah, it's it's interesting to think that over

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Speaker 1: half the country believes that malicious extra dimensional creatures actually exists.

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Speaker 1: Though I'm sure there's gonna be some variety regarding to

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Speaker 1: what degree they're active in the world, or if it's

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Speaker 1: just a situation where oh well, I follow this religion,

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Speaker 1: be it Christianity or Islam, or or Buddhism any or Hinduism,

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Speaker 1: and you just kind of fall back on the idea

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Speaker 1: that while there are demons in the text, demons in

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Speaker 1: the belief system, and therefore I believe in them. I

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Speaker 1: think my assumption was, despite whatever religious beliefs you participate in,

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Speaker 1: that most people don't actually believe in supernatural evil. But

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Speaker 1: I guess I was wrong. Um, And I think that

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Speaker 1: that's really interesting, and especially you know, calling back to

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Speaker 1: my experience from when I was a kid and I

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Speaker 1: had snow blindness and I thought that a demon was

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Speaker 1: coming for me. Uh, you know, I guess like I'm

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Speaker 1: not alone. Apparently like this is a pretty common thing.

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Speaker 1: It's it's more common than it's not even going so

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Speaker 1: far as they said that an additional nineteen point five

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Speaker 1: percent of the population. On top of that, I think

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Speaker 1: that demons probably exist. So there's like a they basically

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Speaker 1: said not at all, maybe or absolutely, uh, And so

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Speaker 1: there's more people that think absolutely, and then there's more

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Speaker 1: people that think maybe. There's far less people that think

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Speaker 1: not at all. May be either kind of hedging their

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Speaker 1: pets there. I don't know, maybe I think it's also

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Speaker 1: really important to remember though, that historically the belief in

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Speaker 1: supernatural evil has evoked not only fear, but it's it's

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Speaker 1: been able to evoke death in some people. Right. You

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Speaker 1: think about people who were so concerned historically about having

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Speaker 1: curses placed on them that they had like a heart

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Speaker 1: attack or something like that. Right, Like, this has such

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Speaker 1: a strong foundation in our cultural contexts that you know,

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Speaker 1: I can see sort of why it permeates so thoroughly. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, because it goes back, it goes beyond the

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Speaker 1: sort of modern religions, that goes back into very folkloric beliefs.

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Speaker 1: Just the I just as humans are grasping with the

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Speaker 1: chaos of life and the unpredictability of life and then

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Speaker 1: trying to answer why it's happening. Uh, you can, It's

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Speaker 1: it's handy to fall back on explanations off, Well, there's

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Speaker 1: a malicious spirit at the lake, that's why this drowning occurred. Uh,

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Speaker 1: there is a where there's a demon in my mind,

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Speaker 1: and that's why I did this particular atrocity. You mentioned

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Speaker 1: disease earlier with your with your only example, I mean,

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Speaker 1: disease was blamed on demons and curses a lot. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, so it was. You know, that's why I

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Speaker 1: think that like the Handbook to the Marble Universe kind

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Speaker 1: of works here, right, because like demonology was sort of

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Speaker 1: the cultural way that we understood the unexplainable in the world.

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Speaker 1: Not that there's people now who are like, why why

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Speaker 1: it was there a tornado that struck down in my backyard?

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Speaker 1: It must have been thor right, like there nobody thinks that,

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Speaker 1: but there is that meticulous kind of record keeping of

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Speaker 1: of what's going on with these various mythological characters. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and so much of it does boil down to taking

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Speaker 1: a threat, often a kind of ambiguous threat, personifying it

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Speaker 1: as a creature monster, and then also having a system

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Speaker 1: to drive that monster away. So you're taking you're you're

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Speaker 1: taking a threat that is invisible and unpredictable, boiling it

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Speaker 1: down into something like a predatory animal essentially that is

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Speaker 1: predictable and defeatable and in a certain amount of solace,

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Speaker 1: I guess can come with that as well as a

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Speaker 1: great deal of anxiety, because you've now created a worldview

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Speaker 1: in which there are malicious, magical creatures out to get

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Speaker 1: and as we're gonna find out throughout this study. Having

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Speaker 1: such a belief triggers something in our brains that leads

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Speaker 1: us to further negative beliefs that impact us in in

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Speaker 1: not healthy ways. All right, well, on that note, let's

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Speaker 1: take a quick break, and when we come back, we're

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Speaker 1: gonna jump even more into the study here. All right,

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Speaker 1: we're back, alright, So let's set up this study. Okay,

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Speaker 1: you've got some notes here specifically about the you know,

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Speaker 1: the evaluation and the costs and benefits of being religious. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and these are these are examples of the the authors

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Speaker 1: of the main study here point out. So on the

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Speaker 1: opposite end of the perspective, you have the Bitter and Suite,

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Speaker 1: An Evaluation of the Costs and Benefits of Religiousness by

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Speaker 1: Kenneth I. Pargament in two thousand two. And this is

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Speaker 1: a paper that explored whether belief in a loving God

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Speaker 1: had a positive effect on mental health. And the author's

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Speaker 1: work implied just this. So the idea you know here

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Speaker 1: is pretty obvious. You you bring in this religious worldview

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Speaker 1: where you you believe that there is a loving God

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Speaker 1: looking after you, and that is going to lead to

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Speaker 1: just a more positive experience of reality. Yeah. So they

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Speaker 1: basically they have this literature review where they cite studies

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Speaker 1: other studies that have been done these this isn't the

428
00:23:36,280 --> 00:23:39,040
Speaker 1: first study that's looked at the positive and negative associations

429
00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:42,760
Speaker 1: with religious beliefs. The positive ones include the one that

430
00:23:42,840 --> 00:23:45,560
Speaker 1: Robert just mentioned about their being a loving God. But

431
00:23:45,640 --> 00:23:49,960
Speaker 1: then also people have positive mental associations with religion when

432
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:54,600
Speaker 1: they attend church, when they rate the importance of their

433
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:58,840
Speaker 1: religion in their life, when they pray, and if they

434
00:23:58,840 --> 00:24:01,680
Speaker 1: believe in an after lay. And then of course, relating

435
00:24:01,680 --> 00:24:04,920
Speaker 1: to the first one, you mentioned, a secure relationship with God.

436
00:24:05,040 --> 00:24:07,840
Speaker 1: So it's not enough to just believe that God exists,

437
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:10,960
Speaker 1: but that God you have a secure relationship with God

438
00:24:11,000 --> 00:24:13,680
Speaker 1: and God loves you. Yeah, because obviously there are plenty

439
00:24:13,680 --> 00:24:18,040
Speaker 1: of modes of belief in God where God is terrible, terrifying.

440
00:24:18,600 --> 00:24:21,040
Speaker 1: You don't have to look far to find that vision

441
00:24:21,119 --> 00:24:23,760
Speaker 1: of of the Almighty and and uh. And certainly there

442
00:24:23,800 --> 00:24:26,320
Speaker 1: have been a number of studies that have attributed negative

443
00:24:26,359 --> 00:24:30,399
Speaker 1: influence to self rate of rated importance of religion, particularly

444
00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:33,879
Speaker 1: as it revolves around belief in your own sinful nature

445
00:24:34,400 --> 00:24:37,040
Speaker 1: uh and other factors. Because even in the Christian tradition,

446
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:40,640
Speaker 1: you're gonna have different models of Christianity that lean more

447
00:24:40,680 --> 00:24:44,040
Speaker 1: heavily on the idea of avengeful God or loving God,

448
00:24:44,480 --> 00:24:48,040
Speaker 1: on the idea that you're you you're weighted down by

449
00:24:48,119 --> 00:24:51,800
Speaker 1: original sin, or you're free of original sin because you

450
00:24:52,119 --> 00:24:55,080
Speaker 1: decided to follow this particular religious path, etcetera. Yeah. One

451
00:24:55,119 --> 00:24:56,680
Speaker 1: of the other things that they found that I thought

452
00:24:56,720 --> 00:25:00,760
Speaker 1: was interesting is even though prayer has a positive association

453
00:25:00,840 --> 00:25:04,439
Speaker 1: to it, if you're worried about the frequency of which

454
00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:08,360
Speaker 1: in which you pray, like how much you pray per day,

455
00:25:08,400 --> 00:25:11,960
Speaker 1: that has a negative impact on people. Um. So, for instance,

456
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:15,520
Speaker 1: there could be an association between that and mental illness

457
00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:19,200
Speaker 1: because people who are already mentally ill might pray more

458
00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:22,359
Speaker 1: to cope with their difficulties. And there's other studies that

459
00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:25,240
Speaker 1: have found similar associations with beliefs in the punishing God

460
00:25:25,280 --> 00:25:29,280
Speaker 1: that you mentioned obviously, and not believing in an afterlife,

461
00:25:29,440 --> 00:25:32,639
Speaker 1: So that can cause undue stress as well. Yeah, because

462
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:35,000
Speaker 1: the belief in afterlife is often brought up as a

463
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:39,919
Speaker 1: positive one, right because it would arguably alleviate some of

464
00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:43,360
Speaker 1: the stress associated with death. You're like, oh, I'm gonna die,

465
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:45,480
Speaker 1: but hey, I'm gonna be with everybody in the afterlife,

466
00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:48,120
Speaker 1: it's gonna be happy and good. It's comforting to think that, right.

467
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:52,400
Speaker 1: This is like basic Maslow's hierarchy of needs stuff. Right,

468
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:56,800
Speaker 1: like that you're you're secure basically that you're safe and

469
00:25:56,880 --> 00:26:00,640
Speaker 1: the like the idea um that the these things are

470
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:03,440
Speaker 1: sort of forming a cultural I don't know, safety net

471
00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:07,959
Speaker 1: for you, right is comforting. Yeah, it's crazy how we

472
00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:10,479
Speaker 1: we we build the safety net though, and each of us,

473
00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:14,160
Speaker 1: to be clear, it kind of builds their own safety net. You.

474
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:16,919
Speaker 1: You may have the basic designs handed to you with

475
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:21,000
Speaker 1: varying degrees of detail by by your particular faith or

476
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 1: whoever your sort of faith leader is, officially or unofficially,

477
00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:28,399
Speaker 1: but you were you were designing the exact parameters of

478
00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:31,080
Speaker 1: it based on your your attention to the details that

479
00:26:31,119 --> 00:26:34,320
Speaker 1: were given. Yeah, so let's go back to this paper

480
00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:37,440
Speaker 1: in the negative association part. Yeah. So, as far as

481
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:42,240
Speaker 1: negative associations go, this ni Olton paper is the first,

482
00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:46,520
Speaker 1: apparently to make an argument for the negative associations of

483
00:26:46,600 --> 00:26:50,520
Speaker 1: demonic belief. So they're the first to really narrow in

484
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:52,879
Speaker 1: on demons alone and say, well, how does this how

485
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:57,439
Speaker 1: does this play into the positive and negative manifestations? And

486
00:26:57,480 --> 00:27:02,320
Speaker 1: so They employed a what's called structural equation modeling system

487
00:27:02,400 --> 00:27:05,600
Speaker 1: or s e M with panel data, and they used

488
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:08,120
Speaker 1: the National Study of Youth and Religion or the n

489
00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:10,639
Speaker 1: S y R. And they do this to to show

490
00:27:10,720 --> 00:27:13,960
Speaker 1: that a belief in demons leads to later changes or

491
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:17,520
Speaker 1: declines in mental health. Yeah. Uh, and we want to

492
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:20,679
Speaker 1: remind you too, they said they found no evidence to

493
00:27:20,720 --> 00:27:23,800
Speaker 1: support the idea that poor mental health leads to a

494
00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:27,760
Speaker 1: belief in demons. Right, so, uh, Demonic belief, though, is

495
00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:32,000
Speaker 1: a predictor of future mental health issues. But that doesn't

496
00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:37,000
Speaker 1: necessarily mean that if you're depressed or anxious or whatever, right,

497
00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:39,199
Speaker 1: that you're necessarily going to go all of a sudden

498
00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:41,879
Speaker 1: pick up the lesser key of Solomon and be like,

499
00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:45,479
Speaker 1: these guys are all real. Yeah yeah, so and if

500
00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:47,000
Speaker 1: you're not, If that doesn't make any sense to you,

501
00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:49,399
Speaker 1: bear with us. We're gonna get into more detail about

502
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:54,600
Speaker 1: this so you'll understand how how belief in demons could

503
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 1: lead to a decline in negative in mental health. So,

504
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:01,800
Speaker 1: this latest study explores an aspect of what's called e

505
00:28:01,920 --> 00:28:06,040
Speaker 1: t a S, the evolutionary Threat Assessment system theory, and

506
00:28:06,119 --> 00:28:09,080
Speaker 1: this is the brain child of Kevin J. Flannel E,

507
00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:13,119
Speaker 1: Senior research researcher at the Center for Psychological Research at

508
00:28:13,119 --> 00:28:16,200
Speaker 1: the University of Hawaii. So the idea here is that

509
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:20,880
Speaker 1: certain brain structures uh in the human brain, involving the

510
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 1: prefrontal cortex, the olympic system, and the basil ganglia, developed

511
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:29,160
Speaker 1: to assess and respond to threats. This system stands as

512
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 1: humanity's evolutionary threat assess assessment system e t a S.

513
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:37,680
Speaker 1: So when no clear threat exists, it may fire up anyway,

514
00:28:37,920 --> 00:28:40,680
Speaker 1: kind of like an autoimmune dysfunction, and this can result

515
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:44,280
Speaker 1: in a vast array of anxiety and O C D yes.

516
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:46,800
Speaker 1: So this is actually very similar to the theory that

517
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:49,840
Speaker 1: we're also going to present in this week's other episode,

518
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 1: which is about bats. Totally different topic, but about bats

519
00:28:53,080 --> 00:28:55,880
Speaker 1: immune system, there's this theory that their immune system is

520
00:28:55,880 --> 00:28:59,120
Speaker 1: is just always on, and it sounds like this theory

521
00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:02,880
Speaker 1: for us is that our evolutionary threat assessment system is

522
00:29:03,040 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 1: always on and it's mental instead of physical. So it

523
00:29:07,480 --> 00:29:10,560
Speaker 1: seems to be causing us with social anxiety, paranoia, obsessive

524
00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:13,840
Speaker 1: compulsive disorder, general anxiety. All of these things are manifesting

525
00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:18,200
Speaker 1: of it. Right, So what's the upside to this? Fight

526
00:29:18,360 --> 00:29:22,040
Speaker 1: or flight warning system constantly being on. I would assume

527
00:29:22,040 --> 00:29:26,520
Speaker 1: it's alertness, right like being aware of your surrounding, situational awareness,

528
00:29:26,520 --> 00:29:28,080
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Well, I think you can think

529
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:31,560
Speaker 1: of it in terms of household security system. Okay, so

530
00:29:31,600 --> 00:29:33,520
Speaker 1: you have the security system in place, right and it

531
00:29:33,800 --> 00:29:35,480
Speaker 1: has a it took up to the phone line or

532
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:39,800
Speaker 1: a cellular system. So if certain sensors are triggered, it

533
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:43,040
Speaker 1: will call the authorities or call your you know, an

534
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:47,040
Speaker 1: agency that will contact the Okay, but you're gonna have

535
00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:49,960
Speaker 1: But then it depends on where those sensors are, what

536
00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:52,840
Speaker 1: to how jacked up those sensors that happen to be,

537
00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:56,840
Speaker 1: you know, how your door, your window, etcetera. Right Like,

538
00:29:56,960 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 1: So here's an example that might'm gonna I'm gonna take

539
00:29:59,920 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 1: the US and and really work with this metaphor. Uh.

540
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 1: I have an alarmed system in my house, and we

541
00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:08,880
Speaker 1: have a motion sensor that's in the living room. But

542
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 1: anytime we arm the system, we have to specifically enter

543
00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:15,080
Speaker 1: in a code to disarm the motion sensor in the

544
00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:17,479
Speaker 1: living room because I've got two dogs and two cats

545
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:19,960
Speaker 1: and they just constantly trigger it. Yeah. I've had the

546
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 1: same scenario in the past where I had to actually

547
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:24,640
Speaker 1: tape up motion detectors in the house to keep animals

548
00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:27,160
Speaker 1: from trigger. Right. And that's so if we're looking at

549
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:30,640
Speaker 1: this from this metaphor that this is the uh the

550
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:33,719
Speaker 1: e t a s right, that that's that's almost like

551
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 1: a mental health upkeep right. It's like you're going, hey,

552
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 1: you know what, Yes, that that sensor is going to

553
00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 1: trigger when a specific thing goes off, But you need

554
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:46,560
Speaker 1: to teach yourself that it's actually not harmful. It's just

555
00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 1: the dogs and the cats, right or And this all

556
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:51,520
Speaker 1: comes down to worldview, and that's the the idea here

557
00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 1: is that your personal worldview is going to dictate what

558
00:30:55,480 --> 00:30:59,440
Speaker 1: additional sensors are added to your suit, your personal security system,

559
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:03,239
Speaker 1: as well as to what degree are they amped up.

560
00:31:03,600 --> 00:31:05,960
Speaker 1: So you know, obviously the door getting broken in or

561
00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:08,680
Speaker 1: an entry occurring while you have the stay at home

562
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 1: alarm on, that's going to trigger anybody's a system. But

563
00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:16,480
Speaker 1: do you also have like a crazy motion detector in

564
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:20,160
Speaker 1: the living room or a hallway um or or or

565
00:31:20,240 --> 00:31:23,040
Speaker 1: on the porch in a way that like bowling leaves

566
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:25,360
Speaker 1: or passing truck is going to set it off. That's

567
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:27,960
Speaker 1: kind of the idea here. Yeah, So it boils down

568
00:31:28,040 --> 00:31:31,800
Speaker 1: to two worldviews, and this is how FLANNELI argues it. Uh,

569
00:31:31,840 --> 00:31:34,720
Speaker 1: And it's it's sort of based around, you know, how

570
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:37,320
Speaker 1: risky you feel the world is. So the first worldview

571
00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:40,600
Speaker 1: is a cynical one, and that's where you think that

572
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 1: other people are generally selfish and shouldn't be trusted. The

573
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:48,680
Speaker 1: second one is when the world is generally equitable, uh,

574
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:51,680
Speaker 1: and it's thought to be fair and just. Now, depending

575
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:53,840
Speaker 1: on which one of these you lean toward, it could

576
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:57,360
Speaker 1: alter the threshold at which you respond to certain perceived

577
00:31:57,360 --> 00:32:01,120
Speaker 1: threats in your environment. These responses can be both functional

578
00:32:01,320 --> 00:32:05,200
Speaker 1: and dysfunctional. Right, So Flannel E is basically arguing that

579
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:09,840
Speaker 1: the equitable worldview is less threatening and raises the threshold

580
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:13,280
Speaker 1: to trigger our e T A S systems. Now, for me,

581
00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:15,640
Speaker 1: I gotta be honest, like, if I have to choose

582
00:32:15,680 --> 00:32:18,560
Speaker 1: between those two, I'm I fall into the cynical worldview camp.

583
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:20,520
Speaker 1: You know. I wish I could say that I didn't,

584
00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:23,240
Speaker 1: but I do, you know, but probably based on a

585
00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: combination of nature and nurture stuff, I definitely uh feel

586
00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 1: like the world is a selfish place and I shouldn't

587
00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:34,640
Speaker 1: necessarily trust other people. I know that that's not healthy,

588
00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:37,120
Speaker 1: and it's something that I've been working on and will

589
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:39,160
Speaker 1: probably continue working on for the rest of my life.

590
00:32:39,560 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 1: But that's how that's I know that that's what sets

591
00:32:42,640 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 1: off my triggers. Well, I think a lot of us

592
00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:48,040
Speaker 1: do have to sort of juggle those two different versions

593
00:32:48,040 --> 00:32:51,719
Speaker 1: of the world view, right because I'm I'm in my

594
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:54,480
Speaker 1: own mind. I'm often I can find myself sort of

595
00:32:54,520 --> 00:32:56,840
Speaker 1: the encountering the two budding heads of you know, your

596
00:32:56,920 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 1: encounter uh stranger, say on the street, and there is

597
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:03,040
Speaker 1: that there's the temptation to want to view them. I

598
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:06,600
Speaker 1: was another that could be potentially dangerous, etcetera, and uh,

599
00:33:06,640 --> 00:33:08,640
Speaker 1: and then there's the other side that reminds you, well,

600
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:11,360
Speaker 1: this is just a person. This is just somebody, probably

601
00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:17,360
Speaker 1: much like yourself, and people are basically not horrible. Um.

602
00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:19,360
Speaker 1: It reminds me of when I first moved to the

603
00:33:19,400 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 1: South from Boston, because in Boston, you walk around on

604
00:33:23,160 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 1: the street, you see a stranger, you don't look at them,

605
00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:29,719
Speaker 1: you look down, you walk past them, and you ignore them. Right. Uh,

606
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 1: here you see a stranger. They waved to you, they

607
00:33:32,680 --> 00:33:35,440
Speaker 1: say good morning, they smile at you. And I was

608
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:37,600
Speaker 1: like freaked out by that. At first, I was like,

609
00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:39,840
Speaker 1: what what what do you want? You know, like that

610
00:33:39,920 --> 00:33:42,479
Speaker 1: was my reaction. And it took me. I've lived here

611
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:44,480
Speaker 1: for eleven years now, it's taken me this long to

612
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 1: get comfortable with it to the point where I noticed,

613
00:33:46,600 --> 00:33:48,520
Speaker 1: like I was just in Seattle a couple of weeks ago,

614
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 1: and I was walking around on the street and started

615
00:33:51,360 --> 00:33:54,000
Speaker 1: smiling and saying good morning to people, and they were

616
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:56,320
Speaker 1: looking at me like I was crazy. Well. One thing

617
00:33:56,360 --> 00:33:57,680
Speaker 1: to keep in mind too here is that when we

618
00:33:57,720 --> 00:33:59,920
Speaker 1: say the world, the world is basically a good place,

619
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:02,120
Speaker 1: world is basically a bad place. There of course, it's

620
00:34:02,120 --> 00:34:04,520
Speaker 1: going to be different worlds for any individual. There's often

621
00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:08,360
Speaker 1: my world and then the other world. So in certain

622
00:34:08,640 --> 00:34:11,880
Speaker 1: religious situations, you could be the world withinside within your

623
00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:13,840
Speaker 1: own church, within your own faith, and then there is

624
00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:17,320
Speaker 1: the outside world. Or you live in a rural environment

625
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:19,200
Speaker 1: and then there's the other world of the city, or

626
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:22,440
Speaker 1: vice versa. Totally. That's something I encounter a lot since

627
00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:26,200
Speaker 1: I grew up in a more rural setting and I

628
00:34:26,239 --> 00:34:28,920
Speaker 1: live in a more urban setting, So I encounter people

629
00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 1: who have the attitude of, you know, distrust the rural

630
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:34,520
Speaker 1: environment or don't go out into the country to lose

631
00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:38,120
Speaker 1: your life here in Atlanta O t P. Yeah, but

632
00:34:38,160 --> 00:34:39,960
Speaker 1: then you also encounter the same thing right where people

633
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:42,200
Speaker 1: are like, oh, if I go into Atlanta, I'm probably

634
00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:44,839
Speaker 1: going to die. I've absolutely encountered that. Yeah. I did

635
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:46,719
Speaker 1: a job interview once where somebody told me that he

636
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:50,719
Speaker 1: specifically never came inside the perimeter to Atlanta because he

637
00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:53,720
Speaker 1: wanted to just avoid anything to do with the city

638
00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:57,240
Speaker 1: for basically those same reasons. Hey, this is a total tangent,

639
00:34:57,320 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: But I have to ask, have you listened to S

640
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:01,719
Speaker 1: Town at all yet? No? I have not. Okay, I

641
00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:04,879
Speaker 1: think you'd like it. Um. I know Tripod month is over,

642
00:35:05,160 --> 00:35:08,080
Speaker 1: but and probably if our listeners are listening to us,

643
00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:10,799
Speaker 1: they've probably checked out US Town already. But man, it's

644
00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:14,440
Speaker 1: good stuff. And it's very much related to this concept

645
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:18,680
Speaker 1: of urban versus rural identification. I'll have to check that out.

646
00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:21,799
Speaker 1: Uh So. So the basic idea here again is that

647
00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:25,840
Speaker 1: a person's beliefs about the riskiness of the world in

648
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:28,959
Speaker 1: general effects their e t a S. So, in other words,

649
00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:32,279
Speaker 1: the exact worldview you have can alter the threshold at

650
00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:35,919
Speaker 1: which the e t a S starts kicking in. Yeah,

651
00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:39,120
Speaker 1: and it's worth remembering too that in many religions, as

652
00:35:39,160 --> 00:35:42,279
Speaker 1: we talked about, sickness can be viewed as being caused

653
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:45,239
Speaker 1: by these demonic forces. Right, So let's say you've got

654
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:48,799
Speaker 1: a cynical worldview and you believe in demonic forces, so

655
00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:51,720
Speaker 1: you're going to be constantly on high alert that something

656
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:54,720
Speaker 1: is being caused by them. Right, Demons and evil powers

657
00:35:54,719 --> 00:35:57,920
Speaker 1: are depicted as the enemy of God or the gods,

658
00:35:57,960 --> 00:36:01,160
Speaker 1: depending on what you know particular religion subscribe to. So

659
00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:05,320
Speaker 1: it makes sense to hypothesize that if the reverse holds true.

660
00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:09,400
Speaker 1: Since previous research implied that belief in a loving God

661
00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:13,120
Speaker 1: was associated with better mental health, these guys said, we

662
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:16,480
Speaker 1: should probably take a look at what belief in supernatural

663
00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:20,000
Speaker 1: evil does as well. All right, So Na and Olsen

664
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:22,160
Speaker 1: they focused on again on the n S y are

665
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:23,920
Speaker 1: the Natural Study of Youth and Religion. This is a

666
00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:27,600
Speaker 1: research project directed by Christian Smith, professor in the Department

667
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:30,319
Speaker 1: of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame, and it

668
00:36:30,480 --> 00:36:35,280
Speaker 1: entails at and ninety Americans. Now you might be wondering

669
00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:38,360
Speaker 1: why this one, right, Well, they said, quote because it

670
00:36:38,440 --> 00:36:41,120
Speaker 1: is one of the few high quality panel studies with

671
00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:44,759
Speaker 1: so many detailed questions about religion, religion questions that are

672
00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:48,200
Speaker 1: repeated in each way of the study unquote, And it

673
00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:51,320
Speaker 1: also covers the time in people's life when they quote

674
00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:56,080
Speaker 1: experience significant changes in both really religiosity and mental health.

675
00:36:56,440 --> 00:36:58,960
Speaker 1: So a lot of this relates to the expected challenges

676
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:02,840
Speaker 1: of growing up, takeing on new responsibilities, encountering new stresses,

677
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:08,400
Speaker 1: and often experiencing reduced interesting religion. Yeah, so they liked

678
00:37:08,480 --> 00:37:12,239
Speaker 1: the n S y R because it specifically addresses those

679
00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:14,880
Speaker 1: concerns for young adults. Now, think about it. You know,

680
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:17,480
Speaker 1: back to maybe some of you are young adults and

681
00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 1: you're listening to this, but back to when I was

682
00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:21,480
Speaker 1: a young adult. You know, it's a time when you're

683
00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:25,200
Speaker 1: more likely to experience changes in your religious beliefs and

684
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:28,680
Speaker 1: your mental health. Uh, consider all the stresses of being

685
00:37:28,719 --> 00:37:33,680
Speaker 1: a young adult, your financial responsibility, that frequent relocation, the

686
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:37,000
Speaker 1: resulting weakening social ties as you move away from your

687
00:37:37,000 --> 00:37:40,840
Speaker 1: friends or your family. Maybe that's not identifiable for everybody listening,

688
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:44,480
Speaker 1: but for me, that was absolutely the situation. Like I was,

689
00:37:45,120 --> 00:37:47,400
Speaker 1: like I had that kind of bank account where I

690
00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:50,319
Speaker 1: was living check to check for like probably most of

691
00:37:50,320 --> 00:37:54,359
Speaker 1: my early twenties. Um, I did. I hadn't lived with

692
00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:57,080
Speaker 1: my parents for a long time, and my parents didn't

693
00:37:57,080 --> 00:37:59,719
Speaker 1: even really have like a central location home anywhere that

694
00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:02,400
Speaker 1: I could go to much less like you know, a

695
00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:05,280
Speaker 1: hometown with friends and family in it that I felt

696
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:07,160
Speaker 1: like was like kind of a safe fallback for me,

697
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:09,800
Speaker 1: you know. So there was a lot of that stress.

698
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:12,520
Speaker 1: And I then I think about it, and I'm like, well,

699
00:38:12,600 --> 00:38:15,960
Speaker 1: this was also probably the beginning of the end for

700
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:19,560
Speaker 1: me in terms of religiosity. Um. And I say that,

701
00:38:19,719 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker 1: but I have to clarify, you know. Uh. And I

702
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:23,719
Speaker 1: think I brought this up on the show before too,

703
00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:26,120
Speaker 1: that like, I'm not religious in the sense that I

704
00:38:26,160 --> 00:38:29,759
Speaker 1: follow like a particular organized religion, but I do have

705
00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:33,279
Speaker 1: I guess, spiritual beliefs you would call them. Right, Um,

706
00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:35,600
Speaker 1: this sounds a little hokey when I'm saying it out loud,

707
00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:38,400
Speaker 1: but like, I don't identify as an atheist. No. No,

708
00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:39,680
Speaker 1: I think this is good because I have I have

709
00:38:39,719 --> 00:38:44,080
Speaker 1: kind of a similar spiritual trajectory there. I like, I

710
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:47,239
Speaker 1: I when I look back on my life, when I

711
00:38:47,239 --> 00:38:49,160
Speaker 1: would have lined up with their study, and I think

712
00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:53,239
Speaker 1: probably my belief in demons was it was probably at

713
00:38:53,239 --> 00:38:55,479
Speaker 1: its at its high point then, because this was again

714
00:38:55,480 --> 00:38:59,120
Speaker 1: a time when there were stories of people encountering demons

715
00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:01,960
Speaker 1: performing extress is um. Uh. This idea of sort of

716
00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:05,759
Speaker 1: spiritual warfare uh and Christianity was seemed to be very

717
00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:09,160
Speaker 1: prevalent at the time, uh, at least in the circles

718
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:12,239
Speaker 1: I was I was moving in and uh. And since then,

719
00:39:12,520 --> 00:39:15,560
Speaker 1: like that has changed. So today I'm I'm I'm certainly

720
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:19,840
Speaker 1: not an atheist, but I I do not believe in

721
00:39:20,280 --> 00:39:23,800
Speaker 1: the existence of demons or or hell. And I feel

722
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:27,600
Speaker 1: like it's it's kind of like one is given a

723
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:32,280
Speaker 1: big lunch tray full of items, and these contain both

724
00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:38,680
Speaker 1: that edible and inedible religious ideas contains beneficial and uh

725
00:39:38,800 --> 00:39:42,840
Speaker 1: and and at times, you know, highly destructive religious ideas.

726
00:39:43,360 --> 00:39:45,800
Speaker 1: And over the course of your life, you you figure

727
00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:48,120
Speaker 1: out which ones you can get rid of, which ones

728
00:39:48,160 --> 00:39:51,280
Speaker 1: you can throw in the trash, and just keep the

729
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:54,880
Speaker 1: the items on the plate that that have a positive

730
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:57,920
Speaker 1: effect on your life and your worldview. Yeah. And actually,

731
00:39:58,200 --> 00:39:59,839
Speaker 1: you know, what you and I are both talking about

732
00:39:59,840 --> 00:40:03,480
Speaker 1: from our subjective experiences lines up with what they found

733
00:40:03,480 --> 00:40:06,120
Speaker 1: in the N S y R. Uh. So it's a

734
00:40:06,200 --> 00:40:11,120
Speaker 1: longitudinal study. It covers three waves of ages, uh, starting

735
00:40:11,120 --> 00:40:13,680
Speaker 1: with thirteen years old to seventeen years old. For me,

736
00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:17,640
Speaker 1: that was peaked demon time. Uh, then sixteen years old

737
00:40:17,680 --> 00:40:20,080
Speaker 1: to twenty one years old, and then again from eighteen

738
00:40:20,080 --> 00:40:23,920
Speaker 1: to twenty four years old. Of these respondents, UH, now, ideally,

739
00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:26,759
Speaker 1: the guys who authored this paper we're talking about today,

740
00:40:26,760 --> 00:40:29,920
Speaker 1: they would love a survey that had more data relating

741
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:32,320
Speaker 1: to items with depression, right, but that just wasn't built

742
00:40:32,360 --> 00:40:36,000
Speaker 1: into this particular study. UM. They did mention though, that

743
00:40:36,080 --> 00:40:39,520
Speaker 1: there is another study that that found that there is

744
00:40:39,560 --> 00:40:42,279
Speaker 1: a you know, a common transition to young adulthood that

745
00:40:42,360 --> 00:40:46,360
Speaker 1: is characterized by a rapid decline in religiosity. Uh. There's

746
00:40:46,440 --> 00:40:49,879
Speaker 1: also the two thousand ten National Survey on Drug Use

747
00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:53,160
Speaker 1: and Health, and that found that thirty percent of young

748
00:40:53,200 --> 00:40:56,640
Speaker 1: adults that's people eighteen to twenty five years old, reported

749
00:40:56,719 --> 00:40:59,799
Speaker 1: having had mental illness in the last year. And then

750
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:02,200
Speaker 1: people who are ages twenty six to forty nine and

751
00:41:02,239 --> 00:41:06,680
Speaker 1: that's you and me, were down to and then by

752
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:09,239
Speaker 1: the time you get to fifty or older, you're down

753
00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:13,319
Speaker 1: to fourteen percent of that population reporting mental illness within

754
00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:16,880
Speaker 1: a year. So it seems like and this this kind

755
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:19,400
Speaker 1: of lines up with my experience, not only just like

756
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:22,480
Speaker 1: as me as an adult in my challenges with mental health,

757
00:41:22,520 --> 00:41:25,600
Speaker 1: but also the people around me that I've encountered that

758
00:41:25,680 --> 00:41:28,799
Speaker 1: the older you get, the easier it gets. I don't know,

759
00:41:28,840 --> 00:41:32,160
Speaker 1: easier is maybe like, uh, maybe a little bit too

760
00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:35,319
Speaker 1: like heavy of a term to use, but that, um,

761
00:41:35,440 --> 00:41:39,120
Speaker 1: coping mechanisms come into place. Yeah, Yeah, definitely, coping mechanisms

762
00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:41,839
Speaker 1: come into place. And uh, and I guess in many

763
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:46,760
Speaker 1: cases to the opportunities for major battles with one's um,

764
00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:52,879
Speaker 1: you know, particular mental health scenario come about they've passed. Yeah. Um. Now,

765
00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:56,239
Speaker 1: in terms of coping mechanisms, though, it's worth pointing out

766
00:41:56,239 --> 00:41:58,640
Speaker 1: there have been a couple of studies. Uh. They site

767
00:41:58,880 --> 00:42:02,960
Speaker 1: Blaine and Crow and then another two thousand study they

768
00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:06,239
Speaker 1: present the idea that the religion can and does serve

769
00:42:06,280 --> 00:42:08,880
Speaker 1: as a coping strategy during this time for many people.

770
00:42:09,160 --> 00:42:10,959
Speaker 1: So the corporamis here is that believe in the loving

771
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:14,160
Speaker 1: God makes the world seem predictable and secure. Yeah. Like

772
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:16,120
Speaker 1: I was talking about before, this is one of those

773
00:42:16,200 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 1: key phases of human needs if you look at Maslow's

774
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:22,000
Speaker 1: hierarchy of needs, right, but if you also have a

775
00:42:22,040 --> 00:42:28,160
Speaker 1: belief in evil supernatural beings that makes the world seem unpredictable, insecure,

776
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:31,360
Speaker 1: and dangerous, and it leads us to anxiety and stress,

777
00:42:31,480 --> 00:42:34,640
Speaker 1: just like any similar tangible effects would, right, think of

778
00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:39,080
Speaker 1: crime or war or disease. Right, So the belief in

779
00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:42,560
Speaker 1: these uh, you know, evil beings, whether they're demons or

780
00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:46,600
Speaker 1: or what have you, uh sort of contributes in the

781
00:42:46,640 --> 00:42:49,920
Speaker 1: same way that those real world factors do. All right,

782
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:51,560
Speaker 1: we're gonna take one more quick break and then we

783
00:42:51,600 --> 00:42:57,839
Speaker 1: come back. We'll jump back into the study. All right,

784
00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:03,520
Speaker 1: we're back. So in this study, the researchers used the

785
00:43:03,520 --> 00:43:07,319
Speaker 1: the SCM model, and this treats uh two variables of

786
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 1: mental illness and belief and demons as simultaneously independent and

787
00:43:11,200 --> 00:43:16,240
Speaker 1: dependent variables. So at its core, their methodology is designed

788
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:19,200
Speaker 1: to improve on previous studies that only looked at college

789
00:43:19,200 --> 00:43:23,640
Speaker 1: students that weren't suited sample wise for finding causal influence

790
00:43:23,680 --> 00:43:26,800
Speaker 1: between the religious and mental health variables. So they determined

791
00:43:26,840 --> 00:43:30,799
Speaker 1: mental illness based on five observable mental health items. Again,

792
00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:33,080
Speaker 1: they were kind of limited by the questions in the

793
00:43:33,120 --> 00:43:36,200
Speaker 1: study just because this wasn't a study. The survey itself

794
00:43:36,239 --> 00:43:38,480
Speaker 1: wasn't a survey that they wrote. They took a pre

795
00:43:38,560 --> 00:43:41,640
Speaker 1: existing survey that had pre existing data. Yeah, they're basically

796
00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:45,000
Speaker 1: taking a pre existing body of data and then computing

797
00:43:45,040 --> 00:43:48,360
Speaker 1: that crunching the numbers there to answer some questions that

798
00:43:48,400 --> 00:43:56,040
Speaker 1: they had. Yeah, So they looked at depression, sadness, loneliness, misunderstanding, uh, purposelessness,

799
00:43:56,080 --> 00:43:59,880
Speaker 1: social invisibility, um, you know, the feeling of being unloved.

800
00:44:00,120 --> 00:44:03,839
Speaker 1: And they left off a sixth theory a guilt. Yeah.

801
00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:08,239
Speaker 1: I remember reading that part there. It wasn't a sure why,

802
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:09,960
Speaker 1: but I think it was that they didn't feel like

803
00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:13,279
Speaker 1: there was necessarily a correlation between guilt as it was

804
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:17,520
Speaker 1: defined in the survey and mental health as they were

805
00:44:17,560 --> 00:44:20,880
Speaker 1: defining it as a negative trade in association with belief

806
00:44:20,920 --> 00:44:24,480
Speaker 1: in demons, if that makes sense. Alright. So these mental

807
00:44:24,520 --> 00:44:27,760
Speaker 1: health items were in turn backed up with frequency ratings

808
00:44:27,800 --> 00:44:31,239
Speaker 1: one through five, always through never. Demonic belief came to

809
00:44:31,280 --> 00:44:33,960
Speaker 1: a scale of one to three definitely, maybe or not

810
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:36,960
Speaker 1: at all. And the researchers also took into account items

811
00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:39,799
Speaker 1: from the survey related to so called positive benefits of

812
00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:45,800
Speaker 1: religion so angels, afterlife, belief, etcetera, as well as demographic

813
00:44:46,080 --> 00:44:48,880
Speaker 1: measures and they all loaded all of this into a

814
00:44:48,920 --> 00:44:52,520
Speaker 1: program and computed. Yeah. I mean, we could walk through

815
00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:56,200
Speaker 1: this like incredibly complex mathematical methodology that they had. But

816
00:44:56,960 --> 00:44:59,799
Speaker 1: if you're that interested, go find this paper or talk

817
00:44:59,880 --> 00:45:02,759
Speaker 1: to these authors. I'm sure they'd be happy to tell

818
00:45:02,760 --> 00:45:05,240
Speaker 1: you about it. I don't know necessarily that it's listener

819
00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:07,480
Speaker 1: friendly for us to walk through equations, right, we will

820
00:45:07,560 --> 00:45:09,839
Speaker 1: just be brief and say this is where the mathematics happen,

821
00:45:11,760 --> 00:45:14,920
Speaker 1: and then we get the findings. So the findings are

822
00:45:14,920 --> 00:45:18,520
Speaker 1: broken down into four tables of data and and here's

823
00:45:18,520 --> 00:45:20,560
Speaker 1: the real take home with a with a lot of

824
00:45:20,719 --> 00:45:23,799
Speaker 1: caveats about the limits of the survey information and the

825
00:45:23,800 --> 00:45:26,560
Speaker 1: fact that mental health is a diverse construct, all right,

826
00:45:26,760 --> 00:45:29,600
Speaker 1: because that's that's instantly the you know, the problem anyone's

827
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:31,799
Speaker 1: gonna have. And especially if anyone starts saying, oh, well,

828
00:45:31,840 --> 00:45:35,279
Speaker 1: you know, this is just a soft science, etcetera. The

829
00:45:35,480 --> 00:45:38,799
Speaker 1: researchers definitely take this into account and say, yes, this

830
00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:41,200
Speaker 1: is just this is just a study. We're trying to

831
00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:45,160
Speaker 1: tackle something that is very difficult to to tackle in

832
00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:48,040
Speaker 1: the form of mental health. Here's what here's what they

833
00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:51,959
Speaker 1: have to say. Quote, when predicting mental health. Self rated health,

834
00:45:52,080 --> 00:45:55,440
Speaker 1: an obvious predictor of mental health, is the strongest predictor,

835
00:45:56,200 --> 00:45:59,960
Speaker 1: followed by feeling close to God, but believing in demons

836
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:03,520
Speaker 1: and evil spirits is the next strongest predictor of mental health,

837
00:46:03,840 --> 00:46:07,120
Speaker 1: with an effect size that slightly edges out belief in

838
00:46:07,239 --> 00:46:11,800
Speaker 1: angels another supernatural belief that is strongly correlated with belief

839
00:46:11,840 --> 00:46:15,880
Speaker 1: in demons, but that has a positive relationship with mental health.

840
00:46:16,960 --> 00:46:19,080
Speaker 1: And then there's another quote here I want to read

841
00:46:19,120 --> 00:46:22,520
Speaker 1: that really drives home their their findings. The STM results

842
00:46:22,600 --> 00:46:25,920
Speaker 1: also suggest that the negative associations of demon belief and

843
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:30,000
Speaker 1: mental health cannot be explained by reverse causal influences. Mental

844
00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:34,040
Speaker 1: health has no apparent statistically significant effect on later changes

845
00:46:34,040 --> 00:46:37,640
Speaker 1: in belief in demons. Our results suggest that the main direct,

846
00:46:38,120 --> 00:46:41,960
Speaker 1: non spurious causal influence between those two variables is from

847
00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:46,920
Speaker 1: belief in demons to declining mental health. So this is interesting.

848
00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:50,200
Speaker 1: This is where I sort of come up with my

849
00:46:50,280 --> 00:46:53,239
Speaker 1: own theory that I am probably not going to write

850
00:46:53,280 --> 00:46:55,480
Speaker 1: a research paper on. But I'm curious what you think

851
00:46:55,560 --> 00:46:58,360
Speaker 1: and then what also the audience thinks. Okay, so lining

852
00:46:58,400 --> 00:47:00,760
Speaker 1: up with what we've talked about previous Lee on the show.

853
00:47:01,400 --> 00:47:04,960
Speaker 1: We have an inherent cognitive dissonance here, right, at least

854
00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:07,520
Speaker 1: with Christianity, I think the Christian God that you and

855
00:47:07,560 --> 00:47:09,480
Speaker 1: I are familiar with. And and that's also something we

856
00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:11,680
Speaker 1: should note is that this is a study because it

857
00:47:11,719 --> 00:47:14,080
Speaker 1: was conducted in the United States, most of the respondents

858
00:47:14,160 --> 00:47:17,799
Speaker 1: self identified as Christian. Wouldn't it stand a reason that

859
00:47:17,880 --> 00:47:20,800
Speaker 1: if you believed in a Christian God, you would also

860
00:47:20,840 --> 00:47:24,359
Speaker 1: believe in demons per the Bible? Right now, that gets

861
00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:26,239
Speaker 1: in what I was saying before and how you were

862
00:47:26,239 --> 00:47:28,200
Speaker 1: talking about it, sort of the lunch train metaphor, right

863
00:47:28,239 --> 00:47:32,279
Speaker 1: that you sort of take pieces, um, you we think

864
00:47:32,320 --> 00:47:34,600
Speaker 1: of it as being like, well, if you're Christian, you

865
00:47:34,680 --> 00:47:37,400
Speaker 1: believe in in a loving God and you believe in demons,

866
00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:39,839
Speaker 1: you believe in everything that's written in the Holy Book, right,

867
00:47:40,200 --> 00:47:45,359
Speaker 1: but not necessarily right, um, and so but let's let's

868
00:47:45,360 --> 00:47:48,680
Speaker 1: continue that. If that's so, you've got this weird tug

869
00:47:48,719 --> 00:47:52,920
Speaker 1: of war going on between the positive mental health of

870
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:55,560
Speaker 1: believing in a loving God and the negative mental health

871
00:47:55,640 --> 00:47:58,839
Speaker 1: of believing in evil supernatural forces. Those are sort of,

872
00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:02,320
Speaker 1: you know, cause in cognitive dissonance within you. I would

873
00:48:02,320 --> 00:48:07,520
Speaker 1: imagine that this manifests in questioning of faith, right, Um,

874
00:48:07,600 --> 00:48:10,479
Speaker 1: and that leads people to ask, why would a loving

875
00:48:10,560 --> 00:48:15,360
Speaker 1: God allow these evil things to happen? Well, that's that's

876
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:19,200
Speaker 1: that's quite a final question to respond to them. Um.

877
00:48:19,400 --> 00:48:22,120
Speaker 1: I would say that one thing to keep in mind

878
00:48:22,200 --> 00:48:25,920
Speaker 1: is that evidence has shown that that even if cognitive

879
00:48:25,920 --> 00:48:30,640
Speaker 1: dissonance is not like like just super strong in one's mind,

880
00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:34,280
Speaker 1: a lot of us are going to have multiple beliefs

881
00:48:34,520 --> 00:48:37,279
Speaker 1: kind of sharing the same space. I've seen this is

882
00:48:37,360 --> 00:48:40,799
Speaker 1: written about, particularly in terms of the afterlife. So an

883
00:48:40,840 --> 00:48:45,359
Speaker 1: individual who follows, you know, Christian tradition, and they might

884
00:48:45,440 --> 00:48:48,440
Speaker 1: have like three different modes, like they might sort of

885
00:48:48,440 --> 00:48:51,360
Speaker 1: believe in ghosts even though their faith and there that

886
00:48:51,440 --> 00:48:53,520
Speaker 1: they're sort of their faith brain and their reason brain.

887
00:48:53,560 --> 00:48:56,200
Speaker 1: Don't believe in ghosts is sort of a pop cultural

888
00:48:57,040 --> 00:49:00,480
Speaker 1: um idea of ghosts that's still difficult to share. Yeah,

889
00:49:00,520 --> 00:49:02,719
Speaker 1: I totally know people who aren't religious at all who

890
00:49:02,719 --> 00:49:06,120
Speaker 1: are like ghost hunters. Yeah, So I mean you can

891
00:49:06,719 --> 00:49:10,799
Speaker 1: your your brain has a room from multiple interpretations of

892
00:49:10,840 --> 00:49:15,440
Speaker 1: the same thing. Now, the first question that you ask

893
00:49:15,600 --> 00:49:19,239
Speaker 1: is it's kind of deceptively complex, isn't it. Because you

894
00:49:19,280 --> 00:49:21,120
Speaker 1: put your if you put your faith in an ancient

895
00:49:21,120 --> 00:49:24,359
Speaker 1: text like the Bible, there's generally a certain amount of

896
00:49:24,400 --> 00:49:29,120
Speaker 1: selective interpretation or selective reading involved. To say nothing about

897
00:49:29,160 --> 00:49:33,680
Speaker 1: the sort of curated selective interpretation based on the particulars

898
00:49:33,680 --> 00:49:37,680
Speaker 1: of your faith the faith leaders, translators new and old, etcetera.

899
00:49:38,080 --> 00:49:41,879
Speaker 1: So to what extent after, you know, after everything, are

900
00:49:41,960 --> 00:49:45,360
Speaker 1: demons in the gospel literal? Are they figurative or they

901
00:49:45,400 --> 00:49:49,640
Speaker 1: misinterpretations of mental illness? Uh? And if we do confront

902
00:49:49,719 --> 00:49:54,440
Speaker 1: the fact that religious faith is a selective invocation, uh,

903
00:49:54,840 --> 00:49:57,480
Speaker 1: should we just not go all the way out with it? Right?

904
00:49:57,520 --> 00:49:59,600
Speaker 1: Should we just cast out the bad, all the negative

905
00:49:59,600 --> 00:50:01,920
Speaker 1: aspects of religion to get in the way of improving

906
00:50:01,960 --> 00:50:05,239
Speaker 1: your life? Um? And it kind of comes back to

907
00:50:05,320 --> 00:50:10,839
Speaker 1: the salad bars lunchroom tray scenario that I keep keep

908
00:50:11,080 --> 00:50:14,480
Speaker 1: thinking of the idea that you're either you're either choosing

909
00:50:14,520 --> 00:50:16,319
Speaker 1: what you decide to put in your brain and into

910
00:50:16,360 --> 00:50:19,239
Speaker 1: your personal worldview, or you're deciding what you want to

911
00:50:19,320 --> 00:50:23,960
Speaker 1: scrape away after additional additional information has come to light

912
00:50:24,040 --> 00:50:28,360
Speaker 1: in additional uh, you know, life experiences have occurred. Um.

913
00:50:28,520 --> 00:50:31,880
Speaker 1: That's my personal take anyway, is that you we we all,

914
00:50:32,600 --> 00:50:35,200
Speaker 1: we all are are tinkering with our worldview. We're all

915
00:50:35,239 --> 00:50:41,319
Speaker 1: selectively um adding or or removing things from our religious faith.

916
00:50:41,520 --> 00:50:45,239
Speaker 1: So why not just create the ideal? Edit? Why not

917
00:50:45,360 --> 00:50:48,279
Speaker 1: taking all the negative stuff, cast the demons aside, cast

918
00:50:48,320 --> 00:50:51,279
Speaker 1: the hell aside. Uh, just use those elements that are

919
00:50:51,280 --> 00:50:54,520
Speaker 1: gonna have a beneficial effect on your worldview. I think

920
00:50:54,520 --> 00:50:57,960
Speaker 1: it's entirely, entirely possible for most people. Yeah, I do too,

921
00:50:57,960 --> 00:51:00,040
Speaker 1: And I like I look at it, you know, I

922
00:51:00,160 --> 00:51:01,920
Speaker 1: pulled back the lens and I kind of look at

923
00:51:01,920 --> 00:51:04,360
Speaker 1: the world around me, and I see there's a struggle

924
00:51:04,440 --> 00:51:08,279
Speaker 1: sort of religiously between like fundamentalism and then what what

925
00:51:08,520 --> 00:51:12,080
Speaker 1: fundamentalists see as sort of a hypocritical Christians, right, like

926
00:51:12,360 --> 00:51:16,080
Speaker 1: the who are not practicing everything by the book literally? Uh,

927
00:51:16,360 --> 00:51:18,560
Speaker 1: but then what is by the book? It brings me

928
00:51:18,600 --> 00:51:21,880
Speaker 1: back to the preacher on the Simpsons asking that writers.

929
00:51:21,920 --> 00:51:24,680
Speaker 1: He said, if you actually read this book, technically we're

930
00:51:24,680 --> 00:51:28,440
Speaker 1: not allowed to do anything right? Right? Right? Well, yeah, exactly,

931
00:51:28,840 --> 00:51:31,520
Speaker 1: And I guess I think about it more as like

932
00:51:31,680 --> 00:51:36,319
Speaker 1: the lunch train metaphor that you're talking about that self care, right,

933
00:51:36,640 --> 00:51:41,319
Speaker 1: because if you you take the lessons from that, uh,

934
00:51:41,360 --> 00:51:45,560
Speaker 1: that work for you, That allow you to have positive

935
00:51:45,600 --> 00:51:48,200
Speaker 1: mental health that make you feel good about yourself in

936
00:51:48,239 --> 00:51:51,160
Speaker 1: the world around you, don't make you cynical like me.

937
00:51:52,200 --> 00:51:56,240
Speaker 1: Then then that seems to be a good thing, right, Um,

938
00:51:56,320 --> 00:52:00,360
Speaker 1: Whereas like, if you take this very strict interpretive view

939
00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:04,759
Speaker 1: that it seems like from this paper's findings, that's when

940
00:52:04,760 --> 00:52:08,000
Speaker 1: you lead to you may be following it by the letter,

941
00:52:08,520 --> 00:52:13,640
Speaker 1: but you're subsequently making yourself unhappy and maybe dysfunctional. Yeah.

942
00:52:13,640 --> 00:52:16,560
Speaker 1: I always go back to this, uh this one like

943
00:52:16,640 --> 00:52:19,000
Speaker 1: Bible study encounter I had when I was in junior

944
00:52:19,080 --> 00:52:22,640
Speaker 1: high and I forget even how it came up, but

945
00:52:22,800 --> 00:52:25,680
Speaker 1: I we were talking about one thing and we had

946
00:52:25,880 --> 00:52:28,280
Speaker 1: this this old remember of the church who was given

947
00:52:28,320 --> 00:52:31,479
Speaker 1: the the youth talk there, and I was asking about

948
00:52:31,520 --> 00:52:33,600
Speaker 1: the Book of Revelations. I was saying, well, what's this

949
00:52:33,640 --> 00:52:36,160
Speaker 1: about this multi headed dragon? Is this coming to place?

950
00:52:36,239 --> 00:52:39,520
Speaker 1: You and I were similar kids, And this guy was like, like,

951
00:52:39,560 --> 00:52:41,480
Speaker 1: don't even worry about that. Like like he was like

952
00:52:41,480 --> 00:52:43,680
Speaker 1: pretty much straight up, just don't read the Book of Revelation.

953
00:52:43,719 --> 00:52:46,080
Speaker 1: What does that have to do with anything? And at

954
00:52:46,120 --> 00:52:47,960
Speaker 1: the time, I was like, oh man, that sucks. I

955
00:52:48,000 --> 00:52:49,880
Speaker 1: want to talk about the dragons and the demons and

956
00:52:49,920 --> 00:52:52,319
Speaker 1: all the cool stuff that occurs. But I find that

957
00:52:52,320 --> 00:52:54,560
Speaker 1: that that that his view is more in keeping with

958
00:52:54,600 --> 00:52:59,479
Speaker 1: the way I currently approach models of religious faith. Yeah. Yeah,

959
00:52:59,520 --> 00:53:01,200
Speaker 1: I think about my dad, who have talked on this

960
00:53:01,239 --> 00:53:03,359
Speaker 1: show a little bit about before, and like, you know,

961
00:53:03,440 --> 00:53:07,879
Speaker 1: my father is has become more religious and and sort

962
00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:11,120
Speaker 1: of more strictly interpretive as he gets older. And like

963
00:53:11,239 --> 00:53:13,480
Speaker 1: I mentioned that last year he thought the world was

964
00:53:13,520 --> 00:53:15,839
Speaker 1: going to end for sure in October because they were

965
00:53:15,880 --> 00:53:19,040
Speaker 1: like specific conspiracy theory sites that he went to that

966
00:53:19,440 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 1: lined up all this language from the Bible that really

967
00:53:22,160 --> 00:53:25,880
Speaker 1: pointed to October of twenty sixteen is being the time,

968
00:53:25,960 --> 00:53:29,279
Speaker 1: you know, um, And and he he looks at the

969
00:53:29,320 --> 00:53:33,000
Speaker 1: Book of Revelations and he tries to sort of decode it, right,

970
00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:37,799
Speaker 1: and all of that seems to make him unhappy, Like

971
00:53:37,880 --> 00:53:40,880
Speaker 1: it's obsessive in a way, and like he's trying to

972
00:53:40,920 --> 00:53:43,479
Speaker 1: figure out what the answers to the world are. It's again,

973
00:53:43,480 --> 00:53:45,960
Speaker 1: it's the whole cultural context thing, right, Like how does

974
00:53:46,040 --> 00:53:49,680
Speaker 1: this piece of culture tell me how this world works

975
00:53:49,680 --> 00:53:53,240
Speaker 1: around me? Because everything is so chaotic? Like I remember, um,

976
00:53:53,680 --> 00:53:54,800
Speaker 1: one of the things he used to talk to me

977
00:53:54,800 --> 00:53:57,240
Speaker 1: about when I was a kid was like, oh, well, clearly,

978
00:53:57,280 --> 00:54:01,080
Speaker 1: whenever it references like a swarm of locusts in revelation,

979
00:54:01,520 --> 00:54:06,440
Speaker 1: what that actually means is like a battalion of army helicopters.

980
00:54:06,480 --> 00:54:09,719
Speaker 1: Because if you were John and you were teleported into

981
00:54:09,719 --> 00:54:11,839
Speaker 1: the future and you saw helicopters, you would think they

982
00:54:11,840 --> 00:54:16,160
Speaker 1: were giant locusts. Okay, So it was stuff like that. No,

983
00:54:16,239 --> 00:54:18,080
Speaker 1: I see, I see what you're saying. Yeah, I think

984
00:54:18,120 --> 00:54:20,960
Speaker 1: that that lines up exactly what we're talking about here

985
00:54:21,200 --> 00:54:26,239
Speaker 1: to what extent are are these details of one's religion, Uh,

986
00:54:26,560 --> 00:54:28,960
Speaker 1: going to have a negative effect on just the way

987
00:54:29,000 --> 00:54:32,120
Speaker 1: you interact with the world, in your expectations of the world. Yeah,

988
00:54:32,200 --> 00:54:34,640
Speaker 1: So back to the study. The authors actually they found

989
00:54:34,760 --> 00:54:39,240
Speaker 1: that the literature on spiritual warfare, meaning the religious literature,

990
00:54:39,280 --> 00:54:42,080
Speaker 1: and they looked at a lot of pentecostal stuff that

991
00:54:42,120 --> 00:54:45,680
Speaker 1: allowed these beliefs to actually coexist. So I'm I was

992
00:54:45,680 --> 00:54:49,080
Speaker 1: talking about the cognitive dissonance of them coexisting, but they said, hey,

993
00:54:49,120 --> 00:54:52,719
Speaker 1: sometimes the texts can actually make these things co exist. Um,

994
00:54:52,760 --> 00:54:55,600
Speaker 1: so believers in a loving God can still experience negative

995
00:54:55,640 --> 00:54:59,680
Speaker 1: events which validate their idea that demonic forces can act

996
00:54:59,719 --> 00:55:04,080
Speaker 1: in powerful and unpredictable ways to disrupt their lives. They

997
00:55:04,239 --> 00:55:06,759
Speaker 1: were also confused by one of their results. They said,

998
00:55:07,440 --> 00:55:10,200
Speaker 1: previous studies have found that people who say religion and

999
00:55:10,239 --> 00:55:14,360
Speaker 1: spirituality are important to them have fewer depressive symptoms, but

1000
00:55:14,480 --> 00:55:18,400
Speaker 1: they found a negative relationship where it was a predictor

1001
00:55:18,560 --> 00:55:22,600
Speaker 1: of future changes in mental health. They didn't have enough

1002
00:55:22,600 --> 00:55:25,560
Speaker 1: analysis to be comfortable including any of that in the

1003
00:55:25,600 --> 00:55:29,839
Speaker 1: conclusions from their results, but they said, this was kind

1004
00:55:29,840 --> 00:55:32,000
Speaker 1: of an odd little blip that popped up when we

1005
00:55:32,000 --> 00:55:35,200
Speaker 1: were crunching the numbers. The other thing they did want

1006
00:55:35,200 --> 00:55:37,680
Speaker 1: to recognize, there's a bunch of limitations as a study.

1007
00:55:37,920 --> 00:55:39,560
Speaker 1: This is one of those studies that's really good in that,

1008
00:55:39,640 --> 00:55:41,520
Speaker 1: like at the end it says, here's all the problems

1009
00:55:41,520 --> 00:55:44,120
Speaker 1: with our study, Hey, please go replicate it and try

1010
00:55:44,160 --> 00:55:46,719
Speaker 1: to rectify these problems that we weren't able to. So

1011
00:55:47,600 --> 00:55:49,319
Speaker 1: they said that they would have liked broader measures of

1012
00:55:49,320 --> 00:55:52,320
Speaker 1: mental health and the survey obviously, also, the study was

1013
00:55:52,400 --> 00:55:55,040
Speaker 1: limited to young adults, and therefore they didn't gather any

1014
00:55:55,120 --> 00:55:58,000
Speaker 1: data un middle aged and older adults, so they weren't

1015
00:55:58,000 --> 00:56:00,560
Speaker 1: really able to tell whether or not the negative relationship

1016
00:56:00,640 --> 00:56:04,360
Speaker 1: persists in older age, although from previous literature, it seems

1017
00:56:04,360 --> 00:56:07,840
Speaker 1: like it doesn't uh. And then finally, like I said earlier,

1018
00:56:07,920 --> 00:56:11,399
Speaker 1: the study was only conducted in the US, so Christianity

1019
00:56:11,480 --> 00:56:14,960
Speaker 1: is the dominant religion here. Yes, there were other religions

1020
00:56:14,960 --> 00:56:18,120
Speaker 1: that were represented in the survey, but not in the

1021
00:56:18,160 --> 00:56:22,120
Speaker 1: way that they would be if we were conducting this internationally. Yeah.

1022
00:56:22,160 --> 00:56:25,400
Speaker 1: And and it's worth driving home that there's still plenty

1023
00:56:25,400 --> 00:56:29,440
Speaker 1: of room for anxiety concerning supernatural evil UH and the

1024
00:56:29,520 --> 00:56:33,800
Speaker 1: afterlife and the judgmental aspects of one's god or pantheon

1025
00:56:34,200 --> 00:56:37,040
Speaker 1: in in various religions throughout the world. Like I often

1026
00:56:37,080 --> 00:56:40,279
Speaker 1: come back to Tibetan Buddhism as an example of this,

1027
00:56:40,400 --> 00:56:44,480
Speaker 1: where we often have this this sort of academic Western

1028
00:56:44,680 --> 00:56:46,879
Speaker 1: view of it, where we just think of this this

1029
00:56:47,040 --> 00:56:49,480
Speaker 1: you know, wonderful art, fascinating system, and it is a

1030
00:56:49,480 --> 00:56:53,000
Speaker 1: fascinating UH system, and the and the art is wonderful.

1031
00:56:53,160 --> 00:56:57,400
Speaker 1: But we often have this more spiritual interpretation of it

1032
00:56:58,440 --> 00:57:02,200
Speaker 1: that is a bit a moved from what I understand

1033
00:57:02,239 --> 00:57:06,200
Speaker 1: to understand to be a more common Tibetan UH interpretation

1034
00:57:06,239 --> 00:57:08,600
Speaker 1: of it, where it's more it's it's more anxiety base,

1035
00:57:08,719 --> 00:57:11,400
Speaker 1: there's more of this there's a lot of energy that

1036
00:57:11,560 --> 00:57:16,680
Speaker 1: goes into worrying over your transition to the next phase

1037
00:57:16,760 --> 00:57:18,840
Speaker 1: in the in the in the wheel of life. Yeah,

1038
00:57:18,880 --> 00:57:21,920
Speaker 1: I guess at this point in my particular life, like

1039
00:57:22,520 --> 00:57:25,920
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how the world works is less

1040
00:57:25,960 --> 00:57:28,720
Speaker 1: important to me than trying to figure out how to

1041
00:57:28,760 --> 00:57:32,760
Speaker 1: be healthy and functional. Um. Now, I'm interested obviously in

1042
00:57:32,800 --> 00:57:35,440
Speaker 1: the other stuff. Otherwise I wouldn't show like this. But

1043
00:57:36,000 --> 00:57:38,439
Speaker 1: you know, there has to be a balance there. Now,

1044
00:57:38,480 --> 00:57:41,200
Speaker 1: I want to ask the audience, and I mean, I

1045
00:57:41,280 --> 00:57:43,600
Speaker 1: don't know if there's an answer apparent right here in

1046
00:57:43,640 --> 00:57:46,280
Speaker 1: front of us, but why do you think it is

1047
00:57:46,400 --> 00:57:51,400
Speaker 1: that this, this thing, belief in demons is the strongest

1048
00:57:51,440 --> 00:57:54,880
Speaker 1: predictor of future changes in somebody's mental health. That's really

1049
00:57:54,920 --> 00:57:58,320
Speaker 1: curious to me. Um. So, you know, I'm We've definitely

1050
00:57:58,360 --> 00:58:01,440
Speaker 1: presented our subjective experiences he yere. I know from listeners

1051
00:58:01,440 --> 00:58:04,080
Speaker 1: writing into us in the past when we do demonology episodes,

1052
00:58:04,320 --> 00:58:06,520
Speaker 1: they've got a lot of experiences with this too. So

1053
00:58:07,000 --> 00:58:10,280
Speaker 1: I've just I've been interested. Yeah. Plus, you know, I

1054
00:58:10,280 --> 00:58:12,560
Speaker 1: want to hear from anyone, you know, people out there

1055
00:58:12,600 --> 00:58:17,920
Speaker 1: who are faithful to varying degrees, tell me how to

1056
00:58:17,920 --> 00:58:20,560
Speaker 1: do how to have this belief in demons factor into

1057
00:58:20,640 --> 00:58:25,520
Speaker 1: your personal belief system and can can you can you

1058
00:58:25,520 --> 00:58:29,520
Speaker 1: actually argue that they benefit your religious worldview in any

1059
00:58:29,520 --> 00:58:32,480
Speaker 1: way aside from sort of the classic well if I

1060
00:58:32,520 --> 00:58:34,080
Speaker 1: believe in this, I have to believe in this. But

1061
00:58:34,120 --> 00:58:36,560
Speaker 1: what if you didn't have to believe in b along

1062
00:58:36,600 --> 00:58:39,920
Speaker 1: with a Could you discard it and still have this

1063
00:58:40,000 --> 00:58:42,800
Speaker 1: system work for you? I've always thought of it, you know,

1064
00:58:43,040 --> 00:58:47,439
Speaker 1: especially based on my experience with um, with being going

1065
00:58:47,480 --> 00:58:49,439
Speaker 1: to that Southern Baptist school and I was a little kid.

1066
00:58:50,120 --> 00:58:52,680
Speaker 1: It's like the electric chair of religion. Right, It's like

1067
00:58:52,720 --> 00:58:57,480
Speaker 1: this deterrent um that's built into the very identity of it. Right,

1068
00:58:57,520 --> 00:59:00,600
Speaker 1: It's like, if you don't do the right thing, this

1069
00:59:00,640 --> 00:59:04,320
Speaker 1: will happen to you. Yeah, which, yeah, that's that was

1070
00:59:04,320 --> 00:59:05,800
Speaker 1: how it was always taught to me. It was like,

1071
00:59:05,920 --> 00:59:08,439
Speaker 1: if you are not a good Christian and you don't

1072
00:59:08,480 --> 00:59:12,240
Speaker 1: let your soul be saved, then you will become possessed

1073
00:59:12,240 --> 00:59:14,280
Speaker 1: and you will murder your family. Yeah. And this this

1074
00:59:14,320 --> 00:59:17,640
Speaker 1: gets into the like the larger philosophical question, right people

1075
00:59:17,680 --> 00:59:21,040
Speaker 1: are people good because there's a payoff for being good?

1076
00:59:21,040 --> 00:59:26,000
Speaker 1: Are the only good? Because there is some supernatural or

1077
00:59:26,120 --> 00:59:29,680
Speaker 1: or real physical force there to make them behave, and

1078
00:59:30,000 --> 00:59:33,720
Speaker 1: that remains an open question of discussion with strong arguments

1079
00:59:33,720 --> 00:59:37,120
Speaker 1: for the ages. All right, Well, if you want to

1080
00:59:37,120 --> 00:59:39,240
Speaker 1: write us in and talk to us more about demons,

1081
00:59:39,280 --> 00:59:42,320
Speaker 1: we'd love that. We are all over the place on

1082
00:59:42,360 --> 00:59:45,360
Speaker 1: social media. We're on Facebook, we're on Twitter, we're on tumbler,

1083
00:59:45,440 --> 00:59:49,000
Speaker 1: and we are on Instagram. You also can find all

1084
00:59:49,040 --> 00:59:51,600
Speaker 1: of the links to those sites on stuff to Blow

1085
00:59:51,640 --> 00:59:54,440
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. That's where we've got the blog posts,

1086
00:59:54,440 --> 00:59:56,920
Speaker 1: where we've got our videos. It's where all that monster

1087
00:59:56,960 --> 00:59:59,000
Speaker 1: stuff that I was telling you about that Roberts composed

1088
00:59:59,040 --> 01:00:03,200
Speaker 1: over the years, lives and every single podcast. All right,

1089
01:00:03,280 --> 01:00:05,120
Speaker 1: and if you want to get in touch with the

1090
01:00:05,200 --> 01:00:07,600
Speaker 1: old fashioned way, shoot us an email at Blow the

1091
01:00:07,600 --> 01:00:19,480
Speaker 1: Mind how stuff Works dot com for more on this

1092
01:00:19,640 --> 01:00:22,160
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works

1093
01:00:22,200 --> 01:00:45,400
Speaker 1: dot com