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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, you, welcome to

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb

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Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's October. So we're continuing

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Speaker 1: with our Halloween spooky, ghostly kind of theme, and today

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Speaker 1: we wanted to explore a somewhat ghostly topic that ties

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Speaker 1: into neuroscience to stuff we've talked about recently on the

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Speaker 1: Invention podcast with the history of photography. But before we

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Speaker 1: get into that, I wanted to start with a question

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Speaker 1: to kind of orient us here, and that question is,

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Speaker 1: what is it that makes somebody skilled at an art

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Speaker 1: like realistic drawing or realistic sculpture. I should say, by

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Speaker 1: the way, I am not skilled at this at all.

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Speaker 1: I cannot draw realistically for the life of me. In fact,

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Speaker 1: when I tried to draw pictures of people, it's the

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Speaker 1: it's a source of great amusement to Rachel. Oh yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm in the same way. I can. I can draw

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Speaker 1: a pretty mean goblin, but um, I can't really draw

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Speaker 1: a human. My my son, who seven, is already a

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Speaker 1: better that better artist when it comes to depicting actual

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Speaker 1: human beings than I. But but obviously so, a huge

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Speaker 1: part of what's going on here is is practice, right,

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Speaker 1: you gotta learn techniques. But another part of this I

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Speaker 1: think could just be thought of as some kind of

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Speaker 1: motor power of translation. Like how do you take an

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Speaker 1: image represented in your brain and it's in your brain

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Speaker 1: either way, whether you're currently looking at it or calling

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Speaker 1: up out of a memory or an imagination. Either way,

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Speaker 1: the image is coming from your brain, and then it's

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Speaker 1: being translated somehow through a series of hand motions into

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Speaker 1: a physical object in the world, whether that's a sculpture, painting,

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Speaker 1: or drawing. Like, there's some kind of skill there that

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Speaker 1: I think remains ineffable to us. It's mysterious. Sometimes it's

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Speaker 1: even kind of spooky because we don't understand what's happening

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Speaker 1: with that translate process. But what if there were no

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Speaker 1: translation process? What if there were no way for clumsy

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Speaker 1: arms and hands and failures of technique to impede the

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Speaker 1: physical manifestation of what you've got in your mind's I

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Speaker 1: what if we could just project the objects of the

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Speaker 1: mind's eye directly onto the physical world. Would such a

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Speaker 1: thing be possible, and if so, would such a power

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Speaker 1: be in a way terrifying, sort of godlike in the

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Speaker 1: worst and most ancient sense. Ah, and here you're getting

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Speaker 1: into the uh, the Halloween aspects of this topic. This

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Speaker 1: is the reason that we have decided to approach this

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Speaker 1: during the month of October, exactly because this power does

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Speaker 1: show up in horror fiction. One place that you might

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Speaker 1: have encountered it is in the books or the movies. Uh.

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Speaker 1: There have been several different series at this point, but

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Speaker 1: The Ring, the story of The Ring, the the scary

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Speaker 1: ghost girl who can print media with her brain. You

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Speaker 1: can psychically print images onto photographs or onto the wall

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Speaker 1: of a barn, or onto a videotape. She can just

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Speaker 1: make a videotape without filming it, just straight out of

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Speaker 1: her mind's eye. Of course, this is played up for

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Speaker 1: horror in the film, and I I sort of stand

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Speaker 1: by taking it in that direction. I think if anybody

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Speaker 1: actually had this power, it would be horrifying, and it

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Speaker 1: would be it would be a little irritating to everyone

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Speaker 1: who's has put a lot of time and effort into

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Speaker 1: honing their craft. Right. Um, so it's possible. You're you're

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Speaker 1: familiar with The Ring via Gore Rabinski's two thousand and

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Speaker 1: two remake The Ring. This is where I saw it

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Speaker 1: for the first time too, but you also may have

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Speaker 1: seen it by watching the original Japanese horror film directed

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Speaker 1: by Hideo Nakata. This came out, and I severely hope

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Speaker 1: that if you, if you did see the original Japanese

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Speaker 1: version back in the late nineties, you watched it on

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Speaker 1: a crumb a dubbed VH tape because that would be

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Speaker 1: most appropriate, right, because either way, if you haven't seen

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Speaker 1: the movies or read see The original Japanese movie was

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Speaker 1: also based on a book by by Koji Suzuki, but

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Speaker 1: in any case, the story is about a cursed videotape

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Speaker 1: that is made by this ghost girl. She uses the

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Speaker 1: psychic power of projecting her thoughts directly onto media to

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Speaker 1: make a videotape that kills the people who watch it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: a curse video tape containing disturbing It is basically a disturbing,

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Speaker 1: surrealistic art video kills you in seven days. So there's

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Speaker 1: kind of a uh what do you call it in

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Speaker 1: medicinal terms? Uh? Delayed react effects effects. Uh. It takes

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Speaker 1: that along to work through your system, you know, time

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Speaker 1: to release. Sometimes artists like that it's time released. You go,

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Speaker 1: you want to see it at the museum, and you're like,

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Speaker 1: I don't really know what what I how I feel

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Speaker 1: about this or or you know, how I think about

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Speaker 1: this piece and how it relates to me, and then

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Speaker 1: seven days later it kicks in and you die with

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Speaker 1: a weird look kind of fist. But yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: basically an update of a very old notion, right of

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Speaker 1: a haunted object, or of haunted media. Only instead of

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Speaker 1: a dark and magical book, instead of something like you know,

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Speaker 1: the Necronomicon or you know the Book of sand or

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Speaker 1: any of these other treatments, we have a dark and

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Speaker 1: magical video recording and it unleashes a world of terror

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Speaker 1: and death. It's an inherently compelling idea. In horror, I

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Speaker 1: think actually some piece of media, whether it's a book

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Speaker 1: or now a movie, I think there there's some There

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Speaker 1: are Stephen King's story with like a painting that kills

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Speaker 1: you or something. There's the representage horror, and it's one

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Speaker 1: of one of King's best short stories. I highly recommend.

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Speaker 1: I agree. Maybe that is what I was thinking of.

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Speaker 1: That is a fantastic story. Um, but yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: obviously the idea of like a a work of art

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Speaker 1: or something that cannot be experienced without cursing or killing you. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's scary. It's also fertile ground for any kind of

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Speaker 1: metaphor that the artist wants to sew about, you know,

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Speaker 1: about art itself. And and art does have an effect

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Speaker 1: on us. I mean there's an old episode of Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind where Julie and I discussed Stendahl

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Speaker 1: syndrome and some of its related uh alleged syndromes. You know,

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Speaker 1: it deals with the reality that, yes, sometimes great works

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Speaker 1: of art, uh, you know, with great works of art

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Speaker 1: with appropriate priming, uh can overwhelm us, can have a

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Speaker 1: physical reaction on us. So uh, you know, it's it's

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Speaker 1: not unrealistic. Um. Yeah, you know. I want to say

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Speaker 1: about the gor Verbinsky remake of The Ring, Well, I

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Speaker 1: don't inherently love the idea of just like American remakes

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Speaker 1: of foreign films just to sort of americanize it because

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Speaker 1: it had only been like a few years since the

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Speaker 1: original film had been made at that point, right, and

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Speaker 1: they americanized the heck out of exactly. But at the

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Speaker 1: same time, one thing I will defend about it is

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Speaker 1: it is a very um visually imaginative film, Like it's

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Speaker 1: got great creepy abstract imagery in it. Oh yeah, great,

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Speaker 1: great visuals, great performances, uh in, wonderful special effects. Uh

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Speaker 1: That remake I remember really had an effect on me.

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Speaker 1: Was the last time a horror film like made me

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Speaker 1: sleep with the lights on? Uh? So I look back

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Speaker 1: fondly on it for that reason. However, I have to

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Speaker 1: say certain aspects of the film stuck with me and

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Speaker 1: others I kind of forgot about. Like some of you

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Speaker 1: might be like, oh, yeah, I guess that girl did

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Speaker 1: write video tapes with her mind like that I kind

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Speaker 1: of forgot about. I also kind of forgot that it

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Speaker 1: had this that it's essentially adoption sploitation horror not the

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Speaker 1: only country, yeah, basically, yeah, basically because the whole idea

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Speaker 1: is that this this couple that adopts this child, and

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Speaker 1: the child is troubled, and I forgot that she was adopted. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So you know, I have a very uh queasy attitude

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Speaker 1: towards that kind of horror at this point in my life.

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Speaker 1: For sure, totally. But but still, those are the things

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Speaker 1: I tend to forget about it. I remember, you know,

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Speaker 1: those scenes with Samara um iimbing out of the television

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Speaker 1: with the creepy walk where they think they filmed her

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Speaker 1: backwards and then made it go forwards. I remember, I

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Speaker 1: think Hans Zimmer did the music, and it's very effective

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Speaker 1: horror music. Um. And then on and then on to

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Speaker 1: the On top of that, you have some great performances. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Did you ever see the sequel? I didn't spoil it all.

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Speaker 1: I saw it in the theater even um and I

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Speaker 1: don't recommend it, but but no, it's a it is

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Speaker 1: a film that is still both films are considered classics

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Speaker 1: in their own way, and I think they earned that

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Speaker 1: that reputation just if nothing else, by just scaring us

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Speaker 1: so terribly and really connecting with our relationship with media.

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Speaker 1: And at that time it was it was dealing with

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Speaker 1: the VHS and uh and and and how we were

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Speaker 1: connecting with with this kind of you know, physical media.

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Speaker 1: And I should say also you know, getting into that

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Speaker 1: idea of finding weird things, finding weird footage. And at

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Speaker 1: that point it was most of us through like tape

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Speaker 1: trading or I guess to a certain extent, downloads, but

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Speaker 1: I definitely remember, uh, you know, ordering up like weird

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Speaker 1: dubs of the Japanese laser disc of say um El

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Speaker 1: Topo or Holy Mountain, and there was this weird you know,

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Speaker 1: like you do. You have not really sure exactly how

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Speaker 1: this got to you. You know, what are the hands

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Speaker 1: that dubbed it from this format to this format and

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Speaker 1: then re dubbed it here and then finally it's in

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Speaker 1: my hands. I think that is actually one of my

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Speaker 1: favorite types of story forms for horror is the the

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Speaker 1: creepy found piece of media. I can remember one of

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Speaker 1: my favorite horror short stories I've read in a long

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Speaker 1: time was won by Laird Baron. I think it's called

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Speaker 1: Mysterium Tremendum, where the narrator of the story you just

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Speaker 1: finds this travel guide and I think some weird use

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Speaker 1: bookstore or something, but it turns out to be a

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Speaker 1: nefarious sort of magic travel guide that leads to very

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Speaker 1: dark places. So yeah, I love that nowadays though, and

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Speaker 1: and maybe they do this so I think maybe they

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Speaker 1: did this in one of the recent Ring movies. It's like,

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Speaker 1: essentially it's gotta be on YouTube, which takes the punch

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Speaker 1: out of it because it's like you have the dark media,

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Speaker 1: but then the dark media is on an even more

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Speaker 1: um deplorable social media you know, bummer format. But it

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Speaker 1: also takes away the ironic distance that makes the horror

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Speaker 1: fun because YouTube just will melt your brain and kill you.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't, it doesn't need any like horror upgrades. The real,

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Speaker 1: actual YouTube is just waiting to destroy you at the moment. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: though it is, it is kind of comforting to think

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Speaker 1: that that all the commentators at the bottom of the

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Speaker 1: Ring video, then YouTube died seven days later. So, like

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Speaker 1: the guy says, w TF is disreal? Yes, is real.

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Speaker 1: As long as we're just talking about the Ring, though,

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Speaker 1: the American remake, we should point out again that that

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Speaker 1: cast is tremendous. Um talking about Samara. Her mom is

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Speaker 1: played by Shannon cochrane who plays who played Pam's mother

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Speaker 1: on the Office, and then her father is played by

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Speaker 1: Brian Cox, the legendary Brian Cox. Brian Cox of my

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Speaker 1: favorite actors of all time. He he kind of makes

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Speaker 1: the movie and in the the the the young actor

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Speaker 1: playing Samara herself. I don't know if we said Samara

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Speaker 1: is the ghost Girl, the ghost Girl, she's Samara and

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Speaker 1: the American version, and she's Sadako in the Japanese version,

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Speaker 1: so that the name changes. But anyway, in the in

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Speaker 1: the in the remake Devey case Chase, I hope I'm

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Speaker 1: saying her name right. Uh. This actor played Samara, and

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Speaker 1: she also voiced Lilo in Lilo and Stitching, the Disney

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Speaker 1: film about the you know, the the alien visiting Hawaii.

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Speaker 1: Going to her IMDb page is hilarious because I found

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Speaker 1: out she also is the girl in the Sparkle Dance

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Speaker 1: Troupe in Donnie Dark. And she's the voice of the

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Speaker 1: main character in the in the English dub of Spirited Away. Ah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the Minazaki film great. Okay, So, first of all, the

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Speaker 1: idea that Samara can create a surrealistic film that she

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Speaker 1: can pour like all the the nihilistic, misanthropic visions in

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Speaker 1: her head into a videotape and make it so potent

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Speaker 1: that it can kill people, either just through the sheer

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Speaker 1: power of the art or you know, probably through some

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Speaker 1: sort of supernatural um you know whatever. Uh. That's a

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Speaker 1: really cool trick and one that I would think could

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Speaker 1: have been put to much more profitable use. Um, Like,

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Speaker 1: why isn't there a sequel where like the U. S

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Speaker 1: Military ends up acquiring Samara, Like that would be great

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Speaker 1: because since she ends up killing all the like the

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Speaker 1: evil mk Ultra gate dudes, it basically rights itself. But

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Speaker 1: sort of a crossover with The Ring and Stranger Things

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Speaker 1: would have been yea. Now to to go a little deeper, though,

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Speaker 1: I think in a way this concept really really works though,

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Speaker 1: Like you can think of any creative endeavor, especially filmmaking,

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Speaker 1: as an attempt to bring that ideal image, that mental

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Speaker 1: image in your head into the world, and of course,

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Speaker 1: for a number of reasons, we generally don't succeed in

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Speaker 1: pulling that off. And part of the reason, of course,

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Speaker 1: is that is that the idea in our mind is

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Speaker 1: rarely as fully formed as we think it is. I

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Speaker 1: think that's exactly right. I mean an experience so I

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Speaker 1: definitely have when writing. And I think you've said you

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Speaker 1: have this before, is I don't necessarily know what I'm

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Speaker 1: going to write until I start writing, Like if I'm

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Speaker 1: writing a scene in fiction, you know, like that it's

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Speaker 1: the process of writing that helps bring out the content. Yeah, exactly. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know in other issues coming to play as well,

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Speaker 1: in the final version perhaps feels a bit lacking, So

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Speaker 1: you know, you can forgive a lot of us if

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Speaker 1: we we we wonder, you know, imagine how perfect it

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Speaker 1: would it would have been if you've been able to

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Speaker 1: simply beam your vision directly onto a video tape. You

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Speaker 1: don't have to worry about casting it where you're gonna

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Speaker 1: film all your weird art, film your artifacts. How are

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Speaker 1: you going to get that that chair to go upside down? No,

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Speaker 1: you can just beam it directly onto the onto the

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Speaker 1: tape um. And so maybe the power then of your

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Speaker 1: vision would be so pure and uncut that it would

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Speaker 1: just literally slay people. Well, I like that, But on

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Speaker 1: the other hand, I mean, I think it's sort of

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Speaker 1: trying to imagine. This highlights the unreality of what it

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Speaker 1: is you're trying to imagine. I mean, I feel like

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Speaker 1: our image of the thing we want to create is

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Speaker 1: never really fully formed, even when it seems like it is.

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Speaker 1: I wonder if even people who have extremely vivid mental

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Speaker 1: imagery can actually see a full completed painting that they

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Speaker 1: haven't finished painting yet, uh, and and not just sort

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Speaker 1: of like see glimpses of little bits of color and

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Speaker 1: shape that that ultimately add up to something concrete and

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Speaker 1: finalized once you've you know, translated it through your hand

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Speaker 1: movements into that painting. I kind of doubt that people

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Speaker 1: can actually see a full painting that they haven't painted yet, right,

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Speaker 1: And maybe we may be part of his linguistic you know,

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Speaker 1: like we we might tend to say a sculptor might say,

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Speaker 1: I see the horse trapped in this block, and I

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Speaker 1: wish to free it. I'm just going to remove all

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Speaker 1: the pieces around the finished piece that I envisioned within it,

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Speaker 1: within reality. It's more like I see the inspiration for

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Speaker 1: the thing that I am going to create. Yeah, a

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Speaker 1: kind of fuzzy, low resolution suggestion of the thing that

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Speaker 1: you will create. Yeah. And then comes the hard work.

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Speaker 1: Then comes the talent, uh, and the skill. One more

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Speaker 1: one more thing about the ring, and then I'll I'll

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Speaker 1: mostly let it go. But ultimately, what is the message

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Speaker 1: of this film. It's It's seen because basically the whole

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Speaker 1: plot is, oh, this these tapes are killing people. Why

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Speaker 1: is it killing people? Oh, it's because of this little

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Speaker 1: girl that died. And then they go on this question like, oh,

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Speaker 1: well we can set her spirit free, she'll be happy

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Speaker 1: and everyone will be saved. And then you realize, oh, no,

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Speaker 1: that doesn't work, because she can't be saved. She's just

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Speaker 1: evil to the core, and everybody's gonna keep on dying, right, Well,

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Speaker 1: but they do figure out a way to get around

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Speaker 1: the curse, which is just keep passing it, keeps spreading it.

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Speaker 1: So right, if you spread the curse to more people,

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Speaker 1: she won't kill you. Yeah, when basically the plot of

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Speaker 1: of it follows as well, right, But but ultimately in

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Speaker 1: the Ring, well you only get temporarily spirit and it follows, right,

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Speaker 1: But then I think in the Ring they acknowledge what

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Speaker 1: happens when like you know, that did it might come

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Speaker 1: back to them as well. But maybe that's in the sequels. No, No,

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Speaker 1: I think that was it was kind of at least

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Speaker 1: hinted at in the first book. Yeah, I don't really

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Speaker 1: don't trying to think about the sequels. But but ultimately,

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Speaker 1: like the messages, don't try to help people, don't try

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Speaker 1: and fix the world like everybody's gonna do. That's so

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Speaker 1: just so bleak and nihilistic. Maybe it's just too bleak

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Speaker 1: and nihilistic for me now. It's the kind of thing

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Speaker 1: I would have loved when I was younger. But but yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's such a harsh way to land it. Isn't it. Yeah, Um,

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Speaker 1: it's not an inspiring story on close examination. But but

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Speaker 1: I do still stand by a lot of the visual

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Speaker 1: imagery in the film, which I think holds up really well.

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Speaker 1: And Brian Cox is just an absolute treat absolutely. All Right,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break when we come back.

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Speaker 1: We're going to move on from just discussing the ring

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Speaker 1: in general, and we're going to discuss this this thing

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Speaker 1: that she is supposed to do, this idea that a

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Speaker 1: mind could somehow imprint an image on something or in

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Speaker 1: something or in like on tape or on film. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And it's gonna be one of these top that I

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Speaker 1: think you know, draws in from a number of past

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Speaker 1: episodes of both stuff to blow your mind and invention.

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Speaker 1: Thank alright, we're back. So we're exploring the topic of

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Speaker 1: psychic photography, or just generally being able to print the

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Speaker 1: mind's eye into some manifestation in the physical world without

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Speaker 1: going through any kind of normal motor translation process like

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Speaker 1: drawing with your hand or explaining a mental image with

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Speaker 1: your mouth, just printing the mind's eye directly onto film

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Speaker 1: or onto a piece of paper. Yes, and this is

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Speaker 1: a topic that if you're if you're already thinking, well,

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Speaker 1: that just sounds silly. Um, we'll hang with us, because

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Speaker 1: you know, ultimately, I mean, I think it's pretty safe

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Speaker 1: to say this is not actually occurring, This is not

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Speaker 1: a power that human beings actually have. But but by

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Speaker 1: looking at it and considering, like how we get to

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Speaker 1: this point of thinking that it's possible in some cases,

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Speaker 1: uh you know, what it reveals as about our relationship

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Speaker 1: with our own mind and considerations of our own mind

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Speaker 1: and mental states, as well as our understanding of photography itself. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this episode made me keep thinking back to the series

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Speaker 1: on photography that we did on our other podcast, Invention,

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Speaker 1: which if you're not subscribed yet, go subscribe to Invention.

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Speaker 1: That's right, it's a journey through human techno history. And

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Speaker 1: oh yeah, we did a whole series on photography, also

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Speaker 1: stuff before photography, like the camera obscura, and then also

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Speaker 1: on motion picture technology afterwards. And really, you know, we can't,

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Speaker 1: uh you know, overstate the degree to which photography change

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Speaker 1: the world. It changed the way we thought about the world,

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Speaker 1: how we thought about ourselves. It gave us new metaphors

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Speaker 1: for uh, you know, thinking about our own minds and

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Speaker 1: how we're perceiving the world and uh also arguably made

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Speaker 1: the modern celebrity possible. Uh So we can lay that

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Speaker 1: crime at its feet as well, but it also lent

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Speaker 1: itself well to a number of pseudo scientific ideas and

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Speaker 1: ultimately downright occult notions about what photography was and what

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Speaker 1: it might capture. Well. Sure, because if you are, say,

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Speaker 1: somebody who is adamant that there is a type of

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Speaker 1: reality that we can't normally see, a very commonplace to

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Speaker 1: go to try to find bits of evidence of that

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Speaker 1: reality that we can't normally see is some kind of

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Speaker 1: objective recorded media. I mean, I think about the people

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Speaker 1: who do e VP ghost recordings electronic voice phenomena. Again,

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Speaker 1: this is not something that I think is real evidence

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Speaker 1: of ghosts, but a lot of people think, Okay, you know,

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Speaker 1: I take my tape recorder to a haunted graveyard and

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Speaker 1: I just leave it going, and then I play it

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Speaker 1: back and in through the static and the rustling in

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Speaker 1: the wind, I hear voices saying things. If I can

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Speaker 1: be psychological for a minute, I think what's mostly going

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Speaker 1: on is that drawing from objective recording media like that

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Speaker 1: allows people to generate the noise into which they can

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Speaker 1: read a signal, yes, And of course photogra raphe when

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Speaker 1: it was new, provided a whole new way of doing

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Speaker 1: something like this, right, And then other technologies that were

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Speaker 1: coming out around, you know, in the same era, we

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Speaker 1: also had the X ray, which we also have an

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Speaker 1: episode of Invention about which deals with invisible um, you

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Speaker 1: know processes, you know, invisible rays, an invisible world and

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Speaker 1: and also was a big game changer and how we

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Speaker 1: we thought about reality. Sure, so I was reading a

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Speaker 1: little more about this, and I ran across a two

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Speaker 1: thousand five book titled The Perfect Medium by Shiro at

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Speaker 1: All and it it gets into the intersections between the

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Speaker 1: occult and photography, which are numerous, numerous, but the author's

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Speaker 1: point out that they generally they generally fall into three categories.

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Speaker 1: First of all, photographs of spirits, in which a spirit

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Speaker 1: entity shows up in the photograph. I think we awph

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Speaker 1: movie with the examples of this, uh uh. And then

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Speaker 1: another is photographs of mediums in which the spirit medium,

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Speaker 1: which is a you know, human like as someone who's

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Speaker 1: leading a seance or something, is doing something supernatural. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so it might be like a photograph that shows that

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Speaker 1: during a seance, this medium was levitating, or that this

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Speaker 1: medium during some kind of session, was generating ectoplasm, right,

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Speaker 1: And that's the next one, photographs of fluids And and

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Speaker 1: this one is interesting because the obvious subject matter here

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Speaker 1: is exoplasm, some weird substance emerging from the individual, and

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Speaker 1: in reality it's generally wet sheep's cloth or something like that. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And it's easy to just think of this as ghost

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Speaker 1: slime and a ghostbuster's fashion. Maybe we should explain ectoplasm

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Speaker 1: just a little bit more so. It was this phenomenon

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Speaker 1: where a medium would claim that they can generate some

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Speaker 1: kind of physical manifestation of the spirit world that shows

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Speaker 1: up when you take a picture of them in the dark. Maybe, uh,

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Speaker 1: and it would yeah, so it would look like some

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Speaker 1: kind of weird cloth or slime beside their head or

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Speaker 1: on their body, like like a big like mucus something

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Speaker 1: like don't even generally it just looks like some it

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Speaker 1: a weird mucacy cloth they got slimed. Yeah, slimber exactly.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's where that comes from. But it's also

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Speaker 1: a bit more more complex in the society. You know

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Speaker 1: that the fluids in these photographs as sharrow and I'll

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Speaker 1: point out, you know, it's dealing with this the idea

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Speaker 1: that you're capturing a sense of the vital force, the soul,

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Speaker 1: the thoughts, feelings, dreams, etcetera. All of this directly captured

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Speaker 1: on a photographic plate without the use of a camera

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Speaker 1: in some cases. So it has a strong connection to

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Speaker 1: what was going on at the time and observation of

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Speaker 1: X rays and radioactivity. They point out that in France,

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Speaker 1: so Luis darg and others quote, sought to photograph their

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Speaker 1: own vital energy or thoughts simply by placing their fingers

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Speaker 1: or foreheads on the censusized plate, despite numerous refutations by

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Speaker 1: scientists who demonstrated that the traces thus obtained were no

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Speaker 1: more than photographic artifacts arising out of the experimental conditions themselves.

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Speaker 1: Attempts to record human fluids continued throughout the twentieth century,

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Speaker 1: and so this these fluids would not just be like

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Speaker 1: blood or something. That would be these the spiritual fluids. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it gets beyond just like mere fluids and into

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Speaker 1: also things like horrors. Um. So in other words, and

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00:23:07,280 --> 00:23:12,000
Speaker 1: the people still do photographing as absolutely, that's like big business. Yeah,

428
00:23:12,119 --> 00:23:13,920
Speaker 1: So you know, in other words, in the midst of

429
00:23:13,960 --> 00:23:16,879
Speaker 1: all this what was essentially future shock, you know, uh

430
00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:20,479
Speaker 1: at this emerging technology and the hidden worlds exposed through

431
00:23:20,640 --> 00:23:24,280
Speaker 1: X rays. This idea of capturing thoughts through photography carried

432
00:23:24,400 --> 00:23:26,639
Speaker 1: a fair amount of weight, no matter what the science

433
00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:30,200
Speaker 1: said and is still saying about it. So the author's

434
00:23:30,240 --> 00:23:33,119
Speaker 1: point to to uh to a couple of examples, one

435
00:23:33,160 --> 00:23:37,480
Speaker 1: of which is the work of Simion Kurlean in the

436
00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:40,919
Speaker 1: nineteen forties. Uh. Kurlean, of course, is where we get

437
00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:45,200
Speaker 1: Kurlean photography. He lived nineteen seventy eight, and it's the

438
00:23:45,240 --> 00:23:48,200
Speaker 1: process in which an image is obtained by the application

439
00:23:48,600 --> 00:23:51,200
Speaker 1: of a high frequency electric field to an object so

440
00:23:51,280 --> 00:23:54,800
Speaker 1: that it radiates a characteristic pattern of luminescence that is

441
00:23:54,840 --> 00:23:58,280
Speaker 1: recorded on photographic film. And it ultimately has to do

442
00:23:58,400 --> 00:24:01,120
Speaker 1: with moisture and other factors. But but claims were made

443
00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:04,760
Speaker 1: that it captured some aspect of an individual's health, their essence,

444
00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:08,280
Speaker 1: or their vital bodily energy. So there's some kind of

445
00:24:08,359 --> 00:24:10,879
Speaker 1: like invisible quality they have this showing up when you

446
00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:13,480
Speaker 1: run this electric current and take a picture, right, And

447
00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:16,000
Speaker 1: I think it's still factors into some sort of to

448
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:21,120
Speaker 1: some like alternative like new age of systems, and I'm

449
00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:23,400
Speaker 1: not saying there's anything wrong with that. I mean, it's

450
00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:26,200
Speaker 1: ultimately you're you're dealing with something that is perhaps a

451
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:33,639
Speaker 1: a what you know, a supernatural interpretation of some visual

452
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:37,280
Speaker 1: data that you've created, which you know, as long as

453
00:24:37,320 --> 00:24:40,520
Speaker 1: you're not not you know, claiming that it's scientific, I

454
00:24:40,560 --> 00:24:43,600
Speaker 1: guess you know, go for it. Um. It just falls

455
00:24:43,680 --> 00:24:48,120
Speaker 1: under the domain of of of of spiritualism and religion.

456
00:24:48,680 --> 00:24:50,800
Speaker 1: They also point to a man by the name of

457
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:54,360
Speaker 1: ted Sirius, who we will come back to in a bit. Yes,

458
00:24:54,720 --> 00:24:56,879
Speaker 1: because we before we get to Sirius, we have to

459
00:24:57,080 --> 00:25:01,600
Speaker 1: explore the origins of this very act that Samara in

460
00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:05,600
Speaker 1: the Ring is Uh is engaging in. UH, this idea

461
00:25:06,160 --> 00:25:09,520
Speaker 1: that human beings are capable not only of photography, which

462
00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:12,720
Speaker 1: photography in and of itself is an amazing accomplishment. This

463
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:16,200
Speaker 1: this this much seemed magic when it was new. Oh, absolutely,

464
00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:18,880
Speaker 1: because at least we discussed an invention. You know. It's

465
00:25:19,320 --> 00:25:24,040
Speaker 1: it's this perfect convergence of of optical expertise and chemical

466
00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:27,840
Speaker 1: expertise and artistic expertise, all of it coming together in

467
00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:31,200
Speaker 1: this new way of of of of dealing with the

468
00:25:31,280 --> 00:25:34,960
Speaker 1: visual world. Um. But then we have this added idea

469
00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:40,560
Speaker 1: that people can also engage in thought ptography, right thoughtography. Uh,

470
00:25:40,920 --> 00:25:45,000
Speaker 1: it goes by several names, now psychic photography maybe thoughtography,

471
00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:49,080
Speaker 1: and it's modern origins are I think you could you

472
00:25:49,119 --> 00:25:51,880
Speaker 1: could argue that they are in Japan. So I want

473
00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:56,040
Speaker 1: to talk about a researcher named Fukuai Tomokuchi, who is

474
00:25:56,080 --> 00:25:59,480
Speaker 1: a Japanese psychologist who lived from eighteen sixty nine to

475
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:04,320
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two. He was educated at Tokyo Imperial University

476
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:07,199
Speaker 1: in the eighteen nineties. He studied in their philosophy department.

477
00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:09,600
Speaker 1: Because this would have been when psychology was brand new.

478
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:13,040
Speaker 1: There weren't like psychology departments you know at there would

479
00:26:13,119 --> 00:26:14,720
Speaker 1: have been many if there were any at the time,

480
00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:18,600
Speaker 1: and he received his PhD after doing a dissertation on hypnotism.

481
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:23,040
Speaker 1: And according to the History of Japanese Psychology by Brian J. McVeigh,

482
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:25,920
Speaker 1: which is my source on most of this about Fukarai,

483
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:29,680
Speaker 1: Fukarai played an important role in introducing the work of

484
00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:34,560
Speaker 1: the pioneering American psychologist William James to Japanese scholars. Of course,

485
00:26:34,600 --> 00:26:38,240
Speaker 1: William James would have been a contemporary of fukurais James

486
00:26:38,359 --> 00:26:41,200
Speaker 1: Is The Principles of Psychology came out in eighteen ninety

487
00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:44,880
Speaker 1: and his lectures which became the Varieties of Religious Experience,

488
00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:46,760
Speaker 1: which we've talked about a number of times on the show.

489
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:49,479
Speaker 1: That those happened around nineteen o one and nineteen o two,

490
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:51,520
Speaker 1: I think, But so this would have been around the

491
00:26:51,560 --> 00:26:54,360
Speaker 1: same time that Fukarai was working and UH and doing

492
00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:58,320
Speaker 1: his dissertation and doing his early research. And now, according

493
00:26:58,359 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 1: to McVeigh, Fukarai also published work on the subject of education,

494
00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:06,159
Speaker 1: and he became a lecturer and an associate professor in

495
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:09,159
Speaker 1: the field of abnormal psychology, which today we would just

496
00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:12,320
Speaker 1: call the study of mental illnesses. And he so he

497
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:15,560
Speaker 1: was a lecturer at Tokyo Imperial University on these subjects.

498
00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:19,440
Speaker 1: But from here his interests apparently took a turn for

499
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:25,520
Speaker 1: the paranormal. So, beginning sometime around nineteen ten, Fukarai became

500
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:31,439
Speaker 1: extremely interested in spiritualism, especially in the subject of clairvoyance. Now,

501
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:33,399
Speaker 1: of course, we should note that he would not have

502
00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:37,919
Speaker 1: been alone in this at the time. Interest in spiritualism, mediums,

503
00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:42,199
Speaker 1: and the paranormal enjoyed extreme popularity and elite circles all

504
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:46,240
Speaker 1: around the world at this time now Today, clairvoyance is

505
00:27:46,320 --> 00:27:49,359
Speaker 1: usually understood to be a special kind of psychic power.

506
00:27:49,600 --> 00:27:52,960
Speaker 1: Common definition of it is quote the supposed faculty of

507
00:27:53,119 --> 00:27:56,520
Speaker 1: perceiving things or events in the future or beyond normal

508
00:27:56,680 --> 00:28:01,639
Speaker 1: sensory contact. Now, like a lot of psychic concepts, I

509
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:06,040
Speaker 1: see clairvoyance invoked to refer to sort of a broad

510
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:09,640
Speaker 1: range of things. So I think it can include all

511
00:28:09,760 --> 00:28:13,359
Speaker 1: manner of cases of remote viewing. So like seeing things

512
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:16,440
Speaker 1: that are behind physical barriers. You know, you shouldn't be

513
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:18,720
Speaker 1: able to see through the closed door into the next room,

514
00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:21,879
Speaker 1: but you can seeing things that are far away, you know,

515
00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:25,160
Speaker 1: maybe seeing things that are happening in another country, seeing

516
00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:27,920
Speaker 1: things that are separated in time, in the future or

517
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:31,640
Speaker 1: the past. Uh. And sometimes, but less often, seeing things

518
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:34,760
Speaker 1: that can't normally be seen at all, such as spiritual

519
00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:38,560
Speaker 1: essences or the contents of other people's thoughts, or otherwise

520
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:42,000
Speaker 1: having knowledge that you just couldn't acquire by normal means. Now,

521
00:28:42,120 --> 00:28:45,120
Speaker 1: of course, it's worth noting that all of these things

522
00:28:46,320 --> 00:28:52,000
Speaker 1: as psychic phenomenon, they are basically exaggerations of things that

523
00:28:52,160 --> 00:28:55,960
Speaker 1: the human mind does through um, you know, through a

524
00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:59,480
Speaker 1: mental time travel, for instance, imagining what the future will

525
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:02,560
Speaker 1: be like a or remembering what the past was. The

526
00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 1: idea of not being able to see through a wall

527
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 1: into the next room and see what's going on there,

528
00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:10,600
Speaker 1: but perform, but you know, conceiving a mental picture of

529
00:29:10,720 --> 00:29:12,840
Speaker 1: what it might be like. Like for instance, there's another

530
00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:15,800
Speaker 1: recording studio here in the office. I cannot see in

531
00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:18,560
Speaker 1: there with my mind, but with my mind, I can

532
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:21,120
Speaker 1: imagine that the guys from stuff they don't want you

533
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:24,160
Speaker 1: to know are in there right now recording something. But

534
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:28,040
Speaker 1: you cannot imagine what they are doing. But I can

535
00:29:28,160 --> 00:29:30,480
Speaker 1: form a pretty basic idea that you're setting around a

536
00:29:30,520 --> 00:29:32,680
Speaker 1: table talking. It will not fit in your brain, and

537
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:35,720
Speaker 1: they're doing it's it's it looks just like what we're doing.

538
00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:39,520
Speaker 1: The subject matter is slightly different. But but at any rate,

539
00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:42,920
Speaker 1: what I'm saying is I can form a pretty good idea,

540
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:45,800
Speaker 1: but I know that that is just my brain creating

541
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 1: a simulation of my environment, right. But I mean, I

542
00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:51,800
Speaker 1: think a lot of this clairvoyant stuff hinges on the

543
00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:55,240
Speaker 1: concept of generating accurate knowledge. It's like all the stuff

544
00:29:55,320 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 1: we can do with our imagination, except they can do

545
00:29:58,040 --> 00:30:02,080
Speaker 1: it to see reality. Um, And the kind of clairvoyants

546
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:04,400
Speaker 1: that Fukurai was most interested in I think would be

547
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:06,760
Speaker 1: covered by the first two categories of things I said,

548
00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:09,280
Speaker 1: so mostly like seeing things that are far away and

549
00:30:09,400 --> 00:30:13,800
Speaker 1: seeing across physical barriers. According to McVeigh, he was focused

550
00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:17,640
Speaker 1: on something called toshi, which meant something like seeing through,

551
00:30:17,880 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 1: as in seeing through barriers, and on syndrigan, which meant

552
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:25,520
Speaker 1: the far seeing I And in this para psychology phase

553
00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 1: of his life, Fukurai was aided by another Japanese researcher

554
00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:34,640
Speaker 1: named Imamura Shinkichi. Now Fukuai studied a reputed Japanese clairvoyant

555
00:30:34,760 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 1: named Mifuna Chizuko and another named Nagao Ikuko, and McVeigh

556
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:43,320
Speaker 1: writes that in nineteen ten, Fukurai performed a series of

557
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:46,560
Speaker 1: experiments in front of a panel of scholars and experts

558
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 1: that he believed would demonstrate Mifuna Chizuko's power to read

559
00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:55,080
Speaker 1: out written messages even after they'd been sealed inside envelopes

560
00:30:55,360 --> 00:30:59,440
Speaker 1: and then placed inside lead containers, and apparently an attempt

561
00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 1: to rep locate these experiments the following year in nineteen eleven,

562
00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:06,080
Speaker 1: was not as successful as Fukurai and Mifune had hoped,

563
00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:09,360
Speaker 1: and a lot of people considered that Fukarai's research was

564
00:31:09,760 --> 00:31:14,080
Speaker 1: clearly misguided after some failed demonstrations, and he and his

565
00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:18,400
Speaker 1: supposed clairvoyance subjects like Nagau and Mfune were criticized in

566
00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:20,920
Speaker 1: the press. And at least I think it's implied that

567
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:24,320
Speaker 1: partially as a result of these failures and subsequent criticism,

568
00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:29,200
Speaker 1: McVeigh writes that both Mfuni and Nagaikuko committed suicide in

569
00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:33,240
Speaker 1: the year nineteen eleven, but before I've also seen another

570
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:37,080
Speaker 1: cause of death attributed to Nagaikuko, so I'm not sure

571
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:39,480
Speaker 1: about that. But McVeigh says that that she also died

572
00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:43,880
Speaker 1: by suicide. But before she died in nineteen eleven, Nagaikuko

573
00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:47,720
Speaker 1: appeared to demonstrate a novel form of psychic power that

574
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:52,080
Speaker 1: fascinated Fukurai, and this was apart from traditional clairvoyance. This

575
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:56,440
Speaker 1: was the power that Fukurai called ninsha, which would have

576
00:31:56,600 --> 00:32:01,400
Speaker 1: roughly translated as thoughtography. That the Japanese term ninha comes

577
00:32:01,440 --> 00:32:04,480
Speaker 1: from the combination of nin meaning like sense or feeling,

578
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:08,200
Speaker 1: and shah meaning picture, and in concrete terms, this just

579
00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:10,640
Speaker 1: means that Fukura I believe that Negau had the power

580
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:14,360
Speaker 1: to use her mind's eye to expose a dry plate

581
00:32:14,440 --> 00:32:19,160
Speaker 1: of photographic film, essentially burning her thoughts directly onto the

582
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 1: physical substrate, the same way that light prints and image

583
00:32:22,320 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 1: onto a piece of film. After Mifune and Nagau died,

584
00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:28,680
Speaker 1: Fukurai continued his research, and he published a book about

585
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:33,280
Speaker 1: clairvoyance and photography in nineteen thirteen, which was widely criticized

586
00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:36,760
Speaker 1: as credulous and unscientific, and Fugura I eventually lost his

587
00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:40,240
Speaker 1: university position moved on to other things that he apparently

588
00:32:40,280 --> 00:32:43,640
Speaker 1: continued to be interested in paranormal research well into his

589
00:32:43,840 --> 00:32:48,040
Speaker 1: retirement in the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties. UM one

590
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:51,440
Speaker 1: weird thing is before he was publicly ridiculed and ousted

591
00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:54,680
Speaker 1: from his position, it took you a university. Fugara was

592
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:58,000
Speaker 1: considered an elite scholar at the head of Japanese psychology.

593
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 1: He was not you know, just some crank right pamphlets

594
00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:04,479
Speaker 1: in his basement. He was uh. He was a top scholar,

595
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:07,840
Speaker 1: and his his academic exile had consequences. I was reading

596
00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:11,040
Speaker 1: in the Oxford Handbook of the History of Psychology, Global

597
00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:14,480
Speaker 1: Perspectives by David B. Baker that, in reaction to the

598
00:33:14,520 --> 00:33:18,160
Speaker 1: Fukarai Affair, a new head of the psychology department at

599
00:33:18,200 --> 00:33:23,040
Speaker 1: Tokyo Imperial University, decided that the department could rehabilitate its

600
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 1: reputation by only focusing on quote normal psychology, ignoring both

601
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:32,480
Speaker 1: of Fukara's areas of study, meaning parapsychology like the study

602
00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:36,600
Speaker 1: of psychics and quote abnormal psychology, which again would amount

603
00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:39,800
Speaker 1: to the study of mental illness. Uh. Now, of course,

604
00:33:39,800 --> 00:33:42,240
Speaker 1: saying we're not going to study mental illnesses is a

605
00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:46,280
Speaker 1: huge limitation on academic psychology, which the authors right in

606
00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:49,719
Speaker 1: this book a quote stunted the rise of clinical psychology

607
00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:52,959
Speaker 1: and pre war Japan. Yeah, absolutely though, because he had

608
00:33:53,240 --> 00:33:55,760
Speaker 1: studying an mental illness is a way not only of

609
00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:59,240
Speaker 1: understanding how to trade mental illness, but also to understand

610
00:33:59,440 --> 00:34:03,240
Speaker 1: like what, uh you know, how the mind is functioning

611
00:34:03,360 --> 00:34:07,800
Speaker 1: in individuals who are are not experiencing mental illness, right,

612
00:34:07,880 --> 00:34:11,239
Speaker 1: I mean it. It provides a frame of reference. Yeah,

613
00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:13,520
Speaker 1: A lot of the For example, a lot of the

614
00:34:13,560 --> 00:34:16,640
Speaker 1: biggest breakthroughs in the history of psychology have come from

615
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:19,920
Speaker 1: studying patients who have brain injuries or legions or some

616
00:34:20,120 --> 00:34:23,600
Speaker 1: kind that like they show you how the brain changes

617
00:34:23,640 --> 00:34:26,960
Speaker 1: when certain or how the mind changes and how behavior

618
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:29,919
Speaker 1: changes when certain physical changes are made to the brain.

619
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:32,880
Speaker 1: And of course, I I've seen it alleged by a

620
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:35,800
Speaker 1: number of writers that the stories of people like me,

621
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:40,200
Speaker 1: Funa Chizuko, and Nagai Kuko inspired the fictional ghost in

622
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:42,839
Speaker 1: the original Ring by Suzuki Koji. I don't know if

623
00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:45,600
Speaker 1: that's uh correct, but it's at least been alleged that

624
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:49,160
Speaker 1: there's some threat of inspiration there um. And you know,

625
00:34:49,400 --> 00:34:51,560
Speaker 1: I want to be a little bit sympathetic to Fukurai

626
00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:55,600
Speaker 1: and consider the historical context, Like in the year nineteen ten,

627
00:34:56,800 --> 00:34:59,320
Speaker 1: it was only fifteen years previous that X rays and

628
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:01,800
Speaker 1: X ray photog graphy had been discovered. We sort of

629
00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:06,080
Speaker 1: alluded to this earlier, right. The German physicist Wilhelm Runkin.

630
00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:09,279
Speaker 1: He discovered X rays by accident in the year eight

631
00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:13,040
Speaker 1: when he was performing experiments with the type of early

632
00:35:13,160 --> 00:35:16,480
Speaker 1: cathode ray tube, which was an electrical device that shoots

633
00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:20,160
Speaker 1: a beam of electrons across space inside and evacuated tube

634
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:23,680
Speaker 1: from one electrode to another. And Runkin noticed when he

635
00:35:23,760 --> 00:35:26,400
Speaker 1: was running these experiments, he'd put current through the cathode

636
00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:28,880
Speaker 1: ray tube in the darkened room it would make this

637
00:35:29,040 --> 00:35:32,360
Speaker 1: particular screen in the room. It was a screen of

638
00:35:32,719 --> 00:35:36,120
Speaker 1: barium platinum cyanide, which is like a type of photographic plate.

639
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:39,600
Speaker 1: It would make that glow. And this puzzled him, of course,

640
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:41,719
Speaker 1: so he tried to run some more experiments, and he

641
00:35:41,840 --> 00:35:45,120
Speaker 1: discovered that he could use the cathode ray tube to

642
00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:50,200
Speaker 1: expose photographic plates inside a completely dark room, except the

643
00:35:50,280 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 1: photos were nothing like anybody on Earth had ever seen.

644
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:57,200
Speaker 1: A human hand placed in front of the tube, between

645
00:35:57,280 --> 00:36:00,200
Speaker 1: the tube and the plate would create an exposed you're

646
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:03,800
Speaker 1: almost completely ignoring the fleshy parts of the hand, but

647
00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 1: showing the bones hidden underneath the flesh. And when Runkan

648
00:36:08,360 --> 00:36:10,680
Speaker 1: created an X ray exposure of his wife's hand, she

649
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:13,399
Speaker 1: reportedly looked at the images of her bones and said,

650
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:16,840
Speaker 1: I have seen my death. Uh yeah. And if you

651
00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:18,440
Speaker 1: want more about this, we talked about this in our

652
00:36:18,560 --> 00:36:21,040
Speaker 1: x ray episode of Invention. But the X ray photo

653
00:36:21,160 --> 00:36:24,640
Speaker 1: was a radically completely new way of imaging the hidden

654
00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:28,080
Speaker 1: reality inside the body. It had been discovered almost completely

655
00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:30,839
Speaker 1: by accident, and it had been only like fifteen years

656
00:36:30,920 --> 00:36:33,680
Speaker 1: before this. Of course, photography itself was maybe like eighty

657
00:36:33,760 --> 00:36:36,480
Speaker 1: to ninety years old at the time. And so you

658
00:36:36,560 --> 00:36:38,759
Speaker 1: add to that the fact that people were proposing all

659
00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:42,160
Speaker 1: kinds of other hypothetical classes of rays at the time.

660
00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:45,600
Speaker 1: You remember we talked about n rays. Those didn't exist,

661
00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:48,440
Speaker 1: but people were just thinking that there were all kinds

662
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:52,480
Speaker 1: of rays we didn't detect or understand yet invisible forces

663
00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:56,560
Speaker 1: beaming out from one object to another. Um Fukurai was wrong.

664
00:36:56,719 --> 00:36:58,719
Speaker 1: I think. I think he was misguided, But I don't

665
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:02,319
Speaker 1: think it was crazy the time, or certainly not as

666
00:37:02,360 --> 00:37:04,840
Speaker 1: crazy as it seems now to think that the hidden

667
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:08,520
Speaker 1: anatomy that governed the mind's eye and the brain might

668
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:11,120
Speaker 1: leave some kind of print on a piece of film

669
00:37:11,280 --> 00:37:14,160
Speaker 1: via raise projected out of the head. I don't know.

670
00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:16,200
Speaker 1: Does does that make sense to you? Yeah? Yeah, I

671
00:37:16,239 --> 00:37:19,160
Speaker 1: mean we have to put ourselves in the framework of

672
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:21,560
Speaker 1: the time, and uh and and and really again in

673
00:37:21,640 --> 00:37:24,560
Speaker 1: that the sense of future shock that would have would

674
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:27,520
Speaker 1: have still been resonating, and to a certain extent still resonates,

675
00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:29,319
Speaker 1: because I think one of the one of the things

676
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:31,920
Speaker 1: that we're going to keep seeing in these episodes is

677
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:35,520
Speaker 1: that and I think this was revealed again in our

678
00:37:35,719 --> 00:37:39,600
Speaker 1: our photography series on Invention, is that photography is a

679
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:43,279
Speaker 1: complicated process that brings in uh, you know, at least

680
00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:46,920
Speaker 1: two different fields the third if you count the artistic

681
00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:52,320
Speaker 1: world as well, but certainly optics and chemistry, and not

682
00:37:52,520 --> 00:37:55,680
Speaker 1: everyone really has a firm grasp on that like it too.

683
00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:57,600
Speaker 1: For a lot of us, it's still kind of feels

684
00:37:57,640 --> 00:38:01,960
Speaker 1: like magic. A polaroid camera, uh, you know, we're you know,

685
00:38:02,080 --> 00:38:05,960
Speaker 1: instantly gives you the the images sort of magic. Uh.

686
00:38:06,560 --> 00:38:10,120
Speaker 1: And when we when we don't understand something completely, it

687
00:38:10,360 --> 00:38:15,440
Speaker 1: it allows us to engage in uh, unrealistic modes of

688
00:38:16,040 --> 00:38:20,360
Speaker 1: thought about what is going on with the camera, what

689
00:38:20,480 --> 00:38:23,279
Speaker 1: is going on with photography. All right, we're gonna keep

690
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:25,520
Speaker 1: talking about all this, but we're gonna take one quick

691
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:32,080
Speaker 1: break first. Alright, we're back. So I want to talk

692
00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 1: just a little bit about this idea of remote viewing,

693
00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:39,560
Speaker 1: which which Fukurai was definitely involved in. This idea that

694
00:38:39,640 --> 00:38:41,440
Speaker 1: you know, you could just you could see what's going

695
00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:44,480
Speaker 1: on in another place, either in another room, another part

696
00:38:44,520 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 1: of the world, sealed envelope, sealed envelope, or another planet.

697
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:52,000
Speaker 1: And you know, another example of an accomplished individual in

698
00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:56,160
Speaker 1: their field who is also a prominent, uh proponent of

699
00:38:56,239 --> 00:39:01,240
Speaker 1: remote viewing is Atlanta's own Courtney Brown, an associate professor

700
00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:04,640
Speaker 1: in the Political Science Department at Emory University. It also

701
00:39:04,719 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 1: works in nonlinear mathematics. So we see in fukarai and

702
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:14,880
Speaker 1: interest in hypnosis uh and then Brown is versed in meditation. UH.

703
00:39:15,080 --> 00:39:18,880
Speaker 1: Meditation induced light experiences can occur and have been linked

704
00:39:18,920 --> 00:39:23,120
Speaker 1: to similar experiences in sensory deprivation UH and and I've

705
00:39:23,160 --> 00:39:25,960
Speaker 1: seen things like that in yoga meditation as well, where

706
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:28,960
Speaker 1: you will be you know, you're you're you're seeing lights

707
00:39:29,160 --> 00:39:33,480
Speaker 1: or shapes or or some sort of imagery that feels

708
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:36,440
Speaker 1: as if it is it is arising, and it is

709
00:39:36,520 --> 00:39:39,080
Speaker 1: not called forth you know what I'm saying, Like, it

710
00:39:39,160 --> 00:39:42,520
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like it's something that you are consciously imagining.

711
00:39:42,560 --> 00:39:45,040
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel like something that is dictated by the

712
00:39:45,120 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 1: default mode network, you know, it doesn't feel like the

713
00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:51,640
Speaker 1: sort of images um or thoughts that are normally bombarding

714
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:54,520
Speaker 1: our brain. Well, I think about how often in psychedelic

715
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:58,239
Speaker 1: experiences people talk about believing they have encountered an other

716
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:01,480
Speaker 1: where if you just you know, it's impossible to know

717
00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:03,480
Speaker 1: for sure, but it seems like probably what's going on

718
00:40:03,680 --> 00:40:06,360
Speaker 1: is they're having an internal experience with their own brain.

719
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:10,480
Speaker 1: But there are some types of experiences that we've just

720
00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:14,920
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, feel our exogenous. It feels like it's

721
00:40:14,960 --> 00:40:17,759
Speaker 1: coming from outside you, right. And so with with the

722
00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:22,840
Speaker 1: right amount of of priming, expectation, and ultimately consolidation, like

723
00:40:23,440 --> 00:40:25,920
Speaker 1: any one of these experiences, be it something that is

724
00:40:26,200 --> 00:40:28,960
Speaker 1: due to the use of psychedelics or something that is

725
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:33,919
Speaker 1: acquired through meditation, hypnosis, etcetera um. Because as we've discussed before,

726
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:37,960
Speaker 1: like even normal our normal sensory view of the world

727
00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:42,320
Speaker 1: is inherently hallucinatory, you know, it is in its in

728
00:40:42,400 --> 00:40:45,359
Speaker 1: its own way and illusion. It's not the way things are.

729
00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:48,000
Speaker 1: It's just like a useful sort of movie that we

730
00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:50,799
Speaker 1: can interact with the world through. Right. So if you're

731
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:53,799
Speaker 1: having an experience like that and it feels real, right,

732
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:57,520
Speaker 1: and then you can see how even like like certainly

733
00:40:57,640 --> 00:41:02,640
Speaker 1: very intelligent people uh can can can come to believe

734
00:41:02,800 --> 00:41:06,640
Speaker 1: that that they are actually perceiving the reality of a

735
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:10,200
Speaker 1: distant location and become very convinced of it. And then

736
00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:13,279
Speaker 1: certainly if you have a name for this as well,

737
00:41:13,600 --> 00:41:16,920
Speaker 1: you know, it becomes kind of established in parapsychology. Than

738
00:41:17,080 --> 00:41:19,560
Speaker 1: than that also helps that gives you even more like

739
00:41:19,719 --> 00:41:24,000
Speaker 1: priming and conditioning, uh too, in which to frame this experience.

740
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:26,279
Speaker 1: And and also I mean just to go back to

741
00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:28,960
Speaker 1: psychedelics too, and certainly our episode on psychedelics, like we

742
00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:32,279
Speaker 1: see that trend uh in the twentieth century, right this,

743
00:41:32,520 --> 00:41:38,480
Speaker 1: this counterculture emerged, this idea taking shape that secular individuals

744
00:41:38,880 --> 00:41:43,239
Speaker 1: can have a essentially a mystical experience that is not

745
00:41:43,800 --> 00:41:47,640
Speaker 1: due to the imachinations of gods or angels, you know,

746
00:41:48,360 --> 00:41:51,400
Speaker 1: um and and so you know, it's it's not surprising

747
00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:55,080
Speaker 1: that we see all, you know, cases like this arising. Well,

748
00:41:55,120 --> 00:41:57,440
Speaker 1: I also say on top of that, there's just I

749
00:41:57,560 --> 00:42:02,120
Speaker 1: think there's a very respectable humilitium el that says, like, Okay,

750
00:42:02,239 --> 00:42:04,200
Speaker 1: you know, we should always accept that there may be

751
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:06,680
Speaker 1: forces at work in our day to day surroundings that

752
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:09,560
Speaker 1: we don't fully understand. You know, we don't have a

753
00:42:09,640 --> 00:42:12,759
Speaker 1: scientific theory that accounts for them yet. And I think

754
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:15,360
Speaker 1: that's a good thing to to start from. But I

755
00:42:15,400 --> 00:42:18,279
Speaker 1: think a lot of like parapsychology and paranormal type people

756
00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:22,440
Speaker 1: jump from there too, because we we should acknowledge that

757
00:42:22,520 --> 00:42:24,279
Speaker 1: there are lots of things about the world we don't

758
00:42:24,320 --> 00:42:27,960
Speaker 1: understand yet. Therefore, remote viewing is real you know, or

759
00:42:28,080 --> 00:42:33,200
Speaker 1: like therefore, you know, you can't discount thoughtography and finding

760
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:35,279
Speaker 1: the right balance there I think is part of the

761
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:38,000
Speaker 1: difficulty of living the skeptical life. You know, you don't

762
00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:40,400
Speaker 1: want to live a life of denialism where you're just like,

763
00:42:40,719 --> 00:42:44,000
Speaker 1: anytime something is strange or unexplained, you just say like, oh,

764
00:42:44,120 --> 00:42:46,520
Speaker 1: that's nonsense. But at the same time, you want to

765
00:42:46,560 --> 00:42:49,320
Speaker 1: maintain a high standard of evidence, and that's that's the

766
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:51,360
Speaker 1: tightrope walk I guess you've got to do if you

767
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:54,000
Speaker 1: want to be a scientific investigator, if you want to

768
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:56,360
Speaker 1: try to have the most accurate view you can of

769
00:42:56,440 --> 00:42:59,000
Speaker 1: the world, and they're always going to be these edge

770
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:03,160
Speaker 1: cases where some he's presenting, you know, evidence that maybe

771
00:43:04,080 --> 00:43:07,760
Speaker 1: maybe seems compelling for some kind of phenomenon that doesn't

772
00:43:07,840 --> 00:43:10,680
Speaker 1: really seem like it like it fits with well tested

773
00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:13,879
Speaker 1: theories that otherwise predict the physical world. And I think

774
00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:16,279
Speaker 1: that's the case that some of these investigators have run

775
00:43:16,360 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 1: into with psychic photography, especially in the cases we'll talk

776
00:43:20,040 --> 00:43:23,200
Speaker 1: about with Ted serious. Absolutely, I should also point out

777
00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:25,640
Speaker 1: that we always have to remember that the c i

778
00:43:25,760 --> 00:43:29,560
Speaker 1: A sunk something like twenty million dollars into the stargate

779
00:43:29,640 --> 00:43:32,680
Speaker 1: project in the nineteen nineties and an attempt to ascertain

780
00:43:32,719 --> 00:43:36,080
Speaker 1: the effectiveness and military potential of remote viewing. And this

781
00:43:36,200 --> 00:43:40,359
Speaker 1: project was ultimately terminated in remote viewing was found unfruitful

782
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:45,920
Speaker 1: to their needs. But maybe it was a conspiracy. No, No,

783
00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:48,200
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I I tend to think like if

784
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:51,160
Speaker 1: there I mean, first of all, I've got major objections

785
00:43:51,239 --> 00:43:53,960
Speaker 1: to remote viewing, just on like a plausibility basis, Like

786
00:43:54,360 --> 00:43:57,480
Speaker 1: you know, again, you can't rule things out just because

787
00:43:57,520 --> 00:43:59,320
Speaker 1: you don't know the mechanism. But if you've got a

788
00:43:59,360 --> 00:44:02,160
Speaker 1: pretty good picture of how physics works and it just

789
00:44:02,600 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 1: you know, their power is proposed that don't seem to

790
00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:09,240
Speaker 1: fit in any way with any you know, any physical

791
00:44:09,320 --> 00:44:12,360
Speaker 1: forces that you could identify. That's that should definitely be

792
00:44:12,440 --> 00:44:14,799
Speaker 1: a red flag to start with. And then on top

793
00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:17,640
Speaker 1: of that, I think there are additional plausibility problems with

794
00:44:17,719 --> 00:44:20,719
Speaker 1: remote viewing, which is like if it is, if it

795
00:44:20,800 --> 00:44:25,640
Speaker 1: does exist, why isn't it being taken better advantage of Yeah? Uh,

796
00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:27,320
Speaker 1: and that thing said, I do come back to like

797
00:44:27,440 --> 00:44:30,800
Speaker 1: what I said earlier, like even though it's not scientifically

798
00:44:31,560 --> 00:44:35,000
Speaker 1: feasible as far as we understand it, um, you know,

799
00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:37,360
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that you know, people shouldn't be interested

800
00:44:37,400 --> 00:44:40,520
Speaker 1: in it and uh or even you know, practice it.

801
00:44:40,600 --> 00:44:42,960
Speaker 1: But it needs to be more of I feel like

802
00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:44,600
Speaker 1: it is more definitely in the line of like a

803
00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:48,360
Speaker 1: spiritual or religious practice, you know. Um. But that's my

804
00:44:48,560 --> 00:44:50,600
Speaker 1: just my two cents on it. And I think that's

805
00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:52,640
Speaker 1: one of the problems that and we're going to see

806
00:44:52,640 --> 00:44:54,680
Speaker 1: that with a lot of these these people that that

807
00:44:54,800 --> 00:44:57,960
Speaker 1: are they're claiming these abilities, is they are not presenting

808
00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:01,759
Speaker 1: them as something that is uh, you know, ultimately like

809
00:45:02,200 --> 00:45:04,600
Speaker 1: the domain of the spiritual, something that can't really be

810
00:45:04,719 --> 00:45:07,640
Speaker 1: proven or disproven. But they're but they're agreeing to tests,

811
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:12,480
Speaker 1: they're agreeing to uh to uh performances of their ability

812
00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:16,640
Speaker 1: and inviting in some cases experts to to see what

813
00:45:16,719 --> 00:45:19,400
Speaker 1: they're doing and to to to try and find the

814
00:45:19,520 --> 00:45:23,279
Speaker 1: problems in it. Uh So, uh, it's something to keep

815
00:45:23,280 --> 00:45:26,000
Speaker 1: in mind as we've moved forward. All Right, So let's

816
00:45:26,040 --> 00:45:28,160
Speaker 1: come back to a figure that we've We've mentioned the

817
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:32,279
Speaker 1: name already, uh Ted Sirius. That's s c r I O.

818
00:45:32,560 --> 00:45:37,120
Speaker 1: S Is it serious or Sirius Sirius with Sirius, well

819
00:45:37,400 --> 00:45:40,120
Speaker 1: you say that, I'll say Sirius just to be confusing

820
00:45:40,280 --> 00:45:45,520
Speaker 1: like serious black. Um. So Sirius lived through two thousand six,

821
00:45:46,200 --> 00:45:49,160
Speaker 1: and he claimed to be able to create thoutographs on

822
00:45:49,320 --> 00:45:55,239
Speaker 1: polaroid film. So, um, this is an interesting figure, um

823
00:45:55,760 --> 00:45:59,600
Speaker 1: to say the least. So Um, I was reading a

824
00:45:59,640 --> 00:46:01,759
Speaker 1: little bit about this in that in that book The

825
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:06,920
Speaker 1: Perfect Medium, paras psychologist Stephen E. Broad writes about him.

826
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:11,759
Speaker 1: Who Broad is also a philosophy professor, uh and he

827
00:46:11,880 --> 00:46:15,640
Speaker 1: contends that sirius Is photography is perhaps the best documented

828
00:46:15,719 --> 00:46:18,160
Speaker 1: and perhaps the most impressive. Does he seem a little

829
00:46:18,320 --> 00:46:23,319
Speaker 1: uh sympathetic to maybe he he did have some psychic powers? Um.

830
00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:28,200
Speaker 1: I mean, I encourage everyone to read uh Broad's work

831
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:33,360
Speaker 1: for themselves because he Um. He certainly is more inclined

832
00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:39,320
Speaker 1: to to criticize some of the the individuals who have

833
00:46:39,560 --> 00:46:43,239
Speaker 1: been attributed as being like solid debunkers. At the very least,

834
00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:47,359
Speaker 1: he seems to be saying, look, whatever Ciris was doing,

835
00:46:47,800 --> 00:46:50,799
Speaker 1: it's not nearly as debunked as you think it is. Um.

836
00:46:51,120 --> 00:46:53,360
Speaker 1: And I'm and he is a paras psychologist. He is

837
00:46:53,400 --> 00:46:56,279
Speaker 1: a paras psychologist. So so I gonna stress all of that,

838
00:46:57,040 --> 00:46:59,520
Speaker 1: but it's still an interesting read. He does seem to

839
00:46:59,560 --> 00:47:04,080
Speaker 1: be more climbed to um entertain the possibility though. So.

840
00:47:04,640 --> 00:47:08,440
Speaker 1: Sirius was a Chicago bellhop who had experimented with with

841
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:12,080
Speaker 1: hypnosis and uh. He claims that during this time he

842
00:47:12,239 --> 00:47:14,960
Speaker 1: found that he could use his mind to project images

843
00:47:15,040 --> 00:47:19,160
Speaker 1: onto camera film and later instant polaroid film. And he

844
00:47:19,239 --> 00:47:22,480
Speaker 1: apparently demonstrated this to various folks and was quite convincing.

845
00:47:22,920 --> 00:47:26,480
Speaker 1: And this caught the attention of Denver psychiatrist and researcher

846
00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:30,839
Speaker 1: Jewel Eisenbud, who took a strong interest in his work

847
00:47:30,880 --> 00:47:34,839
Speaker 1: and conducted numerous trials, resulting in hundreds of images. Yeah,

848
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:37,040
Speaker 1: and I've read that Eisenbudd is one of the main

849
00:47:37,160 --> 00:47:40,239
Speaker 1: reasons that people really know about Ted. Seriously, he sort

850
00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:42,759
Speaker 1: of took up the cause like uh, or at least

851
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:46,680
Speaker 1: from what I read. Eisenbudd claimed he was initially skeptical

852
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:50,399
Speaker 1: of Ted serious his abilities, but then after spending time

853
00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:53,600
Speaker 1: with him and seeing his photographs, he he came more

854
00:47:53,640 --> 00:47:55,920
Speaker 1: and more to believe that these powers were real and

855
00:47:56,040 --> 00:47:59,440
Speaker 1: that Serious really could project his mind's eye onto a

856
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:03,360
Speaker 1: piece of holm. Yeah. Eisenbud at one point believed that

857
00:48:03,560 --> 00:48:08,320
Speaker 1: Sirius was seeing the essentially remote viewing the surface of

858
00:48:08,400 --> 00:48:14,000
Speaker 1: the Jovian moon Ghannamed and then using photography to implant

859
00:48:14,120 --> 00:48:17,680
Speaker 1: that image on onto film. And it gets more complex

860
00:48:17,719 --> 00:48:21,400
Speaker 1: than that, actually, because I was reading that so Sirius

861
00:48:21,440 --> 00:48:24,600
Speaker 1: apparently made these images that Eisenbudd later said, oh, this

862
00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:27,760
Speaker 1: is the surface of Ganymede, because he said that serious

863
00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:31,040
Speaker 1: was very interested in space exploration and had been thinking

864
00:48:31,120 --> 00:48:34,040
Speaker 1: about the voyager to probe, and that must have been

865
00:48:34,080 --> 00:48:37,040
Speaker 1: what triggered his generation of this image of the surface

866
00:48:37,160 --> 00:48:40,840
Speaker 1: of of Ghanymede. But at the time he generated the image,

867
00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:44,719
Speaker 1: the photographs from the voyager probe had not been taken yet.

868
00:48:45,320 --> 00:48:48,960
Speaker 1: So I think Eisenbudd is suggesting that if these photos

869
00:48:49,000 --> 00:48:53,440
Speaker 1: are real, serious actually not only projected his thoughts directly

870
00:48:53,480 --> 00:48:57,279
Speaker 1: on the film, but also pre cognitively remote viewed the

871
00:48:57,360 --> 00:49:03,200
Speaker 1: surface of of Wait precognitiant. Well, I guess it wouldn't

872
00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:05,440
Speaker 1: have mattered whether the voyager probe got there yet. He

873
00:49:05,600 --> 00:49:07,840
Speaker 1: was seeing the surface of the moon before the probe

874
00:49:07,920 --> 00:49:10,480
Speaker 1: got there, right, And I've seen this in other, uh

875
00:49:11,200 --> 00:49:14,279
Speaker 1: you know, accounts of remote viewing, where they have they

876
00:49:14,320 --> 00:49:18,520
Speaker 1: have essentially seen other worlds or have encountered historic figures

877
00:49:18,640 --> 00:49:21,040
Speaker 1: that sort of thing, Right, Now, another thing worth noting

878
00:49:21,040 --> 00:49:24,759
Speaker 1: about Cirios here is that is that even eisenbud like

879
00:49:25,080 --> 00:49:28,680
Speaker 1: points out that that that ted it was definitely an

880
00:49:28,680 --> 00:49:32,719
Speaker 1: alcoholic and that's sort of part of the thing, but

881
00:49:33,040 --> 00:49:35,760
Speaker 1: also displayed like a lot of you know, at times

882
00:49:35,840 --> 00:49:38,120
Speaker 1: kind of like irrational behavior and seemed to have you know,

883
00:49:38,239 --> 00:49:43,880
Speaker 1: definite uh you know, psychological issues. So but but anyway,

884
00:49:43,960 --> 00:49:49,360
Speaker 1: this was basically Sirius his process. So he generally he

885
00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:54,160
Speaker 1: needed to be drunk, generally very drunk to perform this art,

886
00:49:54,760 --> 00:49:57,040
Speaker 1: which I mean, I guess that's fair enough, right, I mean,

887
00:49:57,480 --> 00:49:59,640
Speaker 1: I mean, really even podcasting, I don't know when when

888
00:49:59,680 --> 00:50:03,600
Speaker 1: when we first started podcasting, um, Jerry told us, like,

889
00:50:03,680 --> 00:50:05,080
Speaker 1: have a little to drink before you go into the

890
00:50:05,120 --> 00:50:08,200
Speaker 1: podcast booth, it'll help. Jerry ever told me that, oh

891
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:10,880
Speaker 1: well maybe maybe I just look like I needed to

892
00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:13,200
Speaker 1: drink at the time. I don't know. But wait, are

893
00:50:13,200 --> 00:50:15,520
Speaker 1: you serious? I'm serious? Yeah, I mean I think she's joking.

894
00:50:16,640 --> 00:50:19,359
Speaker 1: But at any rate, like the idea that you would

895
00:50:19,400 --> 00:50:24,200
Speaker 1: need a social lubricant too, essentially to perform something um

896
00:50:25,040 --> 00:50:30,040
Speaker 1: either you know, a legitimate psychic ability or to perform

897
00:50:30,160 --> 00:50:32,399
Speaker 1: some sort of a trick, some sort of a um

898
00:50:32,560 --> 00:50:36,400
Speaker 1: an illusion or even a confidence trick, right, um, so

899
00:50:36,560 --> 00:50:39,840
Speaker 1: that's one part of it. Also, he preferred to hold

900
00:50:39,960 --> 00:50:42,640
Speaker 1: a quota he called a gizmo in his hand to

901
00:50:42,760 --> 00:50:46,440
Speaker 1: help him focus his powers. And it was a short,

902
00:50:46,520 --> 00:50:49,879
Speaker 1: open cylinder about an inch in diameter. And of course

903
00:50:49,960 --> 00:50:52,760
Speaker 1: this is highly suspicious. You don't have to be Sherlock

904
00:50:52,800 --> 00:50:56,080
Speaker 1: Holmes to suspect that the gizmo is either the heart

905
00:50:56,200 --> 00:50:59,360
Speaker 1: of the trick that he is going to perform, or

906
00:50:59,480 --> 00:51:02,160
Speaker 1: it's a d e cooy to distract onlookers from the

907
00:51:02,239 --> 00:51:06,160
Speaker 1: actual trick. Because he'd often placed this in front of

908
00:51:06,239 --> 00:51:09,439
Speaker 1: the camera lens, like he'd get up into the into

909
00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:12,880
Speaker 1: the camera lens with the gizmo and then also like

910
00:51:13,040 --> 00:51:15,880
Speaker 1: you know, mugging for the camera, placing his forehead in

911
00:51:15,960 --> 00:51:19,880
Speaker 1: the way and somehow using the gizmo allegedly to focus

912
00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:22,640
Speaker 1: his thoughts into the camera. Yeah, he said he needed

913
00:51:22,680 --> 00:51:25,640
Speaker 1: to connect his body to the camera. Uh. Though there

914
00:51:25,680 --> 00:51:28,279
Speaker 1: are allegations also that he was able to produce the

915
00:51:28,320 --> 00:51:32,239
Speaker 1: autographs and uh and and actually make images on a

916
00:51:32,320 --> 00:51:35,520
Speaker 1: camera while being far away from the camera that at

917
00:51:35,600 --> 00:51:38,600
Speaker 1: least as alleged, But he most of the time, it

918
00:51:38,680 --> 00:51:41,000
Speaker 1: has said, would like put his forehead right on this

919
00:51:41,320 --> 00:51:43,839
Speaker 1: thing and stick it in the camera camera lens. So, yeah,

920
00:51:44,239 --> 00:51:47,040
Speaker 1: raises some red flags, right, But but then the idea

921
00:51:47,280 --> 00:51:50,280
Speaker 1: is that he's essentially taking a snapshot of the mental

922
00:51:50,400 --> 00:51:53,120
Speaker 1: image that he is forming in his mind, be a

923
00:51:53,280 --> 00:51:55,879
Speaker 1: the be it a mental image that is formed via

924
00:51:56,000 --> 00:52:00,200
Speaker 1: memory or just sort of general mental imaging, or it's

925
00:52:00,239 --> 00:52:03,440
Speaker 1: something that is that he has acquired through um uh,

926
00:52:04,400 --> 00:52:07,120
Speaker 1: you know, sending his consciousness to a to the moons

927
00:52:07,160 --> 00:52:11,000
Speaker 1: of Jupiter. Yeah. Now, I read some conflicting reports that

928
00:52:11,160 --> 00:52:14,240
Speaker 1: sometimes it seems like the images he produced, he claimed

929
00:52:14,280 --> 00:52:17,120
Speaker 1: were like not what he was thinking about consciously, but

930
00:52:17,280 --> 00:52:20,680
Speaker 1: just would be these unconscious kind of associative images. That's

931
00:52:20,719 --> 00:52:26,200
Speaker 1: what's suggested by eisenbudd Uh the Galilean moon, right, is

932
00:52:26,360 --> 00:52:28,600
Speaker 1: that he just had the Voyager two probe on his

933
00:52:28,719 --> 00:52:31,400
Speaker 1: mind and happened to generate an image of the surface

934
00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:33,920
Speaker 1: of Ganymede. And so if we're approaching it from the

935
00:52:34,239 --> 00:52:36,319
Speaker 1: you know, the pro psychic side, we can say, well,

936
00:52:36,360 --> 00:52:39,240
Speaker 1: that makes sense. The mind is difficult to control. Mental

937
00:52:39,280 --> 00:52:41,480
Speaker 1: images may form in the mind that you you're not

938
00:52:41,640 --> 00:52:43,719
Speaker 1: trying to summon. Certainly we can all attest to that.

939
00:52:44,040 --> 00:52:46,520
Speaker 1: On the other hand, from a purely skeptical point of view,

940
00:52:46,800 --> 00:52:49,160
Speaker 1: if you're going to be drawn in and put to

941
00:52:49,239 --> 00:52:51,960
Speaker 1: the test by asking, you know, being asked to think

942
00:52:52,040 --> 00:52:55,120
Speaker 1: of a particular thing, how convenient would it be if

943
00:52:55,160 --> 00:52:56,920
Speaker 1: you could say, well, I tried to think of that

944
00:52:57,600 --> 00:52:59,600
Speaker 1: that that bird feeder that you wanted me to imagine,

945
00:52:59,640 --> 00:53:01,880
Speaker 1: but I'm just so obsessed with space travel right now,

946
00:53:02,520 --> 00:53:04,959
Speaker 1: I gave you Ganymede instead, right. I mean that makes

947
00:53:05,280 --> 00:53:08,640
Speaker 1: that suggests that maybe you've already got an image of

948
00:53:08,719 --> 00:53:10,960
Speaker 1: something that looks like a moon's surface on hand with

949
00:53:11,080 --> 00:53:13,239
Speaker 1: you or something, right, And I guess that gets to

950
00:53:13,600 --> 00:53:15,640
Speaker 1: what the actual trick would be, if there is a

951
00:53:15,719 --> 00:53:19,400
Speaker 1: trick here, which I assume there probably is right now now.

952
00:53:19,480 --> 00:53:22,600
Speaker 1: In that article in The Perfect Medium, a Broad certainly

953
00:53:22,680 --> 00:53:25,759
Speaker 1: focuses on the aspects of Ted's art that kind of

954
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:28,719
Speaker 1: continue to mystify, as he mentions, for instance, that Eisenbudd

955
00:53:28,960 --> 00:53:31,400
Speaker 1: offered a cash reward for anyone able to replicate Ted's

956
00:53:31,440 --> 00:53:34,560
Speaker 1: results quote under conditions similar to those prevailing during the

957
00:53:34,719 --> 00:53:37,400
Speaker 1: during the experiments. Now I've read that there was serious

958
00:53:37,480 --> 00:53:41,839
Speaker 1: dispute about like them negotiating with skeptics about what would

959
00:53:41,880 --> 00:53:45,360
Speaker 1: be acceptable for those uh conditions, Like I think I

960
00:53:45,440 --> 00:53:48,719
Speaker 1: read that James Randy wanted to try to replicate it,

961
00:53:48,880 --> 00:53:51,520
Speaker 1: but that Eisenbudd said, well, you have to be really drunk,

962
00:53:51,680 --> 00:53:55,000
Speaker 1: because Ted is always really drunk when he does it. Yeah. Yeah,

963
00:53:55,040 --> 00:53:58,480
Speaker 1: the famous debunker James Randy, who we had the privilege

964
00:53:58,520 --> 00:54:02,680
Speaker 1: to meet. Um. But last um, it definitely plays into

965
00:54:02,719 --> 00:54:05,799
Speaker 1: some of this, and it's kind of if you if

966
00:54:05,840 --> 00:54:09,800
Speaker 1: you read some of the more pro serios material, Randy's

967
00:54:09,840 --> 00:54:12,680
Speaker 1: kind of portrayed as a villain. Oh all, Randy is

968
00:54:12,719 --> 00:54:16,320
Speaker 1: always the villain of something written by pro psychic powers people.

969
00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:20,360
Speaker 1: Uh so, uh so, Yeah, some of these account like

970
00:54:20,560 --> 00:54:24,080
Speaker 1: brought accountants to highlight the things that were not you know,

971
00:54:24,320 --> 00:54:29,239
Speaker 1: they're still a little mysterious or or or certainly accounts

972
00:54:29,480 --> 00:54:34,440
Speaker 1: of replications that don't meet the same degree of replication,

973
00:54:34,520 --> 00:54:37,120
Speaker 1: Like you weren't able to do exactly what Sirius is doing,

974
00:54:37,360 --> 00:54:40,560
Speaker 1: therefore you didn't fully debunk him. No, I've I've read

975
00:54:40,640 --> 00:54:43,640
Speaker 1: some of his defenders say, Okay, people have used tricks

976
00:54:43,800 --> 00:54:47,200
Speaker 1: to replicate what Serious was doing, but they couldn't do

977
00:54:47,280 --> 00:54:51,960
Speaker 1: it without those tricks being evident to people who were watching. Right. Um,

978
00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:53,719
Speaker 1: I mean The other way to think about it is,

979
00:54:54,160 --> 00:54:58,240
Speaker 1: can I can I paint the Mona Lisa? No? I cannot.

980
00:54:58,560 --> 00:55:02,759
Speaker 1: Can I demonstrate some of the techniques personally that that

981
00:55:03,320 --> 00:55:07,000
Speaker 1: that the artists used to create the Mona Lisa? Uh? Certainly, Uh,

982
00:55:08,120 --> 00:55:10,640
Speaker 1: we have to take it into account. That's sirius assuming

983
00:55:10,719 --> 00:55:13,440
Speaker 1: again that he's not a psychic, that he's not a

984
00:55:14,040 --> 00:55:19,040
Speaker 1: not capable of photography, that he's just a performer, an illusionist. Uh,

985
00:55:19,239 --> 00:55:21,799
Speaker 1: you know, a trickster. Uh. There is still an art

986
00:55:21,880 --> 00:55:23,880
Speaker 1: to what he is doing. Uh, there is still a

987
00:55:23,960 --> 00:55:27,200
Speaker 1: performance aspect, of charismatic aspect to it. And there are

988
00:55:27,200 --> 00:55:30,200
Speaker 1: aspects of that that are going to depend in part

989
00:55:30,280 --> 00:55:34,680
Speaker 1: on like innate charisma, but also in in practice, in

990
00:55:35,000 --> 00:55:39,400
Speaker 1: in like sheer devotion to to the trick. And I

991
00:55:39,520 --> 00:55:42,200
Speaker 1: think you can't discount that. And on likewise, you can't

992
00:55:42,239 --> 00:55:46,520
Speaker 1: expect a debunker to rise to that level of performance. Well,

993
00:55:46,560 --> 00:55:48,320
Speaker 1: I guess you can expect them to try. But I

994
00:55:48,360 --> 00:55:51,680
Speaker 1: mean that's one thing that you know, as long as

995
00:55:51,760 --> 00:55:56,319
Speaker 1: we're probing the depths of the unexplained, you could say, well,

996
00:55:56,520 --> 00:55:58,719
Speaker 1: you know, there's some kind of mystical power that this

997
00:55:58,840 --> 00:56:00,680
Speaker 1: person has that we just don't have the power to

998
00:56:00,760 --> 00:56:03,640
Speaker 1: explain it. Or you could say that there's an extreme

999
00:56:03,800 --> 00:56:07,240
Speaker 1: talent this person has for performing a trick that hasn't

1000
00:56:07,280 --> 00:56:09,799
Speaker 1: been explained yet. Yeah, because certainly one of the things

1001
00:56:09,840 --> 00:56:11,920
Speaker 1: that would come into play is slight of hand, right,

1002
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:17,600
Speaker 1: because the main charge is that is that Sirius had it.

1003
00:56:17,680 --> 00:56:19,560
Speaker 1: Kind of varies. Sometimes they talk of just using the

1004
00:56:19,640 --> 00:56:24,200
Speaker 1: microfilm um or using microfilm affixed to a marble or

1005
00:56:24,719 --> 00:56:27,120
Speaker 1: you know, a film affixed to the end of a

1006
00:56:27,160 --> 00:56:30,440
Speaker 1: tiny tube to be like inside the quote gizmo that

1007
00:56:30,560 --> 00:56:33,160
Speaker 1: he put up against the camera. Because that's the obvious, right,

1008
00:56:33,239 --> 00:56:35,680
Speaker 1: is that the gizmo contains something, and if it contains something,

1009
00:56:36,320 --> 00:56:39,160
Speaker 1: some film would be ideal because then you have that

1010
00:56:39,400 --> 00:56:42,239
Speaker 1: pre existing photograph that can be the thing that he

1011
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:47,839
Speaker 1: imprints UM. Skeptic Terence Hines also charged that Ted used

1012
00:56:47,920 --> 00:56:51,120
Speaker 1: a secondary tube about one inch long with a tiny

1013
00:56:51,200 --> 00:56:54,160
Speaker 1: magnifying lens that could hold a small slide, and then

1014
00:56:54,200 --> 00:56:57,160
Speaker 1: he would conceal this within the gizmo, but also he

1015
00:56:57,200 --> 00:56:59,520
Speaker 1: could use it when the gizmo was taken away. Again

1016
00:56:59,600 --> 00:57:02,280
Speaker 1: getting an of that idea that the gizmos not merely

1017
00:57:02,400 --> 00:57:07,360
Speaker 1: useful as something to um to hide the trick but

1018
00:57:07,440 --> 00:57:09,520
Speaker 1: also can be used as a distraction, can be the

1019
00:57:09,600 --> 00:57:11,600
Speaker 1: thing that, oh, when it's taken away, look I can

1020
00:57:11,640 --> 00:57:14,239
Speaker 1: still do it. I don't even have the gizmo on me, right,

1021
00:57:14,360 --> 00:57:16,920
Speaker 1: And it was alleged that sometimes he could, I mean

1022
00:57:17,040 --> 00:57:19,760
Speaker 1: usually he used the gizmo, but it's alleged that sometimes

1023
00:57:19,800 --> 00:57:22,320
Speaker 1: he did it without the gizmo. Now, there were a

1024
00:57:22,440 --> 00:57:24,960
Speaker 1: number of expose a s at the time that claimed

1025
00:57:25,000 --> 00:57:28,200
Speaker 1: to show that Ted Sirius was a fraud. The entry

1026
00:57:28,240 --> 00:57:30,880
Speaker 1: in the Skeptics Dictionary by Robert Todd Carroll suggests that

1027
00:57:30,920 --> 00:57:34,840
Speaker 1: two amateur magicians and photographers named Charlie Reynolds and David

1028
00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:40,160
Speaker 1: Eisendraft exposed Serious as a fraud. Basically, they wouldn't spend

1029
00:57:40,200 --> 00:57:42,520
Speaker 1: a weekend with him and jewel Iz and Bud, and

1030
00:57:42,640 --> 00:57:45,160
Speaker 1: they saw his stuff and they they came to the

1031
00:57:45,200 --> 00:57:47,320
Speaker 1: conclusion that he was a fraud and wrote this up

1032
00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:50,680
Speaker 1: in the article. And Reynolds and Eisendraft claimed to have

1033
00:57:50,760 --> 00:57:56,200
Speaker 1: spotted Serious quote slipping something inside his little gizmo before demonstrations,

1034
00:57:56,600 --> 00:57:58,640
Speaker 1: and they think it was a picture of something that

1035
00:57:58,760 --> 00:58:02,000
Speaker 1: Sirius wanted to show up in the camera exposure. They

1036
00:58:02,080 --> 00:58:05,760
Speaker 1: also published an article explaining their findings in in October

1037
00:58:05,880 --> 00:58:10,440
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven issue of Popular Photography of Photography magazine. Now,

1038
00:58:10,560 --> 00:58:14,480
Speaker 1: according to the skeptic investigator Joe Nichols account of Serious

1039
00:58:14,560 --> 00:58:17,800
Speaker 1: is confrontation with magicians and sleight of hand experts. Quote,

1040
00:58:18,040 --> 00:58:21,320
Speaker 1: at one point during the session, after an exposure was made,

1041
00:58:21,600 --> 00:58:24,520
Speaker 1: a magician asked to examine the paper tube to see

1042
00:58:24,560 --> 00:58:27,080
Speaker 1: if there was anything inside. This would be the gizmo, right,

1043
00:58:27,160 --> 00:58:30,560
Speaker 1: the gizmo. Uh. Serious backed away, putting his hand in

1044
00:58:30,680 --> 00:58:35,040
Speaker 1: his pocket. Now that's suspicious behavior. But then, weirdly, during

1045
00:58:35,120 --> 00:58:38,400
Speaker 1: this session, Sirius was unable to produce the autographs. So

1046
00:58:38,440 --> 00:58:40,880
Speaker 1: apparently he had been using the gizmo. They said, let

1047
00:58:40,960 --> 00:58:43,040
Speaker 1: me see the gizmo, he wouldn't show it to them,

1048
00:58:43,080 --> 00:58:45,120
Speaker 1: and then none of the pictures came out. Anyway, there

1049
00:58:45,160 --> 00:58:48,680
Speaker 1: were no autographs. Uh. And he and Eisenbudd blamed the

1050
00:58:48,760 --> 00:58:52,560
Speaker 1: quote hostile atmosphere for interfering with Serious his powers. This

1051
00:58:52,680 --> 00:58:55,800
Speaker 1: is always a red flag also, I think. But there's

1052
00:58:55,840 --> 00:58:58,160
Speaker 1: still plenty of people, I think, who hold out for

1053
00:58:58,240 --> 00:59:02,080
Speaker 1: psychic photography, claiming that Head Serious his powers were real

1054
00:59:02,320 --> 00:59:05,480
Speaker 1: and could not be explained. And he's got defenders who

1055
00:59:05,600 --> 00:59:09,040
Speaker 1: say that some of his feats are just impossible to explain.

1056
00:59:09,160 --> 00:59:12,200
Speaker 1: For example, I was reading claims in an article in

1057
00:59:12,240 --> 00:59:14,720
Speaker 1: the Chronicle of Higher Education which was about a gallery

1058
00:59:14,800 --> 00:59:17,800
Speaker 1: exhibit of Serious as thotographs, which I would like to

1059
00:59:17,840 --> 00:59:21,120
Speaker 1: see that. Oh yeah, I mean they're interesting images, certainly

1060
00:59:21,160 --> 00:59:23,480
Speaker 1: when you know the background for them, especially if you

1061
00:59:23,560 --> 00:59:25,280
Speaker 1: just think about him as works of art, not as

1062
00:59:25,360 --> 00:59:28,439
Speaker 1: like displays of real psychic powers. Um. But to quote

1063
00:59:28,440 --> 00:59:31,320
Speaker 1: from this article quote, on occasion, volunteers were asked to

1064
00:59:31,400 --> 00:59:34,520
Speaker 1: attend the experiment with a photograph sealed and a cardboard

1065
00:59:34,600 --> 00:59:38,240
Speaker 1: back to manila envelope. Serious then managed to reproduce the

1066
00:59:38,320 --> 00:59:41,200
Speaker 1: image with no prior knowledge of it. So again, that's

1067
00:59:41,240 --> 00:59:44,480
Speaker 1: like double psychic powers. That's not just the thoughtography, which

1068
00:59:44,520 --> 00:59:46,800
Speaker 1: would be a feat even if he was looking directly

1069
00:59:46,840 --> 00:59:49,880
Speaker 1: at what the photo should be. UM. But also, I

1070
00:59:49,920 --> 00:59:52,760
Speaker 1: guess seeing into this envelope if I'm reading that right,

1071
00:59:52,800 --> 00:59:54,840
Speaker 1: I don't know. That might also be suggesting that they

1072
00:59:54,920 --> 00:59:56,920
Speaker 1: just arrived with its sealed and then showed it to

1073
00:59:57,040 --> 01:00:00,120
Speaker 1: him and he reproduced it. Either way, I mean, you

1074
01:00:00,160 --> 01:00:02,400
Speaker 1: saw that. I wouldn't say that would prove it was real,

1075
01:00:02,480 --> 01:00:04,600
Speaker 1: but that would be impressive, you know, you'd be like, wow,

1076
01:00:04,640 --> 01:00:08,160
Speaker 1: that that's either real or some impressive trickery. I'd leaned

1077
01:00:08,160 --> 01:00:11,320
Speaker 1: towards the ladder um. But in other cases he apparently

1078
01:00:11,360 --> 01:00:14,080
Speaker 1: managed to produce what appeared to be images of landmarks

1079
01:00:14,160 --> 01:00:17,480
Speaker 1: from up above, like aerial views that his supporters claimed

1080
01:00:17,560 --> 01:00:20,920
Speaker 1: could not be explained through trickery. But it seems like

1081
01:00:21,000 --> 01:00:24,120
Speaker 1: he stopped doing his thing after the late nineteen sixties,

1082
01:00:24,160 --> 01:00:26,720
Speaker 1: which seems a little weird. Yeah, especially consider he lived

1083
01:00:27,120 --> 01:00:29,439
Speaker 1: until two thousand and six. You know, I mean, that's

1084
01:00:29,520 --> 01:00:31,920
Speaker 1: that's a lot of time to not at least not

1085
01:00:32,000 --> 01:00:36,520
Speaker 1: be publicly doing this displaying this uh this ability. Uh.

1086
01:00:36,840 --> 01:00:38,920
Speaker 1: But then again, um, you know, we do have to

1087
01:00:38,960 --> 01:00:43,040
Speaker 1: come back to you the fact that Eisenbud himself wrote

1088
01:00:43,080 --> 01:00:47,440
Speaker 1: that serious was you know, psychologically disturbed alcoholic. So you know,

1089
01:00:48,400 --> 01:00:50,560
Speaker 1: you can come up with various, you know, reasons that

1090
01:00:50,720 --> 01:00:54,200
Speaker 1: somebody with that kind of with with with those kind

1091
01:00:54,200 --> 01:00:57,440
Speaker 1: of demons would not engage in their art. Now, he

1092
01:00:58,040 --> 01:01:00,320
Speaker 1: wasn't the only one in the later twentie tree to

1093
01:01:00,320 --> 01:01:02,600
Speaker 1: get in on the psychic photography thing. Over the years,

1094
01:01:02,640 --> 01:01:06,560
Speaker 1: a lot of figures, including Uri Geller, got into psychic photography.

1095
01:01:06,880 --> 01:01:10,080
Speaker 1: One one of Geller's many demonstrations was that he would

1096
01:01:10,160 --> 01:01:12,920
Speaker 1: leave the lens cap on a camera, placed the camera

1097
01:01:13,000 --> 01:01:15,760
Speaker 1: to his forehead, and then take a picture, supposedly saying,

1098
01:01:15,920 --> 01:01:17,680
Speaker 1: you know the same kind of thing. I'm using my

1099
01:01:17,800 --> 01:01:20,840
Speaker 1: mind's eye to imprint upon the film, and then the

1100
01:01:20,880 --> 01:01:24,160
Speaker 1: photo would reveal whatever he had been imagining. Again, James

1101
01:01:24,240 --> 01:01:26,840
Speaker 1: Randy shows up, as he often does whenever Uri Geller

1102
01:01:26,920 --> 01:01:31,000
Speaker 1: claims something. James Randy criticized this and other psychic photography

1103
01:01:31,120 --> 01:01:35,040
Speaker 1: is having two main explanations, either using a handheld device

1104
01:01:35,160 --> 01:01:37,440
Speaker 1: to project the image into the camera lens as the

1105
01:01:37,480 --> 01:01:41,840
Speaker 1: photos taken, or loading the camera with pre exposed film

1106
01:01:42,040 --> 01:01:45,360
Speaker 1: already bearing the desired image, and the latter seems to

1107
01:01:45,400 --> 01:01:48,920
Speaker 1: be the case with a later twentieth century alleged psychic

1108
01:01:49,040 --> 01:01:53,080
Speaker 1: named Matsuaki Kyota, who claimed to be able to produce

1109
01:01:53,160 --> 01:01:56,480
Speaker 1: photographs on film again, and skeptical critics such as Joe

1110
01:01:56,560 --> 01:01:59,760
Speaker 1: Nicol have pointed out that when Matsuaki Kyota was asked

1111
01:01:59,800 --> 01:02:03,960
Speaker 1: to reform his thoughtography under controlled conditions for a TV

1112
01:02:04,520 --> 01:02:07,680
Speaker 1: crew in London, he couldn't produce the images, and Nickel

1113
01:02:07,720 --> 01:02:10,320
Speaker 1: claims that it was only times when he was able

1114
01:02:10,960 --> 01:02:14,880
Speaker 1: uh to get the film and have it alone with him,

1115
01:02:15,120 --> 01:02:17,120
Speaker 1: like basically to get hold of the film and have

1116
01:02:17,280 --> 01:02:20,160
Speaker 1: it in a private place before the test that he

1117
01:02:20,240 --> 01:02:23,280
Speaker 1: could demonstrate his powers, which again makes you think he

1118
01:02:23,400 --> 01:02:25,520
Speaker 1: was doing something to the film before it was loaded

1119
01:02:25,560 --> 01:02:28,280
Speaker 1: in the camera. Alright, Well, on that note, we are

1120
01:02:28,320 --> 01:02:31,720
Speaker 1: going to have to call it for episode one of

1121
01:02:31,840 --> 01:02:34,560
Speaker 1: this exploration, but we are going to return in a

1122
01:02:34,640 --> 01:02:38,160
Speaker 1: second episode where we're going to continue to explore this idea,

1123
01:02:38,320 --> 01:02:41,560
Speaker 1: like how would it work if this were possible? Like

1124
01:02:41,720 --> 01:02:45,400
Speaker 1: what what what can we grasp onto in the labyrinth

1125
01:02:45,480 --> 01:02:48,680
Speaker 1: of the human mind and the complexity of our our

1126
01:02:48,800 --> 01:02:52,960
Speaker 1: our sensory perception, but also what can this question reveal

1127
01:02:53,080 --> 01:02:56,360
Speaker 1: about the reality of mental imagery and how that happens

1128
01:02:56,400 --> 01:03:00,640
Speaker 1: in the brain, which is fascinating, mysterious, and even spooky

1129
01:03:00,720 --> 01:03:03,200
Speaker 1: topic on its own, even though we don't necessarily credit

1130
01:03:03,280 --> 01:03:06,320
Speaker 1: the reality of psychic photography, there's a lot of spooky

1131
01:03:06,360 --> 01:03:09,480
Speaker 1: stuff going on when you picture something right. And we'll

1132
01:03:09,520 --> 01:03:11,680
Speaker 1: probably talk about The Ring a little bit more, and

1133
01:03:11,760 --> 01:03:15,480
Speaker 1: we'll probably bring up a few other films such as Scanners,

1134
01:03:16,360 --> 01:03:18,760
Speaker 1: So hey, be sure to tune in for that episode,

1135
01:03:18,760 --> 01:03:20,600
Speaker 1: and tune in for all of our episodes in October,

1136
01:03:20,720 --> 01:03:24,320
Speaker 1: which are going to be Halloween flavored uh and we

1137
01:03:24,440 --> 01:03:26,760
Speaker 1: encourage you again to check out Invention if you haven't already,

1138
01:03:26,800 --> 01:03:28,680
Speaker 1: can find it wherever you get your podcast. You can

1139
01:03:28,720 --> 01:03:31,920
Speaker 1: find out the website at invention pod dot com. If

1140
01:03:31,960 --> 01:03:33,400
Speaker 1: you want to support our show, the best thing you

1141
01:03:33,400 --> 01:03:35,120
Speaker 1: can do is rate and review it wherever you have

1142
01:03:35,200 --> 01:03:37,360
Speaker 1: the power to do so, and make sure you have subscribed.

1143
01:03:37,600 --> 01:03:40,840
Speaker 1: Huge thanks as always to our awesome audio producer Seth

1144
01:03:40,960 --> 01:03:43,280
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch

1145
01:03:43,320 --> 01:03:45,400
Speaker 1: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,

1146
01:03:45,520 --> 01:03:48,040
Speaker 1: to suggest a topic for the future, just to say hello,

1147
01:03:48,400 --> 01:03:51,200
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to blow

1148
01:03:51,280 --> 01:04:01,000
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

1149
01:04:01,040 --> 01:04:03,360
Speaker 1: a production of iHeart Radios. How stuff Works. For more

1150
01:04:03,400 --> 01:04:05,800
Speaker 1: podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,

1151
01:04:05,960 --> 01:04:08,560
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.