Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3: My name is Matt, my name is Noah.
Speaker 4: They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 4: super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
Speaker 4: are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
Speaker 4: they don't want you to know. Dylan, let's get a
Speaker 4: quick record. Scratch nice maybe, hall elujah cool. Okay, that's
Speaker 4: the last sound que we'll ask for. This is part
Speaker 4: two of a two part series on something called the
Speaker 4: Third Man Syndrome or the Third Man Factor. If you
Speaker 4: have not listened to part one, please please please pause this.
Speaker 4: We'll still be friends, we promise, and check out part
Speaker 4: one because guys, we went to some weird places.
Speaker 5: Boy did we ever?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah?
Speaker 3: And guys, in the in between these two episodes, I've
Speaker 3: mentioned just off air that I was reading that book
Speaker 3: The Nameless, and I didn't realize that a big part
Speaker 3: of that book is about the Enochian language that we
Speaker 3: covered in Do Angels have a Language?
Speaker 5: That's the one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it reminded me of this episode.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Nameless is a wholesome, rollicking read fun for the
Speaker 4: entire FAU.
Speaker 5: Don't do it. Do not Christmas, gift this to your child.
Speaker 4: The first to forget Judy Bloom. This is what your
Speaker 4: kid needs to be read.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, are you there, malk Yeah, it's uh.
Speaker 3: It's written by one of our favorite graphic novel authors,
Speaker 3: Grim Morrison. That Ben, you got me into with the
Speaker 3: Invisibles when I was just a wee kid, so thank
Speaker 3: you for that.
Speaker 2: But it really is dark, like be careful.
Speaker 4: Oh and also check out clean Room. No, I'm bullish
Speaker 4: on it. Anyway. This is part two. So we can
Speaker 4: say logically then that the mind, reacting to adverse environmental
Speaker 4: conditions conjures its own ghost as a defense mechanism. This
Speaker 4: means the explanation could be as simple as your neurons
Speaker 4: misfiring in your brain. They're playing their snaptic air hockey
Speaker 4: wrong or another I like that image, another biochemical reaction.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but then the question becomes are they misfiring or
Speaker 5: are they firing exactly as intended to get the desired effect?
Speaker 5: You know what I mean?
Speaker 6: So many things that we look at as like a malfunction.
Speaker 6: When you dig a little deeper, it starts to feel
Speaker 6: quite functional.
Speaker 4: Like sickle celademia and malaria.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I think I get what you're saying,
Speaker 6: man Like, it's something that maybe there was a time
Speaker 6: where certain circumstances led to those being positive mutations, but
Speaker 6: then when those conditions are changed and the thing remains,
Speaker 6: it no longer is Is that right?
Speaker 4: That's possible? Yeah, this is It's definitely clearly not an
Speaker 4: everyday thing for the vast majority of human beings. But
Speaker 4: each human being is kind of snowflake or fingerprint level unique. Right,
Speaker 4: You've got the same factory equipment, but that factory equipment
Speaker 4: is continually modified by cultural, environmental, and internal decision points
Speaker 4: to quote Bush.
Speaker 3: So it sounds like we're getting towards some of the
Speaker 3: stuff we've talked about with the complexity of the evolution
Speaker 3: of this old noggin, the thing we got inside this
Speaker 3: skull of ours.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the bi camera, mind, let's introduce that, because look,
Speaker 4: all we're saying about environmental factors and physical privation, it
Speaker 4: does not explain like that explains how people can hallucinate.
Speaker 4: But it does not explain a common factor of third
Speaker 4: man syndrome, which is the presence seems to actually help
Speaker 4: to trigger or inspire action. History is riddled with people
Speaker 4: who have hallucinated, and let's be brutally honest, believing you
Speaker 4: can fly, really believing you can fly has not once, not,
Speaker 4: never resulted in a person actually flying. Dang, so far,
Speaker 4: so right, So we believe in you don't jump? So
Speaker 4: what's the difference between third man factor and these other
Speaker 4: cases a skewed perspective. This is where we got to
Speaker 4: go to our pal, Joe McCormick of stuff to blow
Speaker 4: your mind. If you like our show, you will love theirs.
Speaker 4: In an earlier episode, years and years ago, now we
Speaker 4: teamed up with Joe to explore this idea of the
Speaker 4: bi cameral mind. What is it for a quick recap?
Speaker 6: Yeah so yeah, wonderful episode, Definitely worth checking out again.
Speaker 6: It is this idea of bicameral mentality that is a
Speaker 6: hypothesis created by a psychology just Julian James, who argues
Speaker 6: that for a large portion of human history, up to
Speaker 6: the time of the ancient Greeks, humans didn't consider their
Speaker 6: emotions and desires to be something that came from within,
Speaker 6: rather that.
Speaker 5: Came from external sources.
Speaker 6: It was almost like we are a television receiver being
Speaker 6: broadcast into you know, from outside of ourselves.
Speaker 5: There is no inner monologue thought occurs to you.
Speaker 6: Instead of thinking about thinking metacognition, you are have, in fact,
Speaker 6: had something beaming this information into your skull.
Speaker 4: What I know, So instead of thinking, I'm hungry, I
Speaker 4: would like you know, I'd like a Philly cheeseteak. I'm hungry,
Speaker 4: I'd like a Casadia. The bi cameral mind theory argues
Speaker 4: that up until the time of the ancient Greeks, people
Speaker 4: would think they heard a voice from outside, be that
Speaker 4: God or a demon, saying you're hungry, you want a
Speaker 4: case adia. And this is way before the invention of
Speaker 4: the case adia.
Speaker 3: If you're looking for this episode, guys, I don't know
Speaker 3: if we ever put it out as a classic, but
Speaker 3: the original was back in twenty seventeen. I couldn't find
Speaker 3: it in our meta as a classic, but it came
Speaker 3: out in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: If you're looking for it.
Speaker 4: We're big fans of this one. The theory posits that
Speaker 4: the human mind once operated in a divided state. Cognitive
Speaker 4: functions were split, and one part of your brain appeared
Speaker 4: to be speaking. A second part of the brain that
Speaker 4: was your quote unquote you're you that you think of
Speaker 4: when you think of yourself. That part was listening and obeying,
Speaker 4: and so our buddy, Julian James says. The erosion, the
Speaker 4: breakdown of this divide is what created the thing we
Speaker 4: call human consciousness today. Gotta be careful, not every This
Speaker 4: theory is not universally accepted, as a fair share of critics,
Speaker 4: but god, how fascinating.
Speaker 3: It makes sense the brain thinking about thinking, because it's
Speaker 3: not the same part thinking, right, it's one part of
Speaker 3: your brain thinking about the other part of your brain
Speaker 3: having ideas.
Speaker 4: Weird, right, right? What does the air conditioner know about
Speaker 4: the tires?
Speaker 5: One hundred percent?
Speaker 6: But this is somewhat now, I wouldn't say controversial, but
Speaker 6: this theory is not something that's universally accepted.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, if this mental state did or does
Speaker 4: indeed exist, could it be possible we're just spitballing here, folks.
Speaker 4: Could it be possible that extreme stress could trigger a
Speaker 4: temporary return to this cognitive pattern? Could your brain go
Speaker 4: into a kind of retreat mode, regressing back to bicameralism
Speaker 4: as a survival mechanism.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's a definite possibility and it
Speaker 3: would be super helpful in those moments if that's what
Speaker 3: was happening.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I'm also thinking too, before we continue, just
Speaker 4: the various spin offs of this, what if you have
Speaker 4: third man syndrome. This is a good comedy sketch for us,
Speaker 4: and the third man never goes away and just ask
Speaker 4: you to do increasingly weird and cartoonish stuff and reminds
Speaker 4: you of the time that they saved your life in Antarctica.
Speaker 2: That's hilarious. That's hilarious.
Speaker 3: Oh you know what it makes me think of the
Speaker 3: I mean we've kind of already mentioned this, but the
Speaker 3: fight or flight thing, where that is your brain reverting
Speaker 3: back to old school. Just take action right now. This
Speaker 3: is what we're gonna do.
Speaker 2: Take it.
Speaker 3: Do it now, don't think, just go at right now. Yeah,
Speaker 3: either fight that thing or get the heck out of
Speaker 3: here right now. We're not gonna contemplate it. We're not
Speaker 3: gonna even think about what it looks like or you know,
Speaker 3: any of the details. We're just gonna put our feet
Speaker 3: to the ground and go.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and we do have some good news for people who,
Speaker 4: like us, are fascinated with the bi camera mind theory.
Speaker 4: Research into this concept is continuing. Neuroimaging appears to a
Speaker 4: potentially support the idea that auditory hallucinations may arise from
Speaker 4: the right temporal paradial lobe and the be transmitted to
Speaker 4: the left temporal paradial lobe. All that to say, if
Speaker 4: you look at someone's brain in the correct circumstances, then
Speaker 4: it does appear that some kind of interaction or communication
Speaker 4: is happening in a way that would not normally occur
Speaker 4: to most human beings. Also, third man, you might not
Speaker 4: always see the presence, but you often hear a voice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was such a fascinating thing. We covered that topic.
Speaker 3: I remember. I think we learned that in some people
Speaker 3: who are experiencing schizophrenia, they're actually moving their jaw in
Speaker 3: like these micro movements of vocalization. Yeah, causing the person
Speaker 3: to physically hear the thoughts that were being formed that
Speaker 3: they were unaware of because they were being potentially formed
Speaker 3: in the right parietal as you're talking about, Well, then
Speaker 3: transfer to the left as they hear the sounds that
Speaker 3: they're making.
Speaker 4: So weird that's wild, man, it's wild. The human brain
Speaker 4: is still very much an unknown country as the literary boffins,
Speaker 4: which is.
Speaker 6: So much stuff is happening under the surface. I mean,
Speaker 6: just the idea of like this inner life that we
Speaker 6: may or may not even be tuned into half of
Speaker 6: the time, not to mention like those involuntary muscle movements
Speaker 6: and like you said, the jaw movements and things that
Speaker 6: are kind of indicators of all of this stuff bubbling
Speaker 6: just under the surface.
Speaker 5: It kind of really makes your head spend when you
Speaker 5: think about it.
Speaker 3: Well, you could go so deep into some of this
Speaker 3: stuff that we're talking about here, because it could, you know,
Speaker 3: if you break it way out and allow yourself to
Speaker 3: at least contemplate some of the more metaphysical things. Sure,
Speaker 3: even though we're narrowing down into some of the scientific parts,
Speaker 3: we still don't understand the mechanisms right of why it happens,
Speaker 3: which is why we have the religion thing, as you said, Ben,
Speaker 3: to bring it in to explain the why. But like
Speaker 3: something could be taking possession in some way of just
Speaker 3: that one part of your physical body, your brain, to
Speaker 3: then send those ideas to you.
Speaker 4: You're a vessel of a higher power.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I mean, what a perfect tool and all
Speaker 6: of the receivers you know that we are equipped with
Speaker 6: as human beings. I mean, it just blows my mind,
Speaker 6: just the specialization and the ability for our human forms
Speaker 6: and the equipment that we've got on board. I guess,
Speaker 6: for lack of a better way of describing it, that
Speaker 6: links up so perfectly with these concepts that we're talking about.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry.
Speaker 6: I know it's sort of like I'm stating the obvious,
Speaker 6: but I do occasionally just get overwhelmed by it.
Speaker 4: It's an overwhelming thing I like to you know, I
Speaker 4: love to think in metaphor. Similarly, it's a great way
Speaker 4: to learn. One example could be looking at this as
Speaker 4: the human brains version of the local TV station taking
Speaker 4: over the broadcast for an emergency warning. You know what
Speaker 4: I mean. You think that you can change the channel,
Speaker 4: but if things get rough, they're taken over.
Speaker 6: Can we talk about the God helmet, guys, Yes, all right,
Speaker 6: this is the most metal thing of all time.
Speaker 5: I just love it, just the name of the concept alone.
Speaker 4: Ah, Yes, the god helmet. I love that you describe
Speaker 4: it as metal. Sometimes also called the Koran helmet ko
Speaker 4: R E. N This thing is like, it looks kind
Speaker 4: of silly if you pull up the picture. It's created
Speaker 4: by a guide named Stanley Koran and a neuroscientist named
Speaker 4: Michael Persinger, and they wanted to say they wanted to
Speaker 4: find out what happens to a person's subjective experience, what
Speaker 4: you feel you're encountering if you stimulate the temporal lobes.
Speaker 4: How does this make them feel about thoroughly human things
Speaker 4: like creativity and religious experience. This is straight up a
Speaker 4: snowmobile helmet, all right. Name makes it sound like a
Speaker 4: crazy warhammer forty k kind of thing or a magic
Speaker 4: the Gathering card. But god, helmet is a snowmobile helmet
Speaker 4: with some brain monitoring toys strapped across it.
Speaker 5: I think you've seen it in Ghostbusters. Probably.
Speaker 6: It's definitely very It's that cliche kind of like science helmet.
Speaker 6: It's that kind of DIY in your science garage, custom
Speaker 6: built mind reading helmet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it doesn't just protect you from you know,
Speaker 3: going over the handlebars. This thing's got magnetic fields that
Speaker 3: it produces.
Speaker 4: Like TCDs or TMS transcranial magnetic stimulation, transcranial direct current.
Speaker 4: This is a method of subjecting parts of the brain
Speaker 4: to weak magnetic force. We know it sounds bonkers because
Speaker 4: you might be saying, hey, guys, is the idea that
Speaker 4: we're using science to trigger an experience with the divine
Speaker 4: or the sensation of such. Yes, yeah, so stick with
Speaker 4: us here. We know how it sounds. We wanted to
Speaker 4: go to some great writing by our colleague Molly Edmunds,
Speaker 4: who penned an article about this for our alma matter,
Speaker 4: How Stuff Works. She has a great description of this
Speaker 4: that is going to take us to some very interesting places.
Speaker 2: Shout out to Molly.
Speaker 6: Indeed, Molly says the god helmet includes electrodes that Persinger
Speaker 6: used to alter the electromagnetic field at the temporal lobes.
Speaker 6: Persinger claims that he can create a religious experience for
Speaker 6: anyone by disrupting the brain with regular electric pulses. This
Speaker 6: will cause the left temporal lobe to explain the activity
Speaker 6: in the right of the brain as a sensed presence.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so what side of your brain says, hey, man,
Speaker 4: what the heck? And the other side of your brain says, oh, yeah, dude,
Speaker 4: there's someone here whoa And that's what your other that's
Speaker 4: the original half your brank go WHOA, No way we
Speaker 4: get to cultural priming, because the sensed presence could be
Speaker 4: anything from God to demon, maybe a lost loved one.
Speaker 4: And what they found that's so fascinating is it depended
Speaker 4: upon the expectations of the person downing the helmet if
Speaker 4: they were not told the patience or participants in the
Speaker 4: experiment were not told what the experiment involved. About eighty
Speaker 4: percent of people wearing the God helmet reported sensing an
Speaker 4: unseen presence, and this shows us crucial information. First, most amazingly,
Speaker 4: the god helmet does work, just not for everyone and
Speaker 4: not all the time. And I don't know about you, guys,
Speaker 4: but I first really learned about the God helmet thanks
Speaker 4: to the famously kind and not curmudgeonly Richard Dawkins. Oh.
Speaker 2: I really liked that guy for a long time my life.
Speaker 2: It's another I don't like him now.
Speaker 3: It's just I've I don't know, well, I lived on
Speaker 3: his word for a little while there.
Speaker 5: But did he have a cancelation moment kind of though?
Speaker 2: Guys, I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I just yeah, he went he goes hard on on
Speaker 3: the paint when it comes to shooting down anything that
Speaker 3: could be even, you know, slightly just veering on the
Speaker 3: edge about there.
Speaker 4: He's tried to cancel religion, and he would agree with
Speaker 4: agree with us saying that, Yeah, I know.
Speaker 6: He had the Humanist of the Year award stripped from
Speaker 6: him for making some anti trans comments.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Okay.
Speaker 4: That's weird for a skeptic.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I agree, okay, very very Anyway, that's back in
Speaker 6: twenty twenty one.
Speaker 4: Okay, Well, he also did not get the god helmet vibe.
Speaker 4: He put it on again. Famously, we could call him
Speaker 4: huge critic of religion. Some folks have called him a
Speaker 4: militant atheist. He tries on the god helmet and he says, look,
Speaker 4: I felt a little bit dizzy. I had some twitchy
Speaker 4: legs for a minute. And this led Persenger to believe
Speaker 4: that some people may, for one reason or another, be
Speaker 4: inherently more inclined to have these experiences, maybe due to
Speaker 4: genetic factors, maybe cultural factors. And let's remember the god
Speaker 4: helmet was invented pretty recently in the grand scheme of things.
Speaker 4: So how do we explain other people having encounters, epiphanies,
Speaker 4: experiences with what they saw as the divine? Well, it
Speaker 4: must mean that you don't always have to have the
Speaker 4: technology to do this. Your pre existing beliefs and expectations.
Speaker 4: They have a huge influence on how folks would explain
Speaker 4: the God helmet to themselves. You already believe in God
Speaker 4: right or gods or angels, your brain is going to
Speaker 4: instantly conclude that's what you're encountering.
Speaker 2: Yeah, dude, totally.
Speaker 4: Will pause for a moment for a word from our sponsors,
Speaker 4: and we'll be right back, and we've returned.
Speaker 3: Guys, it took me to a place to contemplate fasting
Speaker 3: and this concept of depriving yourself of food for a
Speaker 3: long enough time to get closer in some way to
Speaker 3: the spiritual side, right to God, in some way to
Speaker 3: show your devotion and what if it is or was
Speaker 3: at least originally a physical way to make your mind,
Speaker 3: dude get closer there.
Speaker 6: Well, it's sort of like self flagellation, right, Like, you know,
Speaker 6: if you whip yourself enough, then your fight or flight
Speaker 6: you triggers will will kick in that you were actually
Speaker 6: causing and perhaps cause you to experience that third man syndrome,
Speaker 6: Like is the third man God?
Speaker 5: You know? I don't know.
Speaker 4: It's very explained as such.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and also I found an article I just love
Speaker 5: the headline.
Speaker 6: It was in the UK's Guardian Bad Science column and
Speaker 6: it says, bring me a God helmet and bring it now,
Speaker 6: by Ben Goldacre.
Speaker 5: And then he just described it really beautifully.
Speaker 6: It says the temporal lobes have long been implicated in
Speaker 6: religious experiences. Epileptic seizures in that part of the brain,
Speaker 6: for example, can produce mystical experiences and visions. Persinger's helmet
Speaker 6: stimulates those temporal lobes with weak electromagnetic fields through the skull,
Speaker 6: and in various published papers, this stimulation has been shown
Speaker 6: to induce a sensed presence under blinded conditions.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I would also add to this pre God helmet to
Speaker 4: that point, meditation, which is still practiced. Meditation can create
Speaker 4: that sense of psychological isolation, diving into your inner world
Speaker 4: to see if there's something that reaches out to you.
Speaker 4: So it isnmpletely possible, even weirdly enough, Maynard came from
Speaker 4: tool Energy. Yes, yes, Keenan, Yes, Old Maynard recommends the
Speaker 4: the similar thing. You know, you could also perhaps use
Speaker 4: drugs or hallucinogens to induce this stuff. He said, Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's fine, tried it a couple times, but then figure
Speaker 4: out the natural way to get there on your road.
Speaker 3: I think it's Capsayson guys.
Speaker 5: Spicy spicy boys.
Speaker 3: Yes, No, but really like you guys have probably had
Speaker 3: that experience where like, if I eat something so spicy,
Speaker 3: it is this moment of all it's almost clarity because
Speaker 3: you're you cease thinking about anything else. I wonder if
Speaker 3: it is the same thing or close to the same thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: A buddy of mine recently turned me on to a study.
Speaker 6: I'll see if I can find.
Speaker 5: It for later.
Speaker 6: But where there are these like Janused monks I believe,
Speaker 6: or these specific sect of monks that will do this
Speaker 6: intense form of meditation where they stare at a candleplane
Speaker 6: for like days on end, and the study has shown
Speaker 6: that it genuinely produces an experience almost.
Speaker 5: Identical to that of being on DMT.
Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, meditation, focused meditation can do this the mind.
Speaker 4: The thoughts that you choose to experience over time can
Speaker 4: have physiological impact upon your brain. Shout out the knowledge,
Speaker 4: Shout out Buddhist meditation.
Speaker 3: Shout out the infinite social scroll that is doing the
Speaker 3: opposite of what we're talking about.
Speaker 4: Really, yeah, depends on how I curate it right. Another
Speaker 4: example about priming, Let's say you are pining for a
Speaker 4: long lost loved one. They have been on your mind
Speaker 4: for some time now. Obviously bad faith actors purporting to
Speaker 4: be mediums have they made bank off this since time immemorial.
Speaker 4: But you may if you're wearing a god helmet, because
Speaker 4: you're primed to think of that person, and you may
Speaker 4: feel the presence you have interacted with or encountered is
Speaker 4: that person from beyond the grave. And if you're more secular,
Speaker 4: you haven't been primed at all. Then you get to
Speaker 4: a hilarious gotta catch twenty two situation. One side of
Speaker 4: your brain is going bonkers saying, man, man, there's something there,
Speaker 4: there's something there. The other side says, oh, what is it?
Speaker 4: What is it? And the first size of your brain
Speaker 4: says the fuck, I don't know, And then you take
Speaker 4: off the helmet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you know, I just had a conversation about
Speaker 3: this with somebody. We do have the genetic code of
Speaker 3: our ancestors in our code, or at least bits and
Speaker 3: pieces of it, right segments of it. So there's another
Speaker 3: whole thing. If you get in, you know, you dig
Speaker 3: deeper into that then potentially there is not there is
Speaker 3: some kind of interaction that you could be having not
Speaker 3: only would the neural connections and the memories you have
Speaker 3: of that person, but with the actual code that.
Speaker 2: Is a part of you.
Speaker 4: It's very Graham Hancock. Yeah, I've read those books that
Speaker 4: the idea that Graham Handcock takes a little bit further
Speaker 4: and argues that what is often described as quote unquote
Speaker 4: junk DNA is actually memory encoded. It reminds me of
Speaker 4: our earlier Strange News segment where we're talking earlier listener
Speaker 4: mail segment. We're talking about the possibility of genetic memory
Speaker 4: and thank you Anonymous for sending us a really cool
Speaker 4: picture of your dog. Just going to leave that withe there.
Speaker 4: But okay, so we've got these things. We all saw
Speaker 4: the email. That's a champion dog right there, top tier.
Speaker 4: We've got these things trauma and survival. So we know
Speaker 4: the factors influencing the experience. We know that the experience
Speaker 4: can be purposely or something like it can be purposely
Speaker 4: created through technology the god helmet. We also know there's
Speaker 4: a really fascinating argument that once upon a time the
Speaker 4: human brain was more divided whether that be to culture,
Speaker 4: whether that's be to psychology, something environmental that we can't explain.
Speaker 4: But I'm thinking if we take all these if we
Speaker 4: treat them like puzzle pieces, maybe we can use them
Speaker 4: to build a better picture of this thing we call
Speaker 4: the Third Man mystery. The neuroscience really is one of
Speaker 4: the key players here, right, Like, neurosciences pretty legit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, I mean it's definitely a thing. You can
Speaker 3: get a degree in it. We know several people that
Speaker 3: have those we do.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're right. I guess maybe that's a little bit
Speaker 4: of a softball for me to go. Now, No, you guys,
Speaker 4: this neuroscience thing bullshit.
Speaker 2: No, so it does.
Speaker 4: It does show us that, like you were saying earlier, No,
Speaker 4: there are plenty studies on the activity of the brain,
Speaker 4: and they show increased activity in areas associated with social
Speaker 4: cognition and self awareness. Right, Like I am in a
Speaker 4: school of fish? Which fish am I? How do I
Speaker 4: relate to the other fish? During what are called simulated
Speaker 4: isolation experiments, you put someone alone, you put them in
Speaker 4: the hole. You see what happens their brain. It looks
Speaker 4: like your brain starts to work over time to fill
Speaker 4: the void by the left in the absence of real
Speaker 4: social interaction. So in short, if we do not have
Speaker 4: friends our brains, if your human may start working to
Speaker 4: make them.
Speaker 3: Man, that's so weird because I think back to Shackleton
Speaker 3: and how there were three human beings there that's experiencing
Speaker 3: the same thing, and.
Speaker 5: So does that.
Speaker 6: But then we also know about like collective hallucinations. Does
Speaker 6: that explain that if people usually experience those under duress.
Speaker 4: Like FOLLI you do? Yeah, Yeah, that's that's another piece
Speaker 4: of the puzzle that's difficult for us to grapple with.
Speaker 4: So the God Helmet shows us proves that certain subtle
Speaker 4: magnetic stimulations can create the feeling of an unseen presence.
Speaker 4: We also know from our earlier episode on the science
Speaker 4: of ghosts, which was dope, honestly, we know that certain
Speaker 4: infrasound frequencies can create the experience of sensing a ghost.
Speaker 6: Yeah for sure, ooh and shout out to I don't
Speaker 6: know if we should talk about it real quick, guys.
Speaker 6: We've got a pretty cool live event coming up in
Speaker 6: the new year where we're going to.
Speaker 5: Talk about a lot of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 6: Infrasound, how sound can affect our physicality and our mental state.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's gonna be a blast.
Speaker 3: If you've got your calendars for twenty twenty five out,
Speaker 3: go ahead and write down these dates. February nineteenth through
Speaker 3: the twenty first.
Speaker 5: In Brooklyn, New York at the Wife Hotel.
Speaker 4: That's the on air fest at the legendary National Sawdust Venue.
Speaker 4: We can't wait for you to be there. We'll have
Speaker 4: more information emerging as we get closer. No word yet
Speaker 4: on whether or not we'll have a god helmet, but really,
Speaker 4: the god helmet's the friends we made along the way.
Speaker 3: We're gonna turn that entire venue into a god helmet.
Speaker 5: You guys, they're going to be God tier, that's for sure.
Speaker 6: Ed.
Speaker 4: Speaking of god helmet, we noted again as we're building
Speaker 4: out our puzzle pieces here, the god helmet may not
Speaker 4: be necessary to trigger these experiences. Other factors or mixtures
Speaker 4: of factors could produce a similar result, as we talked
Speaker 4: about in depth a few minutes ago. But the god
Speaker 4: helmet itself, again, it doesn't appear to conjure entities that
Speaker 4: tell you to do a specific set of actions, telling
Speaker 4: you to do something, helping you do something that is
Speaker 4: the primary defining factor. Of third man syndrome, and I
Speaker 4: posit the bicameral mind might help us solve for that part.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, dude, I think there's also something to
Speaker 3: this figure. I mean, this doesn't go into explaining at
Speaker 3: you guys, but a figure that is there that is
Speaker 3: just pushing forward.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So, just to go back to that Shackleton experience, You've
Speaker 3: got three guys who are you know, on their last legs,
Speaker 3: doing everything they can to move one foot forward, and
Speaker 3: you've got this third party, fourth party I guess that
Speaker 3: is just trudging through the snow and just isn't stopping.
Speaker 4: And laughing all the way.
Speaker 3: But just say that that thing that you are both visualizing, hearing, sensing,
Speaker 3: all that stuff that just continues.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's similar perhaps to the stories of what's sometimes
Speaker 4: called hysterical strength. So you can actually, if you're a
Speaker 4: human being, you can actually lift and move way more
Speaker 4: stuff than you feel like you can ordinarily your body
Speaker 4: just has hard mental constraints to stop you from hurting yourself. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and so in times of emergency, like the common trope
Speaker 4: that you always hear is a mother the back of
Speaker 4: a card, a savor kid and maybe gives themselves injuries
Speaker 4: in the process because they're able to bypass that stuff.
Speaker 4: So if the by camera mind is telling us that
Speaker 4: people can experience a form of disassociation due to a
Speaker 4: number of factors, then we're looking at neurological, environmental, cultural, psychological.
Speaker 4: Something adds into this stew and creates the certitude that
Speaker 4: an internal thought is coming from an external source. In
Speaker 4: those cases, in the bi camera mind theory, those voices
Speaker 4: from the ether do tell people to do certain things,
Speaker 4: to take certain actions.
Speaker 6: All right, let's take a quick pause, hear a word
Speaker 6: from our sponsor, and then we'll jump right back into
Speaker 6: this conversation on the third man theory.
Speaker 4: And we've returned, let's learn more about the third man syndrome.
Speaker 6: To me, though, sometimes even when we drill down into
Speaker 6: the science of some of these metaphysical kind of experiences.
Speaker 5: It doesn't like cheapen it not to me at all,
Speaker 5: if anything.
Speaker 6: I mean, I think they do coexist the way you
Speaker 6: so beautifully put it earlier.
Speaker 5: Science and spirituality, Well good news.
Speaker 4: I think it's the world we live in fair enough.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, it's weird because you know, if there is
Speaker 3: a force out there that is so much grander and
Speaker 3: greater than us. I can't imagine a version of it
Speaker 3: where it cares what you call it, you know, or care,
Speaker 3: it really cares how you worship it.
Speaker 4: Wouldn't that be the weirdest thing to get hung up on?
Speaker 4: Can you imagine people murder each other over it? Yeah?
Speaker 4: They murder each other. Here I'm talking about what the
Speaker 4: metaphysical death sentence of going to damnation? On a technicality? Yeah, well, buddy,
Speaker 4: but that's funny.
Speaker 6: So many religions are based on it's a technicality. If
Speaker 6: you don't believe in this exact way, Saint Peter's sending
Speaker 6: you home.
Speaker 4: The wrong animal once. Okay, yeah you did get baptized, buddy,
Speaker 4: but whoo whoa, whoa, woah. Let me stop you at
Speaker 4: the gate. Did you get sprinkles or did you get dumped?
Speaker 5: Dude?
Speaker 3: As you get closer to the center, the smiling man
Speaker 3: doesn't care what you call him. He's just waiting for
Speaker 3: you in the black bar. That's a shout out to
Speaker 3: Gideon falls really.
Speaker 6: Good, really and Ben to your point, your your your
Speaker 6: baptismal materials were not approved, you know, for use.
Speaker 4: Let me see the tip of your penis.
Speaker 5: Yes, please say it like that.
Speaker 4: You're like, Wow, Heaven is way more intense than I thought.
Speaker 2: You were that close, Sorry, Matt.
Speaker 4: Matt is clearly indicating the foreskins distance away from the
Speaker 4: divine a foreskin to hell. Uh, the new tell all
Speaker 4: memoir of the afterlife by your bowels and stuff. They
Speaker 4: don't want you to know. I mean, yeah, we can't
Speaker 4: cast we never do, and I think we're all this
Speaker 4: is very important to all of us. I'm extremely proud
Speaker 4: of us on the show for never casting aspersion on
Speaker 4: spiritual beliefs. There is a surprisingly fascinating collection of science
Speaker 4: that's ongoing that might explain what's happening with third man syndrome.
Speaker 4: And because cultural perspective and cultural framework is such a
Speaker 4: big part of what may be going on here, that
Speaker 4: means it's the opposite of dismissing spirituality. It means spirituality
Speaker 4: must be acknowledged as a piece of the explanation. I mean,
Speaker 4: you're dude, think about it. You're on death's door. It's
Speaker 4: a worse day or days of your life, and you,
Speaker 4: the you that you think of as you yourself that
Speaker 4: you has given up done so, and then your brain
Speaker 4: and a last ditch effort to keep the whole show
Speaker 4: going conjures up another version, a better version of you. Temporarily,
Speaker 4: it says you're not alone, can't give up. Now hold
Speaker 4: my hand, walk a little further over the next time, ill,
Speaker 4: I will take you somewhere safe.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that version of you might be a loved
Speaker 3: one that passed away, right because just because that's how
Speaker 3: your brain ends up visualizing it, and it knows that
Speaker 3: you will be motivated by that specific person.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 6: And so often we talk about the idea of experiencing
Speaker 6: ghosts too, or like you know, what's apparitions out in
Speaker 6: the world. Oftentimes we link those experiences back to memory.
Speaker 6: You know, the idea of being haunted quote unquote or
Speaker 6: visited by a loved one is really just a different
Speaker 6: way of experiencing your love and your memories of that
Speaker 6: person manifesting in a way that can help you.
Speaker 4: M hmm, yeah, one hundred percent. I mean it's a
Speaker 4: positive conspiracy. It's a positive weaponization of very complex mechanisms.
Speaker 4: I mean, science seems to imply that the third Man
Speaker 4: factor is an internal conspiracy on the part of your brain,
Speaker 4: but not to hurt you, just to try to help you.
Speaker 4: And again we have to say this has not been
Speaker 4: proven because spoiler, folks, it is cartoonishly difficult to study
Speaker 4: this in a lab because you can't, you know, right now,
Speaker 4: you can't legally strap a brain monitoring device on someone
Speaker 4: and just slap them on the keyster and push them
Speaker 4: out into the Arctic until they starve. You can't do
Speaker 4: that just to see what happens.
Speaker 5: We're getting there with VR though soon enough.
Speaker 4: Hey, that's actually that's a really good point, man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, shut out Unit seven thirty one.
Speaker 2: Sorry.
Speaker 3: Also, their science was bad, Yeah, but act they were
Speaker 3: doing crap like that.
Speaker 4: They were. They're part of the reason we have such
Speaker 4: strict ethical guidelines now.
Speaker 5: I mean.
Speaker 4: Also, what's that movie with Keith for Sutherland. I used
Speaker 4: to love it where the those med students start taking
Speaker 4: themselves to near death experiences Flat flights. Yeah, you guys
Speaker 4: remember flat Lighters?
Speaker 5: Yeah? Not great but interesting and of its time.
Speaker 2: No, I love that concept.
Speaker 3: Really, smart inquisitive people are like, you know what, let's
Speaker 3: just kill each other a little bit and see what happens.
Speaker 4: Who's got the right blanket for this? That was a
Speaker 4: big plot point, right, Flat Lighters. Jacob's Ladder was another
Speaker 4: one kind of in that vat.
Speaker 5: That's a good one. Jacob's Ladder.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, it's funny you mentioned that Ben the earlier.
Speaker 6: When we were talking about this, the quote occurred to me.
Speaker 6: What is it If you're dying and you're hanging on,
Speaker 6: you'll see devils tearing your life away, But if you
Speaker 6: make peace, then the devil has become angels, freeing you
Speaker 6: from the earth.
Speaker 4: Oh that's cool. Is that from Jacob's Ladder?
Speaker 5: Yes, sir, it is.
Speaker 4: Oh that's beautiful. Yeah, flat lighters, I will defend. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's obviously no vibes, but it does show this idea
Speaker 4: of you know, one of the I mean, it's a
Speaker 4: horror movie. We won't to spoil it too much, but
Speaker 4: one of the big debates they have for a while
Speaker 4: is whether they are encountering external forces because they've pierced
Speaker 4: the mortal veil or the mortal pale, or whether they
Speaker 4: are doing something to their brains through near death experiences
Speaker 4: that make them perceive an internal thing is an external thing.
Speaker 4: And that's that's where we have to say, don't try
Speaker 4: to give yourself an NDE. Now, even if you have
Speaker 4: a lab don't do it. It's super tricky. And you
Speaker 4: only have to mess up once.
Speaker 3: Oh for sure, guys, you mind if I get one
Speaker 3: more example just of this that found was really sweet
Speaker 3: and maybe I don't know, it actually made me feel good.
Speaker 3: It's another example that came from our buddy John Geiger
Speaker 3: there from his the third Man factor, and this was
Speaker 3: a person named Stephanie. Stephanie Schwab. I want to say,
Speaker 3: who went into one of those underwater cave systems, you know,
Speaker 3: the ones where people take their scuba equipment and go
Speaker 3: deep into caverns that are labyrinthine and the only way
Speaker 3: you know where you are inside that thing is through
Speaker 3: a guideline that is connected to you and attached to you,
Speaker 3: so you can then follow that line back out of
Speaker 3: the system, because there's no way in the darkness of
Speaker 3: that cave with your little lights you'd be able to
Speaker 3: find your way out.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 3: In this specific instance in nineteen ninety seven, Stephanie lost
Speaker 3: her guideline while she's deep in this cave system, and
Speaker 3: she began running out of oxygen and panicking. And for
Speaker 3: her at least, what she experienced was that her a
Speaker 3: presence was with her that she ascribed to her recently
Speaker 3: dead husband, who helped her calm down, find the guideline
Speaker 3: at the very you know you're talking about time running out,
Speaker 3: find the guideline, and pull herself out. I just think
Speaker 3: that's amazing that she had that in her and had
Speaker 3: that experience, which is really beautiful if you think about it,
Speaker 3: But just that maybe all of us haven't in us
Speaker 3: the potential to either save ourselves through all these mechanisms
Speaker 3: we've described, or to actually get some kind of outside
Speaker 3: help from someone who's been in our lives. I just
Speaker 3: think it's I don't know.
Speaker 4: Sweet, and when it works out, it definitely is. We
Speaker 4: also have to remember that there have statistically, if everything
Speaker 4: we're saying is somewhat on base, there have statistically been
Speaker 4: moments where the third man came too late.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, we would never know, right.
Speaker 4: We'll never know. There also is still a great stigma
Speaker 4: around reporting or sharing these experiences. Partially that's because people
Speaker 4: don't want to seem like they're off base, right or
Speaker 4: mentally asymmetrical. The third man syndrome is a mysterious phenomenon. Still,
Speaker 4: even this evening, we know something is definitely happening, But
Speaker 4: what according to all the signs so far, that appears
Speaker 4: to be the stuff your brain doesn't want you to
Speaker 4: know and if you trust us. Folks, if you've come
Speaker 4: this far with us, thank you again for your time.
Speaker 4: We would love to hear your stories. If you have
Speaker 4: encountered something like this, something you cannot explain, and if
Speaker 4: any of what we've explored over these past two episodes
Speaker 4: has spoken to you, tell us about it. We'd love
Speaker 4: to learn more and we'd love to potentially share your
Speaker 4: stories with your fellow listeners. You can find us via
Speaker 4: email you give us a call. We also are on
Speaker 4: all sorts of internet lines.
Speaker 5: It's right catch us outside online. That's where we are.
Speaker 6: We exist in the handle Conspiracy Stuff where we exist
Speaker 6: on Facebook with our Facebook group Here's where it gets crazy,
Speaker 6: on exfka, Twitter and on YouTube with video content Galora
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Speaker 3: you've got three minutes, give yourself a cool nickname and
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Speaker 4: We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
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Speaker 4: rights back. Join us out here in the dark. You
Speaker 4: can send us any old thing. We love episode suggestions.
Speaker 4: We want to hear your third man stories. We also
Speaker 4: welcome your jokes. Could I share one if we haven't
Speaker 4: gotten to it yet. Guys, it's okay. H ZS. Rex
Speaker 4: said something so good I had to write back to
Speaker 4: you Directly's Evius. He said, my dog got into our
Speaker 4: scrabble game. His next bowel movement could spell disaster.
Speaker 6: That's very funny, hey, at least it's definitely a cut
Speaker 6: above humor.
Speaker 5: As Harry I will say that multiple cuts.
Speaker 4: So I'm bringing this up to thank you zus Rex,
Speaker 4: and thank everybody who again trust us enough to reach
Speaker 4: out and hang with us here in the dark. Join
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