God Awful Movies - 432: Superhuman: The Invisible Made Visible
Episode Date: November 28, 2023This week, Dr. Alice Howarth and Michael Marshall join us for a skeptical review of Superhuman: The Invisible Made Visible, a documentary about how gullible documentarians can be. Check out more fro...m Dr. Alive and Marsh on Skeptics with a K If you’d like to make a per episode donation and get monthly bonus episodes, please check us out on Patreon: http://patreon.com/godawful Check out our other shows, The Scathing Atheist, The Skepticrat, Citation Needed, and D&D Minus. Our theme music is written and performed by Ryan Slotnick of Evil Giraffes on Mars. If you’d like to hear more, check out their Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/EvilGiraffesOnMars/?fref=ts All our other music was written and performed by Morgan Clarke. To hear more from him, check him out here: https://www.morganclarkemusic.com/
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This is where we jump to a woman who starts to, like just out of nowhere, Donnest is as
appeared, talking about pathogens and diagnosing illnesses.
And then this woman appears, talking about how she wants to have a career and have children
and Caroline's response to her is, I'm going to introduce you to my friend and we'll see
what happens. Totally done.
Seems deeply inappropriate.
Right. Who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be who be sitting 4,000 miles to my East North East is my good friend Michael Marshall. Marshall, welcome back. Oh, hey, no, you know, I may be full 1000 miles away, but I'm closing my eyes.
And I can see you perfectly.
I can see where you are.
I can describe the room that you're in.
It works. It's good.
It's all good.
You can move tiny pieces of paper in my environment.
Yeah, that's pretty amazing.
And sitting approximately one football field, regardless of which football we're using,
I guess to Marshall's North is cancer Cell Biologist Science communicator co-host of Skeptics with
the K and Vice President of the Mercy Science Skeptic Society.
Dr. Alice Howard, who is I believe making her first appearance as a game guest, Mascast?
Dr. Alice, welcome to the show.
I thank you.
Thank you for having me.
Very excited to inflict this movie on you.
It was quite an inflection, but I have very much enjoyed watching it at a very slow pace.
Yeah, no, it's just one of those things where it's always fun to have done it, right?
Never fun to do it, but to have done it.
Absolutely that, yeah, 100%.
So tell us, Alice, what will we be breaking down today?
Well, we watched Superhuman, the invisible made visible.
It's the documentary that tells you
that you too can be as positive as the doctor
in Star Trek Voyager if you just wear a visor
like Jordi LaForge and we told you this book.
That's all gonna make sense by the end.
Believe it or not, that's literally what's coming
in this film.
And Marsh, how bad was this movie?
Well, if you love explorations of the outer limits
of human possibility, but you want them hosted
by someone literally too stupid to outwit a six year old,
you will love this movie.
The funny thing is, the bar's not even set that I,
she doesn't have to out with them.
She just has to fail to be out-witted by them.
That's high in winning would have been better than what she made.
She's absolutely true.
She failed so badly.
Oh, it's so much fun.
Is there anything you guys want to nominate?
This one for me and the best to be in the worst at?
Yeah, I'm going to go right in there with best, worst, blindfolded children. Now, to be clear, that might sound
like a weird category. And it's weird that this category keeps coming up on this show,
but this time it's genuinely, genuinely relevant because they blindfold some kids to get
some kids to do some magic stuff. And it is the greatest thing ever. I don't want to spoil
it. I don't want to spoil it too much. But I will just say that it will be, it's only technically true to describe these children
as blindfolded. It's just barely technically true, but it's not accurate to describe
this blindfolded. No, they have blindfolds on. They have access to a blindfold. Yeah, 100
percent. And similarly, I was going to go with best worst remote viewing.
We get a full on demonstration of somebody trying remote viewing for the first time and
it's like genuine.
It's like, it's what that really didn't cheat at all.
And boy does that show.
My best worst is the magic tin foil. Uh-huh.
Mars has been texting me for days because I watched the film after Mars watched it.
And for days he just kept texting me saying, you've got to get to the tin foil.
Keep watching and get to the tin foil because the tin foil section is entirely delightful.
Oh, it is.
It's the absolute best.
If they had wrapped it around their head to stop the alien signals from coming in, it would have been less silly than what we actually had. That is genuinely true, actually.
Because I guess tinfoil can deflect some stuff. Right. Yes. There's some of the amount of
things it can deflect. I'm so grateful about it. Yeah. The way they use it is even dumber than
that. It's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. It's really quite an achievement. All right. Well, I am dying to
unlock our superpowers
as I'm sure you are.
So we're gonna keep the break brief
and when we come back,
we'll dive into all the credulity that is superhuman.
All right, you guys ready to record the podcast?
Absolutely, yeah.
But first, we should talk about my underwear.
Right, Alice, okay, I probably should have explained.
Does this thing called a podcast of us?
And it's kind of like a psychosexual few state?
No, no, no, no, Mars, I'm talking about meandies.
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and loungewear that I've ever experienced,
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meandies.com slash awful for 25% off plus free shipping. Meandies ease comfort from the outside yet Great thanks. What was that about a few state?
Did you not see Carl in the living room? Oh?
Yes, I did
Yeah, there you go. Yeah
All right, everyone welcome to the first writers room meeting for superhuman the invisible made visible
Hooray
Now as you know, it has been my singular goal
to expose the true limits of human abilities ever since my uncle proved to me that he could
conjure coins from my ear using nothing but the power of thought.
So I figured we could do this movie, right?
So we would just go around and film all the experiments that show that people have psychic
powers.
Well, that sounds easily enough.
Yeah, right.
So, do you guys know anybody with, like, superpowers that they could demonstrate?
Oh, um...
Oh, my cousin Larry can pull his thumb completely off, and then reattach it.
Oh, wow, that's awesome.
Wow, my grandpa can do that with my nose.
Amazing.
Well, between that and the sorcerer that I met at my niece's birthday party, we should
be all set.
Sorcerer?
Yeah, he linked two solid rings together like it was nothing.
Wow, right?
Do you think we should maybe also bring in some skeptics or magicians that could examine the
protocols beforehand and ensure that we're not being fooled by parlor tricks?
No, sure don't.
No, me either.
So solid rings, you say?
Yeah, yeah, he like banged him together before and everything to show how solid they were.
And we're back for the breakdown, We're going to open up on,
and I know it sounds weird to even point this out, but it has to be said, the longest production
logos in the history of production. Oh my God. It's like this one credit logo was up for 19 seconds.
Yeah. That is how you pad out your runtime with some lovely like weird gonging in the background as
well, that was just really
disconcerting. I think that was only there to make it you just realized that it wasn't that the
pictures froze and not the video stopped working with nothing else is happening for so long.
Yeah, but eventually we get the title Superhuman, the invisible made visible, which sounds like
an instruction manual on how to catch Miles Morales, but no, it's even less useful
than that. I guess the opening question of the movie, the narrator comes up and says,
what makes people feel fulfilled? And I'm like, turkey stuffing cranberry macadas. That's
the Americans perspective. I'm like, you guys, this again, I mean, I've said this before
on the show, but I honestly think you should have to pass
like a background check before you get access
to Stock Footage Library, because it just gets abused.
So badly in this movie.
I found that the Stock Footage, particularly in this intro
bit, made me feel really sick.
It was just like, had these weird cups,
and it was fading in weird, and made me feel really nauseous.
Although they did have some diversity,
there was like this random black woman
that just appeared under the words,
finding out who you really are.
And she had this like really intense,
skin-smoothing filter on her face
and like this green plant on over next to her.
And I was like, is this who she really is?
So I'll just say, Alice, you shouldn't start by saying
how sick the stock footage makes
you feel and then immediately talk about the black person like, okay, the Oregon spames
those out like a little bit.
So yes, so we're getting this random mix of just hippie, Pablo and random like science
stock footage mixed with meditation stock footage.
But ultimately, she lands on the narrator lands
on our mind is in constant communication with unseen forces in unknown worlds.
Yeah. And as a podcast to whose Facebook messenger is open to strangers messages, that
landed hard with me. I'm constantly open to communication from weird places.
Yeah. Fair. Yeah. So you made a whole weird places. Yeah, fair.
Yeah.
So you made a whole podcast out of that actually.
That's true.
Oh, and we should put up to it.
So as we're hearing all of this nonsense, we're watching these kids playing a game of
dad just got a drone.
And they're back there.
They're up with a role wearing blindfolds.
They're running with blindfolds on their foreheads. They're lying in a circle with blindfolds. They're all wearing blindfolds. They're running with blindfolds on their foreheads. They're
lying in a circle with blindfolds. They're all wearing blindfolds.
Yeah. I didn't even spot that they were blindfolds. I didn't even, all I thought was these kids
are just playing the world's most boring games. Maybe blindfolds are to stop them realizing how
shit the games that they're playing actually on. Yeah, I didn't catch the blindfold this early,
either, but we're going gonna, don't worry,
we're coming back to those blindfolds.
But first, we're just gonna have these,
like three little British kids telling me
how to attune to my energy, right?
Yeah, and it sucks so much when it's the kids.
Yeah, yeah.
And this nonsense like me and Alice,
we went to a earth convention years ago now.
And it was like the 10 year old kid there
was asking gotcha questions to the scientists and all the adults around them
are uploading and loving it and you just think, oh God, just keep the kids out of this, please.
Yeah, right. No, there was definitely a moment here and we're pretty much still in the credits here
where you go from like teee-hee-hee to all these kids are being psychologically abused, wolf.
Yeah, yeah. It was like a creepy, quasi-cockney kid,
like an Essex family.
And out of nowhere, he just started,
this kid starts talking about the man that he met
in an alley who speaks in energy.
Yes.
Hope this kid is imagining that.
I really hope this kid is imagining that.
He said he had ever since he'd been playing
with this guy in his head, or somewhere else,
and he looked so concerned and had a really sad, weirdly cockney voice,
it was about, it's incredibly odd. Yeah, it really, it felt like we should be calling someone,
right? As we were watching, there's gotta be a government hotline or something. And then we get
an Einstein quote, which of course, like all Einstein quotes is something that Einstein never said.
Yeah, this is the thing about how everything is energy. And it's like, Einstein didn't say that unless you count the time that the
medium-darl anchor channeled Einstein, Viren, alien spirit named Bashar, which is where that
quote really comes from. I appreciate that they only gave us the first half of the quote,
right? They gave us everything is energy. And that's all there is to it. Sounds just like
Einstein, really, and in its case, it's everything. But and that's all there is to it. It sounds just like Einstein really and it's getting to everything.
But the rest of the quote is even dumber than that.
What is there?
I didn't even look up the right quote.
I don't remember, but it's it's trust me.
It's even it's it's about how like if you vibrate at the right energy, you can manifest
anything you want or some such.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, it does sound classic Einstein as channeled through an alien spirit name.
That's very him.
No, it was.
And now we're going to meet our narrator, the filmmaker.
This is Carolyn Quarry, whose little chiron comes up and says, consciousness science researcher.
Conscious of science research to author was the full tie-run, which is a work as a flow.
And the thing is, yeah, that is a title that very specifically isn't scientist.
It sounds like a sort of being scientist without actually saying scientist.
So weird, there's no little protection on this term at all.
So she explains that as a five year old she realized that she could read
energy oras and hear other people's thoughts. She could feel like emotions of adults.
Like emotionally sensitive five year olds aren't a common thing. Right, yes.
But also like she's just describing stuff she imagined as a five-year-old child that she now believes
true as an adult like stuff she was making up then she's like, and I assume that was all real.
Yeah, absolutely no evidence.
No, and she is the absolute poster child for asking bad questions, right?
Yeah, that was almost going to be my that was going to be my best worst until
we got to my best worst. I had best worst if statements because all the way throughout
this film, she starts at the things by saying, if something insane, then, as I know, just
stop there because you already proven a name. Your if has already been crushed under the
weight of your then. Yeah. She says that this way, she says,
when we sense that something's there and nothing's there, what are we tapping into? What
are we coming into contact with? Nothing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And her next question is how does tell the kinesis to work?
But didn't we see Corey Feldman at the time that you were saying that? It made it sound because she said you know when you sense someone in the room and you're alone,
but it's short a clip of Corey Feldman.
And that made it feel like she was arguing that that's when we all tap into
Corey Feldman like that.
He answered to that question.
So I didn't notice Corey at this point, but don't worry that's the answer to that question. So I didn't notice Corey at
this point, but don't worry, he's coming back to his. Yeah, I completely missed him here as well.
So and then we get we get this little montage of just and we're going to see all of this later
in the movie, but just this hilarious dumb experimental shit that Marsha's probably played along with it. Some point in his career. It's so much for that.
All right, so then we cut back to the blindfolded kids.
This is what I first saw that they were blindfolded and they're demonstrating their psychic powers
by doing things blindfolded like playing ping pong and reading books.
Yeah, and at least here, we very quickly get the answer to the, are they diluted or just
lying? Can I jump? Yes, it's really clear that fakeness. Yeah, and at least here we very quickly get the answer to the are they diluted or just lying
conundrum?
Yes, is it really clear that they're faking this?
All of these blindfolds are half the height of the child's head, but for some reason they're
all balanced on the nose and not actually covering all of the ice or they're just peeking.
They're all like slightly too high on them.
Yeah.
I mean, even if the blindfold does work, the children are reading children's
books. My niece is three. She can't read yet, but she can still like read pages of her favorite
books, because she's fucking memorized the lines. Of course, of course, they have, there's like
16 words per page, but also we don't see the words, we don't even know if he's getting them right.
And she's trying to find like a scientific approach to explain how this kid can cheat
as obviously as he is currently cheating that this is not real psychics.
Well, yeah, because he's holding the book like down way below him and sort of his kind
of head, cock to one side so you can see it like it's so obvious what he's doing there.
It's a move that I that exact move is something that I once saw James
Randy do when he stacked a deck of cards without breaking eye contact with the person over the table.
He was able to like look out with peripheral vision. Sure. And put a deck of cards in order.
If he could do that, these kids can read a book they've already read out to the peripheral vision
beside their nose. Right. And as for the pink one, like, even if he can't sit, that's just the
person that's hitting the ball back to him hitting it
Exactly the same spot every like right. That's not even a thing. That's nothing
And the kids leading back really obviously so he's just peaking. That's it. Yeah, we could just turn the film off all the children film
Didness with the blindfolds have just weird cricks in the next like the right? Yeah
So strange. Yeah, it's not just that these cockney kids have all got like rickets or something from
a particular or vitamins in their diet.
Yeah.
It is weird when a blindfold proves that someone's not a shudder, but yeah, that is what
we see in the scene.
And then we need Dean Raiden, the chief scientist for ions, apparently.
Yes, the Institute of Noetic Science.
Oh, my fucking God, is that what that is.
Yeah, noetic science.
I thought the attic was silent on that, but yeah.
Okay.
And God, I've never seen Dean Raiden.
But Dean Raiden is a name from way back in Skateboard.
Oh, sure.
He first got involved in Skateboard.
His name is Flo Fluttersound.
He's a man so committed to the idea that size real that even like the lovely professor
Chris French has written about him in his scathing fashion.
And you are either going to be doing really bad or get Chris really drunk before he'll
do anything like that.
Oh god, yeah, no, I hadn't seen him before either.
I've obviously ever heard the name, but yeah, he apparently he looks like, he looks like the version of Salman Rushdie who's endangered by blasphemies
against the Star Trek canon, right?
Right.
But he has got a PhD, which Alice means he's exactly as qualified as you are.
Yes.
Definitely a hundred percent. Although his PhD, like his master's degree is in electrical engineering and then he went on to do a PhD in educational
Psychology and then has gone on to do this this stuff for this show, right? Yeah, no
He's a weird career transition. That is a bog standard career transition. It's very odd
Yeah, but he tells us here that he has studied thousands of psychic kids
Right, and then we also we briefly meet Ben Hanson XFBI agent and He tells us here that he has studied thousands of psychic kids, right?
And then we also briefly meet Ben Hansen, XFBI agent and just researcher, just in general.
And that's this guy right.
It just says XFBI agent researcher.
Right.
But is that just research generally, or does the exbit also refer to the research?
Oh, interesting. I feel like the, the X FBI agent bit is putting just to impress people and I'm not going to
hide.
It did kind of impress me a little bit.
I did go, oh, X FBI agent.
Right.
No, you must be a legit.
No, I'm with you.
I'm with you.
And then he goes like, he's like, I've studied hundreds of EVP recordings and that made
me so sad.
But you only get to live once, Ben.
You just listen to static hundreds of times, man, that's sad.
He says he's captured dozens to hundreds examples of EVP.
Right.
But he didn't play a single one.
No.
Like, I don't hear these voices.
They are not going to sound like voices are they?
They're not going to sound anything like voices.
Not remote.
Well, if nobody puts subtitles up, you'll kind of hear the thing.
So and Carolyn comes in and she's like, you know, there are actually many credible institutions
that study all of these things we're talking about. And I'm like, yeah, but you're not going to
quote from the credible ones though. And there's
I think it's also she says and the CIA ran a project for 20 years, researching this.
It's like, yeah, do you want to tell us why that's past tense, Karol?
I don't imagine this because it was really successful.
Well, yeah, there's definitely this implication of like, you know, even the US government spent
millions of dollars on this and what are the odds that the US government would just waste
millions of tax pickers, come on.
The UK government has literally spent like 7.94 billion on PPE that was unsuitable and
unused.
Oh, God.
Like, government's waste money on bullshit, all the fucking time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Although I'm not sure, like Carolyn Corey says that these are the credible institutions
and governments around the world, dedicating so much research and funding into this field. You would think there's something there. I'm
not sure my example there of the British government is what we would call credible right now.
Yes. Yeah. Even she could see that and she can't understand how a child with a blindfold
on can look down past their nose. Right. She would recognize that our government's
are pretty charged. Yeah. I love there's also this moment where we get this guy like trying, he's going like, well, you know,
the Chinese are studying it and the Russians are studying it and the Japanese are studying
it and the Israelis. And I'm like, is this the argument from we can't allow a psychic gap?
Is that really what we're doing? We're six minutes into this movie before MK Ultra comes.
Yeah, it comes up from a guy called that major Paul H Smith PhD.
Yes.
And they really do just give PhD to anyone.
Don't you?
That's a waste of everyone's.
It must be very easy to get one of those things.
Yeah.
So yeah, and don't worry, we're going to come back to Paul Smith because he's fucking
whole there.
Yes.
But first we were going to meet Tom Campbell.
He's a physicist. And I got to say like, physicist, first real job title in any of these
kairons, right? That's like, that's a real thing. Definitely more qualified than I am.
Like physics is definitely more science. See them biology. Oh, yeah. It's got particles
and neutrons. Yeah. He's also, he's the author of my big toe, the trilogy, which it took me age to
realize is not like an extended ode to his feet, but it's, it's T.O.E. it's theory of
everything.
But they don't, A, they don't make that clear and B, his case isn't helped by having
a giant big toe on the front of his fucking book.
Just to really, he's just trying to hit both markets.
He's trying to get the people who really did want a book all about tools who then buy
it.
And then there you go.
Disappointed, but not some of that.
They get a refund.
Right.
No, they go, like, well, let's see if the second one has more toes in it.
Yeah.
But he explains that he was just a physics student and then he meditated once and I'm like,
oh, that's the gateway drug to woo right there.
There are so many examples of people who've gotten into woo through going to graduate
school and then finding some talk on meditation or mindfulness.
And that's how we talked about this on Skeptics with a K once that John Kabat-Zinn who's
like the father of modern mindfulness.
He got into it by seeing a Buddhist talking while he was at university.
Yeah, this is why we shouldn't let Buddhists talk. I mean, half the time they're doing followers,
but some of them do break that vow and it goes into no good places. Right? Yeah, obviously.
So this is also where we first introduced this dumbass, the physical world is a derivative of
consciousness concept that's going to undergo this entire movie.
It's like, man, at least come up with some original bullshit. And then we meet Dr.
Eben Alexander III.
I have an Alexander, I've got to say it right now. He was episode 53 of Be reasonable.
Oh, wasn't he?
2018. I've interviewed this.
He's like, I had an NDE and I'm like, oh yeah, no, when you're loaded with drugs and your brain is misfiring, that's where the real cerebral magic happens.
Yeah.
Like normal people, when they almost die, they get scared and go religious.
No, what happened?
What happened?
What happened?
Did you even really have a heart attack?
Yeah.
They start saying it's like everybody's competing with the dumbest possible way of explaining
solipsism rather like consciousness is primordial.
I'm like my brain hurts man.
Carolens is consciousness is fundamental.
What?
Yeah, let's stop at the if it isn't it like rocks aren't conscious.
Are you arguing that rocks don't exist because they're not conscious or wouldn't exist
if we didn't exist. That isn't how this works at all. This is ludicrous.
She literally says that the world is not in space or time. It's before space and time.
It's just all complete psychopath. It really is. Yeah. So we powered through a bunch of
that and then we meet Dr. Rudy Shild, Astrophysicist,
which means that this person is going to have a lot to say about how the brain works.
I did have at this point, you know, crazy billionaire money.
This film exactly as it is, but I'm in the room for each interview.
And I would take it.
I would absolutely take it.
Yeah, no.
So what I, I'd finance it, man.
Yeah, no, but he explained this guy's said astrophysicist. So he's going
to tell us about consciousness because you know how like I'm a podcaster and that has
sound in it. So I can play the mandolin. It's like that right because they're both science.
He says anti-quote consciousness can be described by the quantum attribute
10 minutes in.
I would have said the over under it too.
So that was good.
There's ten minutes in before we go quantum.
Yeah.
This is where I wrote that.
This was all about consciousness, but this movie was going to be a challenge to my ability
to stay conscious because this was really beautiful.
Yeah.
He goes, you're a piece of consciousness playing an avatar in a game called the physical
world.
And I'm like, that's literally, that means nothing.
That's absolutely nothing.
But he was talking about like,
avatars and simulations and then called it
like this physical world as if it was like
all in capitals, like it was the second life game,
rather than like, yeah.
And this is where they have the if statement,
you know, if the physical world exists within consciousness,
no, no, we'll just stop there. Yeah, don't need to finish. No need to finish. Cons statement you know if the physical world exists within consciousness No, no, we'll just stop that
No need to finish consciousness exists within the physical world. You've got it the wrong way around
This is emerging from the meat. That's all and I love to because they have this like group of people that are just in front of this
Gray background that all chime in here. We don't know none of these people get a chiro
We don't know this is just you know, I don't know that the top 10
Go fund me donors or whatever
they're trying to. But they're all saying different shit because she's asking about the
simulation. I bought the system. Some of them are like, yeah, yeah, no, that totally fits
with my bullshit. And then other ones are going like, no, my whole thing is you create your
reality. So that doesn't actually work for me. Then so. Yeah. There's one smoke guy who's
like simulation, all the matrix. I wondered about it like maybe you heard of it kind of a deal.
He's a whole thing.
And then we get a shockingly insubstantial Tesla quote.
Here's the quote.
Well, and I think Tesla says I couldn't find anything that debunks him.
Who fucking cares with this quote?
It says life is an equation incapable of solution, but it contains certain known factors.
Yeah, this is okay.
Fucking boring.
It's basically saying we don't know all the things, but we do know some of the things.
All this, all this, all this, all this Nikola Tesla court tells me is that there wasn't
a better Nikola Tesla court.
That's all we have.
Oh, God.
Then this guy comes into explain to us that everything
is waves of consciousness, but matter waves around and consciousness waves are spiral. I don't
fucking know. It's just starts talking about like spinning and rotations. And I genuinely just
tuned out and stopped listening entirely. Yeah. Well, the thing is, is that none of her talking heads can get more than 30 seconds
in before they're just blabbering meaningless science words, right?
So it's a tough one to stay in.
Yeah, all I was thinking was about the consciousness waves that go in a spiral pattern.
I was just wondering what, I think in Australia, they go in a spiral pattern in the opposite direction.
Well, luckily there's a visual cue for this too, when he says, when she says, consciousness
ways, we see a young white lady meditating so that you understand what we're talking about.
Yeah.
Which is the main role of women of the Caroline in this stage.
They're really there to share a lot of their thoughts.
Don't really are not many women in this program.
No, there's also a point as well where they say starting with the global spin of the
universe. in this program. No, there's also a point as well where they say, starting with the global spin of the universe,
okay, well, that's not global, that is.
If you...
You know?
Yeah, but they try to make a big deal out of this
that like, you know, the universe is spinning
and sometimes particles spin and it's like,
that's just what we call that.
It's not, they're not actually spinning.
It's like, but so it's all connected and I'm like, in that it all can that, it's not, they're not actually spinning. It's like, but, but it's so it's all connected.
And I'm like, in that it all can spin.
Okay.
But also what's the alternative?
It's not remarkable that the movement that we're seeing in the universe is rotational movement.
Because if it was all linear movement, everything would have fucked off by
that.
All the linear stuff's long gone.
We just don't.
All the linear stuff's long gone. We just don't even know.
Yeah.
And she goes like, this is again, one of these just herculean ifs.
She goes, if the world is based on spin and consciousness and the waves can connect
to minds, but just you're done.
We're done now.
But she does say at one point, she's like, how can we prove this?
And we're like, oh, that's actually a very good question.
And she's like, with anecdotes.
And I'm like, oh, not a great answer.
Dammit.
Yeah.
No, how can we demonstrate that in real life?
Well, I'd probably get like an 80s, 90s child start to talk into voice recorder while some
Cockney children peek out from the gap, decide that knows it.
But you do your work, I like.
So, yeah.
So we're going to read me Paul, the guy this side that knows it, but you do your work. So, yeah.
So we're going to remeap all the, the guy who claims that he was once a psychic spy for
the US government, he's spied on the Soviets with his mind.
I just, I kept expecting this guy to go, but that's when I accidentally unleashed the
demigorgan, you know, okay.
All right.
I was just enjoying all the pitches that we saw of him throughout
his life. We're just seeing his lifetime of poor eyewear decisions essentially all the
way through. Right. Like the huge glasses that he's wearing in the last of photos, those
sort of actually made better blindfolds for the kids than the ones they were actually
wearing. I just, there's something about guy with, I don't mean to make a fun of a person
for his, his disability here, but like there's something about guy with, I don't mean to make a fun of a person for his,
his disability here, but like, there's something about a guy with Coke bottle lenses saying
he can do remote viewing that just doesn't sit right with me, right?
It's like, why wouldn't you just use that then instead of the glasses?
And I'm, I'm not mocking him for his polaroid side as well.
I'm mocking him for his poled taste in Iowa.
Right.
He looks like he's in the second Elton John look alike division of
the military. They they were specifically great. That would only fight on Saturday nights, I think.
Right. Yeah. So yeah, but he's like, you know, this remote viewing stuff that I did for the
for the CIA was very powerful. I get so weird that a stage musician once it taught me how to do it then.
It's so weird that they can also do that.
But in case we're still skeptical,
he presents a letter that proves that at one point,
some high ranking official was fooled by this.
Right?
Yeah.
This is a thing I just find so completely battling
about this spy stuff is that they seem to think
it makes them sound more legitimate that they're spying on Russia using psychic powers,
but if you frame it from the position of it not working, it's just so silly that they think
I can think what the Soviets are up to to the point that high level government decision is affected. It's just ridiculous.
And it's amazing because they show a picture of the remote viewing stuff. And it's like,
oh, yeah, they were thinking about whether the missile was going to be. And you can see
he rolled down as his like picture of where the missile was being hidden. Rough curving
building with gray mat matte, concrete exterior.
Yes.
So, yeah, it was a gray building that was like curving and he drove like a little round
kind of ship.
But, yeah, of course, the missile was in a building with a round hall on top.
That's the kind of whole, that's the kind of shape hole that you fly a missile through.
It was like a star shape, like you get on top one of those kids toys that you've got
to push the block through.
You were trying to get a missile
Yeah, no, we already had silo man come on
He's like I'm guessing it was one of them but over there
Well, you can tell from the picture that there's a road nearby so that
There's a down and a mountain in the background some birds are flying
So yeah, so and that, but don't worry, this is going to get so much more delightful
because we're now going to meet actress producer and inspirational speaker Rachel Brooks
Smith, who is going to learn how to remote view herself in this movie.
Yes. And they they introduce her as actress producer and inspirational speaker.
Her listed film credits on IMDB are
Alvin in the chipmunks of the squeak-wool. It's a big bar, the movie, cycle stripper and
help my gum shoes an idiot, but not listed on her Wikipedia page rather, not listed on
the Wikipedia page, this movie. So if it was lower down the CV, then help my gum shoes and idiot.
Yeah, right.
Exactly.
Unless help my gum shoes and idiot is an alternate title for this film.
So, but Rachel's like, I believe so much in all our super human abilities that we have
that are untapped and then she's like, oh, yeah, no, this, this should go be perfect.
So she brings her into the remote viewing to Paul, the remote viewing guy.
And he's going to give her some intense training. Now, if we had gone in and intentionally drawn
the silliest possible shit on his whiteboard for the term intense training, right? We couldn't
have done better than what's actually there. There's a stick figure of a unicorn and there's like fish and clouds that some child drew a few nonsense cripples.
Amazing. All I can assume is he was remote viewing like a four year old in a different
room who was like that's who was channeling for those drawings. I also, it's a really
small moment, but I also love that when Caroline walks in and talks to the remote viewer, he asks her where he saw her last. So you couldn't
have got that on yourself, mate. I enjoyed Rachel and Caroline sitting on the sofa next
feature that wearing exactly the same outfit. They both had long sleeve like blue-ish coloured
tops with black leggings, black boots,
long curl-tailed.
I'm sure one of them had to remote view the other to get like the exact same look as I
kind of do.
There you go.
I thought that old Rachel was like in preparation for playing Caroline in the home of your
group.
So yes, so now they're going to try a little remote viewing.
Now that she's been, you
know, that she's been trained with all those squiggles and horse stick figures.
She's going to try out some remote viewing for herself.
So Carolyn is going to go somewhere and she's going to remote view it.
And it's just everything about this is so fucking delightful, starting with what it, the
very beginning of your, so just, Rachel just describe what you're experiencing.
And she goes, okay. And then describe what you're experiencing and she goes,
okay, and then she says nothing for so long they have to cut. And we see, like Caroline go off
to the location where it's going to be reviewed. And I wrote, I'm pretty sure Rachel's going to draw
out to Skype a circle because everything in the location they choose is a fucking circle. Everything. Everything. Right. It was so weird. Like circles everywhere. Yeah. I've
never seen anywhere with so many circles. Yeah. Yeah. No. Clearly they're trying to get a
place that's going to like, like where everything's going to match. So we have this bit where we're
interspersing the shots of Carolyn at this location with the shots of Rachel making incredibly
vague statements about those places that are mostly wrong.
Yeah, that we just have to like accept their pinkie swear that this was happening at the
same time, because if it wasn't, it's also completely meaningless.
Like, if Rachel was saying stuff when Caroline was at a different bit and they've edited
it together, this whole thing falls apart, which is what definitely happened. That's clearly what's happened here. Right, but what's so amazing is how
bad they still do. She goes at one point, she's like, well, you know, I see laughter, which
isn't a thing that you see, but, but, but she's got America around, right? Carolyn's in
America, but it's an empty Mara run. There's nobody there. There is no laughter. They pipe
in the sound of laughter and post,
but they, unless it's Carolyn cackling to herself outside of a fucking Mary go round,
where would that come from? She says, I see black lines. And I'm like, Oh, wow, a location
with black lines. What are the, but only she goes, I see something red. She's holding
something that's dense.
Well, if she's holding it, it has to be a certain amount of dense.
I love this part so much because she said that she's holding something black.
And they pull after, how does it feel?
Does it have a texture?
And starts asking these really leading questions to describe this thing.
And then she says, oh, it's smooth, but rough.
Like the really precise description of a thing
that is both smooth and rough.
Yes, yes, just give us the entire spectrum
of tactile sensations.
Why touch?
Somewhere between smooth and rough.
Oh, well, that's pretty accurate.
He goes back away and she says, I see mountains. And I'm like, well, you's pretty accurate. He goes, he goes back away. And she says, I see mountains.
And I'm like, well, you know, she's in the fucking mountain. She's only been gone for half
for now. Yes. Exactly. Like the left of the stage. Like they put a straight on like a jet engine
to fly her to another country. That's amazing. We also, like, this is just the stuff that they show us.
But we actually see a clip at one point where we can see her notes, and I paused it,
and she also wrote flowers, pink, levels in structure,
and textured, but we don't get to see her saying those things,
because flowers and pink and stuff didn't land,
and so we just ignored them.
This is just picking out the bits that hit.
This is cherry picking.
She wrote genuinely pages and pages and pages.
Right, yeah, there's only four pages of stuff
that we see in like a third of a page of stuff
that we hear.
Yes.
Yeah.
And how much of what she said that we actually see in the movie here, how much of that
applies to the environment immediately outside of your house?
Because I was thinking about this, and I could make almost everything fit to the streets in
a sort of a blocker or a several blocks of from where I live.
Because it's just so generic.
Sure.
Well, the one thing that couldn't fit was where she says,
she's getting something hot, a drink, or a liquid,
and she says Starbucks, and Paul says,
so you wrote it down, you can let it go.
It's like, okay, so he thinks she's wrong.
He knows where Caroline is,
and he's asking these questions.
Right, he knows.
And Starbucks is wrong.
Yeah.
Well, and the one big hit, this is so fucking funny because it went where she goes, there's
noise and I'm like, oh, well, yeah, wow, there's noise and environment.
She's what are the odds of that.
And by the way, she's wrong.
It would have been like, you could not have found a more silent environment to be in.
And then she says, there's Christmas lights, which seems like maybe that would be really
like a good, like a hit, except it's clearly Christmas time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Christmas lights are in the big Christmas tree.
And I'm like, well, that's, give me a fucking brief.
I said right now you're somewhere with Christmas lights.
That would narrow it down to America or Europe, right?
I mean, yes. She might as well have written in her remote viewing.
I'm seeing that the weather outside is frightful.
So, but then the after she's done all of this, they drive to the place that she was remote
viewing so they can all like try to fit the shit she said into the environment.
Right.
Like she walks up to this big guitar sculpture.
And she's like, oh, I said noise.
This must have been what I was seeing.
It's representative of a thing that makes noise.
It's a statue.
It's a silent statue.
Yeah, because it's like a tall, that's for noise.
That counts.
She's like, and I said I saw red and many of these buildings are made of bricks.
And bricks.
One of like the six materials used in
my house.
And then there was the bit where Caroline got sat down to block her as well.
So they get to the bit where it's like, and then I found it really hard to see where you were.
So that must have been when I was blocking you. That's because the blocking you were doing.
Why would you block her while you're doing so? How would you block her? How would he
because he said, like, could you try and block her now? How do you try and block someone reading?
Yeah, if you're looking. But Paul knew that she was going to do that because he in the video recording,
he said, right right and like okay
So you're done now right end and then they take that as proof that that was when she started blocking her was when she wrote and
Yeah, let's just go ahead and hack that P. Well, we're at it
Yeah, and then she goes she goes look I even drew bars and they show what she drew and it's so obviously like the facade of a shed
Or something like that's not bars.
She says, I said gray and black bars.
I'm, no, the fuck you didn't.
You said black, she said you said black dense object.
Jesus fucking Christ is a sped.
They did, however, confirm that she did go to Starbucks.
But this is when Paul confirms he did know the location because he says when she
said Starbucks, I thought, Oh, crud, did they stop at a Starbucks? I told them not to take
side trips. So he definitely knew the location and let her the whole way through.
Absolutely. Yes. It isn't even pretending to be science.
No, that is a bad way of doing science. It absolutely is. Yeah. Yeah. If any study should be double blind, it's really
hard to double blind or remote viewing experiment. That's it. Is he so good at remote viewing?
He couldn't help but know where they were. Yeah. It just reminds me of something. There was
a UriGello one slide for a long time about him being a remote view for the
Israeli military service. And there was a documentary on him on television about him
being a remote viewer. And I was watching it with my wife, Nicola, and they showed his
house and how it's got to be all like covered in security because of how high level his
work was. And Nicola said, he's got a lot of CCTV cameras from Manu made his living remote viewing. And then of course the physicist guy comes in to babble his conclusion in science
words. He says entanglements. So there's more quantum bullshit for you. So I guess the
people who are playing drink every time they say quantum probably need their stomachs pumped
at this point. That means we need to take a quick break,
but we'll be back in a minute with even more superhuman.
Broccoli?
Those are trees, Alice.
Why would I eat a tree?
I see.
Hey guys, what are you doing?
We're just working on some diet ideas for Noah.
Yeah, she's trying to make me eat trees, Marsh.
Trees.
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All right, Marsh, I'm in.
As long as they don't try to maybe eat trees or grass.
Grass?
He means lettuce.
It's flat grass, Marsh. You guys should know this. I'll assure a doctor. Got it it's flat grass, Marsh.
You guys should know this more.
Alice, you're a doctor.
Got it, right?
Yeah, okay.
Hey folks, just wanted to cut in with a huge thanks to everybody that chipped in to make
vulgarity for charity such a huge success again this year.
We had a matching donation up to $150,000 this year and our goal was to squeeze every penny
out of that and we did.
It came down to the wire but we ended up blowing past it on the final day for a grand total
of $330,609 and $30,000, apparently.
This is our fifth year doing Voguearity for charity with Tom and Cecil and in that time we've raised 1,584,339 for families on the brink of poverty.
We've helped hundreds of families, thousands of people at this point and along the way we've reminded the naysayers that atheists have hearts too.
And when I say we of course I'm including you, this is a community achievement and we should all be proud of it even if you didn't donate this year just by helping us build a community you are playing a part so again thanks be
sure to listen for plenty more roast to come on cognitive dissonance and the skating
atheist and remember that even though the fundraiser is over it's never too late to donate
at modestneeds.org
and we're back for more of this shit and apparently we're doing chapters now right because
the title screen comes up and it says chapter two, a physical body with non-physical
abilities.
I'm like, we never got a, was there a chapter one ahead?
That I missed.
Also, a physical body with non-physical abilities.
That's just someone thinking, isn't it?
Like a new physical abilities thought.
And I appreciate that to this movie thought is a novel concept, but they shouldn't have
out themselves as openly as that. So yes, so we're going to check in with the Institute of Noetic Sciences now. This
dude's going to demonstrate the effect of intuitive abilities. And I wrote my notes. I'm
like, like the way that I can tell this test is going to be bullshit or some other kind
of intuitive ability. But it's got a data visualization going on. So Alice, you know this is prophesied.
This is the stuff that you do. This is as valid as your research.
This is nothing like the stuff I do. I can probably see that.
So what they're going to do, they're going to measure some dude's pupil dilation
to see if it can predict the type of picture that is coming up
on their role of pictures.
Yeah, this is the Darrell Bam intention experiment.
This was like a very famous experiment that Bam argued that people reacted to a shocking
image before they saw the image and that there was something that was sending a signal to
them in advance that it was coming.
And he argued that this was something that proved psi was real. Now, obviously other people
have tried to replicate it, and it hasn't proven to be replicable, which just means that
whatever Ben was doing was messing it up somehow. That's what he's doing here. But it's quite
a famous experiment. It's just also bullshit.
Right.
But they're using like the track measuring pupil's eyes from a laptop on a desk quite a long way
of way from the eyes. That's not how you measure people's eyes. People's eyes, you have to be like
up close to the people. But you don't change that much. Yeah.
And it's also important to bear in mind that the people in the person in this experiment is being
heavily told up front that a shocking
image is coming, right? Because he's like very primed for it, which also fucks up the
experiment, right? Because like, what you want to do is to have people out of nowhere taken
aback rather than, oh, is it the next one? No, it could be the next one. The next one could
be the one. Like, obviously, people are going to start anticipating it after a while.
This is just completely ruining the experiment.
Well, and also the clips are of the same length of time. So he knows that, okay, four seconds,
it's about to change. Oh, I sure hope it's not shocking. Yeah, such a dumb thing. Yeah.
But he shows us the lines afterwards. He's like, look at these lines. It totally worked.
And we're like, Oh, okay. And then so based on that, the narrator asks, this is one of the weirdest questions she
manages.
She basically says, does our cupillary psychic ability to predict pictures give us the
ability to alter our DNA?
The fuck out of transition is that?
DNA, unless we're getting towards biology.
Yeah, no, this is biological, right?
This is where we meet Dr. Glenn Rein.
He is a professional dropper of liquids into brown jars.
I do enjoy seeing some actual perpats.
It does feel like actual science.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, it does.
And it's actual science.
This guy is at Harvard and Stanford, although
if you look him up, he also published on the effects of the mega-cheap pendant on blocking
cell phone radiation from harming the body. So they really do just give anybody a PhD this.
So yeah, so he's going to talk to us about our ability to change our body's pH.
And I'm not convinced that Caroline
Corey knows that there isn't a relationship between pH and PhD. I think she thinks those
two are the same. I can make myself smarter. So yeah, so we're going to watch as she psychically
changes the pH balance of water, right? So he puts this little water, he's got this,
I guess pH measurement device, I don't fucking know.
It's a pH meter.
I have used pH meters a lot in my lab experience.
And here, she asks the question,
can you explain how this instrument works?
And in my experience, they fucking don't.
That's not true.
They do work, but they require really delicate calibration, recalibration maintenance.
It's a really sensitive instrument that requires care and maintenance and being used properly
by people who know how to use them because they can be really temperamental.
What I really love Alice is I'd written in my notes that she holds her hands on the sides
of the glass of water, which slightly warms it up and warming up liquids can change its pH levels.
And you've written like an A line takedown of my point,
but you are debunking my ass in the middle of that.
We've got to get the science right, Marge, because they're not going to.
Yeah, he said somebody asked to.
But yeah, she's like, I was gonna focus on lowering the pH
and she puts her hands near the water
and we see that the pH lowers.
I'm like, okay, now focus on raising the pH.
No, we're done.
Are we really done now?
How about focusing on lowering it more?
Oh, can't do that either.
Weird.
Just gonna move on to the next experiment,
which is apparently he's going to measure her ability to psychically change the conductivity
of DNA. Yeah, this very much confused me as to what was going on here. And especially
since we see, we see him like do a test with her and then says, like, Oh, yeah, we'll call that, we'll call that control one.
We'll just call that control one.
I don't know what they're measuring.
I don't know how they're measuring it really.
I don't know what this machine does.
They just kind of, also, we don't even know
that it's a sample of DNA.
Like we know that it's an open dish of solution
with the words DNA written on the side.
Yes.
We definitely know it's DNA because he's put a piece
of tape, masking tape over it and we've written DNA the site. Yes, we definitely know it's DNA because it's he's put a piece of tape masking tape over it.
Yes, DNA on it.
Yeah, Marsh, is that how you would deal with DNA samples in your rubber search office?
I mean, to be fair, most of my labels would be handwritten in labs. So I can't really criticize them for handwriting their labels in on tape, but I'd write something more specific than DNA.
Just, you'd probably close the lid of the container of the very sensitive DNA as well,
let it become like polluted by anything else, including your hands, which are really closed by it.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, right. So they've got this, like, it's like a Coke bottle lid.
Yeah, it is.
It's good.
It's got DNA written on it.
And she's going to wave her hands over
top of it. And some lines are going to change on a graph. He never tells us what these lines are,
what we're fucking measuring here. I mean, he says we're measuring conductivity, but what
though, what, what specifically are these measurements? We don't fucking know, right? And he does,
they do three tests as like the baseline control with him sat next to her.
And then he's like, okay, now we'll do a real test and he gets up and leaves.
I feel like you should be in the same setup given how close you are together to make this
like as legitimate as possible.
You don't like leave and change or change like many of the parameters of the area.
Well, right, and she puts her hands right next to it in the after the control.
Like, well, then your hands should have been next to it during the control, right?
Yeah.
Like you could have put your hands there and not focused on changing the conductivity
of the DNA, maybe, but your hands should have still been there.
Yeah.
But from this, he concludes that we can heal ourselves without drugs.
And he even says, quote, and that's considered legitimate science. Legitimate science, Alice, I know as you never introduced your field as big,
legitimate science.
It's never like, hi, I'm Dr. Alice Howis.
I've got a PhD in legitimate science.
I'm changing the molecular level, but you're also changing the quantum
level. And I'm like, this guy shouldn't be allowed to have beakers. Man, that can't end well.
What are the odds? That's going to end well. And we see, we see another stock clip at this point.
And it, because he's talking about her intent and a consciousness, when we see this, like,
stock picture, it makes it look like her intent and consciousness is levitating a 1990s Christina
Aguilera look alike, which is what we're seeing at this point.
And I thought at least when it comes to, if you like, submit stuff to a stock image library,
could you at least specify no bullshit in the license? Is that everything you're allowed
to do?
Oh, that'd be nice.
Yeah.
So, yeah, but he concludes that because you can change the conductivity of DNA with your
brain, you also don't need medicine, that's all a scam. So yeah, but but he concludes that because you can change the conductivity of DNA with your brain
You also don't need medicine. That's all a scam. Jesus. There's so many leaps here
He goes from like
Changing the conductivity of DNA with your mind and then just out of nowhere
I was like, oh yeah, and changing the DNA conductivity make sure DNA heal faster. What? We've completely know like just out of nowhere
The lack of transitional steps in this movie is staggering, yeah.
Yeah.
So, and now it's time to talk about ourselves.
Now, this is the part where they just roped in some poor actual scientist.
I think, right?
I'm not going to vouch for this guy's legitimacy, but nothing he actually says in this documentary
is, woo, we, they just, you know, prop up woo
next to everything he says.
Yeah, as far as I can tell, he's just a real scientist who researches a fairly new area
of cell biology looking at vibrations of cells using a particular type of microscope.
And he does not seem to realize that he is just being used to support woo here.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah. Come out in defense of the cell biologist, Alice. You Yeah, oh yeah, you know, come out in defense
the cell biologist, Alice.
You know, you guys have to stick together.
What a coincidence that you're not going to criticize
the cell biologist.
Yeah, this is Dr. Jim Zuski.
He is a biochem professor at UCLA.
And he explains that his research involved
listening to yeast cells buzzing? Apparently.
Is this why he says something about during 9-11?
Yes.
Uh-huh.
Right, I can't believe what it was, but I remember thinking it was very weird to drop 9-11 in there.
Like, he was looking at something and then 9-11 happened.
And so he started looking at yeast and says,
that mate, you can just study yeast.
You don't justify it via an atrocity.
Just, yeast is interesting, it's funny.
Yeah, and he says, but what we found was
that the yeast cells were making different sounds
when they were sick, and we hear these sounds,
and it comes up on the screen and says,
actual sound of cells.
And I'm like, no, because I made a cell,
I would have noticed that sound.
And I'm like,
Alice, you've had real cells before.
Is that what cells sound like you do have to tell us?
To be fair, I used to talk to myself all the time because when you're in the lab
at three in the morning, you go kind of bonkers.
Talk to myself, but they never talked back.
So I never, I never heard what cells sound like.
They didn't sing. There wasn't like a five-part harmony going on with a family different
cancer cells.
So yeah, and then we also went out like that plan. It's to make the same sounds as cells
when we run them to the exact same types of filters or whatever, which is I guess supposed
to be some as above so below type justification.
No idea.
They don't explain like any of their justifications for anything.
They just leave them there for you to fill in your own gaps, which I guess works.
If you want the Wu people watching your video to go, okay, that does make sense because
they will fill in their own gaps.
Clearly, and it's so great.
This poor guy because Caroline just keeps asking him,
just mad stuff at one point, she's just asking
this completely crazy question.
And he's like, I mean, yeah, we can influence ourselves
and others if that's what you're trying to.
That's as far as he was willing to.
Yes, we can influence ourselves and others.
That's as far as he was willing to commit.
Way to go, Dr. Jim.
Yeah, and because apparently he was just too damn credible, we then switched to Randy Masters,
whose chiron identifies him as harmonic mathematician.
Yeah, he doesn't have a PhD.
Also, his name is not a description of an MSC in calls in fucking.
That is not what Randy Masters is.
So yeah, so he says our and I quote our resonance can cause consciousness effects in others. What the fuck does that mean?
Like if I vibrate really close to you, I can wake you up.
I guess.
I don't know.
I don't know.
And then all of a sudden, fucking Michael Dorn appears.
Yes, that Michael Dorn fucking wharf shows up to go, I don't know.
I think if you think positive things, that's great.
It's so weird that Walf is in here.
Like I'd written down why the hell is Walf in here.
Spoiler later, he will literally ask the same question.
I don't know what I'm doing here.
Yeah.
Neither do we.
And so and then he's followed by actor Robert Piccardo who like was one of those like,
where do I know him from guys for me?
Yeah.
This was the the doctor in Star Trek.
Voliad you are think was me.
Okay.
All right.
Yeah.
Little too deep in the trek, Elor, for me.
And so, okay.
And then we're ready for chapter three, thoughts made visible.
No, we will not see any thoughts in this chapter spoiler, I guess.
Well, that is a CGI woman doing yoga who has fireworks coming out of her head.
I don't know if I'm gonna say that.
Oh, let's go.
Okay.
I stand corrected.
So yeah, she says at the beginning of this, she says, we know that our intent, our thoughts,
our emotions affect how we feel.
They are.
They are.
I'm going to pretend to do that.
Yes.
I'm telling you.
She's like, you know, saying things affects the body. And I'm like, well, yeah, right.
Well, when I say, I bet I could jump that high and I end up needing a tetanus shot by
the end of the night. That's an example of that happening, I guess. But this is where
we're going to learn about voice frequency imprints from one done estus. Right. Is this
where they say some people analyze your vocal imprints to find toxins and pathogens
in your blood, but then they immediately move on and just find and just go on to a different
thing entirely about a guy who's looking for visual patterns in your voice. Like you don't get
to like smuggler crazy thing in by immediately shifting to a different thing. You can't
like, we can use this as magic, but anyway, we're not going to talk about the magic.
We've got too much on examine that in any kind of way.
Well, this is where we jump to a woman who starts to like just out of nowhere. Don't
necessarily has appeared talking about pathogens and diagnosing illnesses. And then this woman
appears talking about how she wants to have a career and have children and Caroline's response to her is, I'm going to introduce you to my friend and we'll see what happens.
She's totally done.
She seems deeply inappropriate.
Right.
Yeah, but don't worry, he's not going to impregnator on camera instead.
He's going to read her voice frequency patterns.
She is Karina, a professional dancer and choreographer.
And so he comes and he hooks up to this machine and he's like, so tell us about, you know,
something stressful.
And she talks about her job and her desire to have a kid and still maintain her job as
a dancer.
And he's like, okay, so this, this machine
is, is measuring your stress. It is, again, this is an exact fucking quote, unintention
manifestation machine. It's what it, what it is.
Yeah. It makes kaleidoscope pitches that make your dreams come true. That is what this
actually is. Yeah. Right. And it's digital tea leaves, right? So as she's talking, he's looking at this
just massive random colored pixels going, you can see in this line right here, the sadness.
And we're like, no, you fucking can't, man. I really wanted us. She's talking and all the
pictures are on screen as she's talking. I just wanted it to all turn black like jet black
Maybe like a visible skull button like a skull and crossbones
I don't know what to tell you Karina
How do I how do I put this?
All right, and in case we're a non-invent like she talks about something that makes her happy and the random
Pictures suddenly have circles in them
Hello, so that's pretty legit.
It otherwise looks completely identical just the circles.
Yes, the pair.
Yeah, that's the only difference.
And then he's like, so say the word yellow.
And she's like, okay, yellow and all the circles turn yellow.
And I'm like, you programmed this thing.
Did you just program it to turn yellow when people said yellow?
Cause fucking Alexa does that, you know, but in case we doubt it, he proves that it also works with
burgundy. I don't trust that he hasn't just got a turn yellow button and a turn burgundy
button because he picked those numbers, those colors out, I think. Yeah. No, you're right.
He did. He absolutely did. Well, what I love is look, if this was a real thing, then
what you do is you would isolate the two of them, right?
He would look at the colors while she talked about the thing and then he would tell us whether she was talking about
Happy or sad or yellow or burgundy things
Afterwards, right, but no, he's just pointing at the circles going, yeah, no, you can see the circles. That means happiness. Oh, okay
We're that you didn't mention that before the circles show it up
Okay, where that you didn't mention that before the circle showed up.
But in response to this, though, of course,
Karina offers up that profoundly privileged,
we don't manifest what you want in life, take that successful people often use to prove that to themselves that it wasn't just luck.
Yeah.
Anyway, she did, she did.
I googled her. So this film aired in 2020. And she went on to
have a child in April 2020. So I think it works. Like how is an image of voice pixels like 100
cent row? Oh, don't ask us. It's wonderful. You can't do it. It's all just yellow and burgundy pixels. Hey, wait a minute.
But yes, and this Don, he, he shares his closing thoughts. I thought his yammering was the least to say for all of all the yammering. I think he gets
surprised for that. I was just confused because he put like a stuffed
shark on her vagina while we heard him talking about this. And that's all like
a, all a good spot. Is that she was lying in a back with the stuff shark on her vagina while we heard him talking about this. And that's all like a, all a good spot. Is that she was lying in a bag with a stuff shark on her vagina while pressing
a palms down on two sponges. But it worked.
Um, she went on to have a cage.
No, that's true. So they Caroline pipes in for some more ex, like just insane extrapolation,
where she's like, you know,
the placebo effect and the double slit experiment proved that we can think things into reality.
I'm like, that's not what I, through of those things prove.
I was really worried that we're going to go on a big placebo, John, because if so, you've
got the wrong two members of skeptics with a K on this show for the, oh yeah, right.
And then I would not be able to do the jujus.
Can somebody tag in my, but they tried to do that. Instead, they
did the double slit experiment, which I think is one of the things you've got to perform
a double slit experiment as part of your Randy masters. I think that's the end exam of
the Randy masters.
So yeah, so, but yeah, she explains the double-slit experiment in a way that proves that she
doesn't know what it is or why it's meaningful, right?
And she's like, but it's very empowering to believe this.
And I'm like, that you have superpowers.
Yeah, I bet it is.
So our next, our next talking head, this is Colin Harrington.
He is, according to his Kyron, a sound engineer
and inventor who claims that he can see his dreams in sound waves or some shit.
Yeah, and I look this guy up and as best I can tell, he doesn't actually think, oh,
don't pretend he's doing signs in any way. He just thinks he's making pretty pitches
and pretty patterns from people's brain waves, which fine, I guess.
Sure.
I mean, if you want to do that, it's like an alt thing, that's fine.
Yeah, but she has to team him up, I guess, with another like delist celebrity, she knows.
This is Naomi Grossman, who is quote, the most creative actor I know.
And she's going to, they're going to take her to Colin for some kind of bullshit brain
training that is so ill-defined
in the movie that I can't even tell what they were trying to do, right?
Yeah, they've literally just like put an EEG on her and the EEG is linked up to something
that Colin has created that makes it show the brainwaves in a different way to the way
an EEG would normally show brainwaves. And then they just have her think different things to show that you can change your own
brainwaves by being more or less active.
Yes.
Which is how EEGs work.
Right.
How does that work?
What?
Right in the middle of all of this, Carol just is out of the blue.
Wow, this is insanely accurate.
Accurate to what?
Yes, it is what possible way. She to what? Yes, it was possible way.
She done a picture upon that screen.
What are you talking about?
Oh, God.
And then they do do the picture.
They show her a picture and say, OK, think really hard about this picture.
And then it's that.
And you said, OK, I'm going to take the picture away.
Now, think about the picture again.
And it comes back up.
I said, yeah, because you've just trained her.
You've trained the machine to recognize what her EEG looks like when it's on this picture.
But this machine isn't bringing up that picture out of all possible pictures when she thinks about it.
No.
It's just binary that picture or nothing, like not that picture. That's the only thing you're doing here.
It's just a binary thing, image or not image.
Yes.
All right, well, now that we know that we can manipulate our brainwaves using nothing, but our brains, I imagine most of us need a minute to rethink our world. So we're going to take
another quick break. But first, let me give Act 3, the hard sell. Can Carolyn turn invisible,
but only when you're not looking? Can she fly, but only when she wants to and she doesn't want to
right now? Can she phase through solid walls, provided there's a door right there and it's open?
By now, the answers to these questions and more when we return for the hilariously unimpressive conclusion of
superhuman. Hey Dr. Alice, thank you so much for agreeing to be in our documentary.
Sure, I'm always happy to lend a skeptical voice.
And we're always happy to add any person with letters after their name.
Uh-huh.
Hey, what's the name of your documentary?
The guy on the phone didn't say.
Oh, the name, for skeptical people, is science, the totally real science of reality.
Weird name.
It's a working title.
Sure, I just have to be careful that my likeness and reputation
won't be used to legitimize pseudoscience or anything like that. Yeah, totally. Me too.
I wouldn't want that either. So are you ready to get started? Sure, let's go. Okay. So
the camera's going to you just look right at me here. Okay So, what can you tell us about psychokinesis?
That it doesn't exist?
Oh, sure, but it could exist.
No, it would definitely violate the laws of physics.
Right, but,
Heter point, quantum.
I'm sorry, what does quantum have to do with psychokinesis?
Well, you know, like entanglement, the slits and stuff.
I'm not sure I actually want to participate in this interview anymore.
Oh, no, we can talk about something else. We don't have to talk about that.
Like, for instance, can you read the words on that cue card?
No, no, it's a demonstrably untrue claim.
Okay, what about this one here?
That one is too incoherent to even rise to the level of untrue.
So that would be a...
No.
Okay, would you agree that puppies are awesome?
Puppies are awesome.
Okay, but could you agree with that just by saying yes, I agree with the thing you just said?
Nope.
Okay.
We'll never mind then, I guess.
I mean, I can say fuck you into the camera if you'd like.
No, no, we got plenty of shots of real scientists doing that. And we're back for still more of this shit.
We're going to rejoin the action with Caroline explaining the implications of that last
very impressive experiment that we just saw, where she says, like, if that guy could turn
sound into pictures, that's just like so, and I'm like, no, not at all like that.
And she's like, plus trees emit frequencies to warn each other about shit. I'm like, what does that have
to do with the other? And then she says, and I quote, if plants can communicate through
invisible frequencies, can humans do the same? Yeah. Yeah. She said that while invisibly
vibrating the air with her vocal cords, so that we could hear it.
Yeah. Yes.
Yelling watch out Ted.
That would be communicating through this frequency, lady.
But this is all an introduction of that X FBI agent Ben Hansen, the EVP guy from earlier.
And this is also where we meet Corey Feldman.
And this is also where we meet Corey Feldman. Oh, Corey Feldman.
She just said Corey Feldman needs no introduction though looking at him.
He may need an introduction to a stylist.
That was a weird choice.
His outfit is incredible.
He has got like pink trousers, this like shiny silver shirts, pink tie and a pink trillbee with like black floral lace laid over
the top.
It is such a weird look.
Is that what that was?
I thought it was like an art deco lampshade that he just like grabbed and gone with.
Yeah, no, that outfit screams, I sure hope somebody notices me.
And this is by the way where I formulated the first law of Corey Feldman, where by every
time you see Corey Feldman, it will be in a manner that is sadder and more pathetic
than the last time you saw him.
Right.
That that that went into effect about I'm gonna say stand by me or so.
Yeah.
You know, like fucking lost voice was great, but it was slightly slatter and slightly more
pathetic than the last one.
It just it's been going like that my entire adult life.
But who is credit though?
He is not paying anything in this stupid fucking
whole thing.
Yeah, it's so good.
They bring him in for the EP thing and he immediately calls bullshit.
It's so good.
Yeah, I don't think that's correct.
And what the fuck was Ben trying to demonstrate
with the blue and the red tape recorders?
I don't know, I do not know.
Cause he like, he takes the batteries out of one tape recorder
with them plugs like a speaker into it
and a microphone like into into the other one.
And then he proves that you can get them to talk to each other
if you have a microphone pointing at a speaker.
I did it right.
He said he's like, you know, but all this has in it is a coil
and a magnet and I'm like, that's it.
You're talking about a dynamic microphone.
Yeah, right.
That's how that fucking thing works.
He's just like, wow, you can transmit Mitt's sound
from a speaker to a microphone using nothing
but a speaker to a microphone using nothing but a speaker
Yeah, it's it's amazing. And then when they do this demonstration and proves that you can actually
get you know say something at the first dictaphone and then you can transfer it at the second one
fine. You says you see and all this happened without using radio waves. It's like no, but
it was using like a electromagnetic frequencies of which radio waves are a subset.
It's a posting that your omelette is magical because you didn't specifically use chicken eggs.
Therefore, this is a magical powder. I make omelette without chicken eggs.
Yeah, it's so fucking bizarre that like literally I watched it twice trying to figure out,
is there something more impressive that I'm missing or is he really just recording fucking microphone A with microphone B and he is that's literally all he's
doing.
And at the end of it, he goes, see, we just proved that sound waves can be transferred
without physical contact.
What did you think before?
This whole section, they're just describing how things work. Like, we already know this is no or special or impressive.
It's just science.
Yes.
He says it this transfer, you know, he said, obviously, you know, this is energy
based. Well, obviously it's energy based.
You've built a device that generates energy that really uses energy to transmit sound and it used energy to transmit sound. You put batteries in it. We saw you
put batteries. You can start thinking about, yeah. So, yeah, no, but we've proved that sound waves
can transmit through the open air. That's pretty magical, but don't worry, he's not done yet.
He also has a thermal imaging camera that can prove that you could transfer your
heat energy into the seat that you're sitting on.
Yes.
And just before he introduces that, he leaves that, that previous demonstration by
saying he can also just think about people and they'll call him.
And I wrote, well, why wasn't that your demonstration?
That is true.
they'll call him. And I wrote, well, why wasn't that your demonstration? But instead your demonstrating microphones and warm asses on a cushion. Yeah.
So, yeah, this was, I was about to say this was my favorite demonstration, but then I remember
the tinfoil is still coming. So yeah, he brings him to this room. He goes, as we know from
the law of thermodynamics. And I'm like, yes, that famous single law
there.
And then he tries to, he tries to say the first law of thermodynamics, but he screws it
up so bad.
He's like, as we know from the law of thermodynamics, energy can change another shit.
But we're, we're looking through this thermal imaging camera.
We're looking at Corey and Carolyn
sitting down in these chairs and he's like, now get up and look, the heat signature
from before is still in the chair.
Yeah. Also, it is slightly awkward how when they stand up, both their crutches are just
glowing with it.
Does this let your own cool, cool face?
Well, that's actually, that's not a thermal imaging thing.
Cory's penis does that all the time, actually.
And they also point out that his hat is really cold.
And then they talk about how we need to transmit positive energy and a, yeah, we need to transmit
positive crotch energy into the world, not negative hat energy.
That is the message that we're going to put in for this.
Well, Cory goes, yeah, no, it really goes to show how our energy can affect everything
around us. And I'm like, well, if you mean in terms of temperature, then sure, yes,
you're going to warm up and cool down your environment with it. And he, this is, he ends
this experiment as well by saying about how, you know, I'm going to believe that everything
is fine and it'll all work itself out. And I wrote, yeah, that was a strategy that was
successful for exactly 50%
of child actors named Corey.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
Wap.
Ah, mess.
Ha, ha, ha.
But yes, but this movie goes straight
from chair stay warm when you fart into them
to karma exists.
Again, no intermediate steps.
They're like, you see the energy stays in the chair even when you leave.
And I'm thinking like, right, that's why my cat always steals my seat.
I get it.
And he's like, which means that if you put positive energy into the world,
you'll get positive energy back.
And I'm like, how?
Yeah.
Take me there, man.
You've had a whole move.
You got a whole movie.
You're in charge of the script.
Take me there, man, you've had a whole movie, you got a whole movie, you're in charge of the script. Take me there. Yeah, every one of that arguments just transfers from one point
to another without any physical contact between any of the points of logic and the dog.
It's amazing how it works. So, well, also, there's another great quarry moment right
with it guys. Like, you know, and we capture these EVPs. No, I don't know if those are ghosts or aliens and Corey's like, do not ghost. That's not a thing. But yeah, but there's a moment here
where Corey Feldman explains the spiritual realm to me. That was the low point of my
life. Then he starts to explain atheism like, stay in your fucking lane, bro, I got this.
Okay. But then we get the gray background
people again, they all come in to say contradictory shit. Yeah, including once we leave our meat
puppet behind, we can go back to our actual true existence, which I think is my favorite
life for the whole thing. I was like, everybody says this, every woo person says this, but
I have to point it out yet again. Somebody goes, you know, you can tell
that something's going on bigger than ourselves.
What is that?
Like rhinos, for example, are bigger than,
what does that even fucking mean?
Jesus Christ.
And then we get a second stupid Tesla quote.
This one again, I didn't bother to check
to see if you really said it.
But the quote is the day science starts to study non physical phenomena, it will make
more progress in one decade than all the previous centuries of its existence. Weird that science
hasn't done that then. Oh, by the way, fun fact, when you Google that quote, you get shit like the institute for
no edict studies.
And I shit you not hug the universe.
But that quote, it pleases into chapter four mind over matter.
I would think that the fucking quote goes after the chapter title, but what the fuck do I
know?
Apparently, right? And I was so excited when I saw mind over the matter. the fucking quote goes after the chat for title, but what the fuck do I know? Apparently.
Uh, and I was so excited when I saw Mindal the Matt says, okay, we're going to get to the good stuff now.
This is going to be the good stuff.
Yes.
And it was.
This is fantastic.
Oh, it absolutely was.
It starts off with a clip of this lady bending a spoon using nothing but her hands.
Yes.
Really obviously on camera.
I don't even know what point they thought they were trying to make by showing that.
So yeah, no, you can, that's the easier way, I guess, than doing it with your mind or
whatever.
But she's wasted.
There's this Institute in Russia that will unlock your telekinesis magic for cash.
I mean, there's a price, right, for that.
Yeah.
And it's a class that you go and you sit around.
What I think is like
an institute that's fucking with people by getting them to have the biggest and weirdest glass shapes
that they can convince them to stare at. Because I'm not all the keeping a very novelty bon
shop in business with these glasses. You just have to sit around these glasses and try to move
things that are happening that are hidden inside the jar. And I wrote that the only thing that I want more to attend a class like this is to make Alice come with me.
This means I have to watch Alice attend a class like this.
This is me worth going to Russia for, huh?
Yeah, they've got all these guys and they're making, they've got these tiny paper swirls
that are inside of glass enclosures. And they're like, they start spinning and the guys are like, see, I did that with my mind.
And I'm like, oh, can you stop and start predictably or on command?
No, no, I can't.
Can you make it go faster or so?
Just occasionally it spins.
Yes.
I'm trying the whole time.
It's where how the things that they can move with their mind.
They're all things that are incredibly light to move.
And they've pointed out inside this glass, you know,
it's isolated from the environment kind of thing.
But it's not isolated from, he said it's an
isolated, like heat drafts, I think he says.
Yeah, drafts and like you actually
interacting with it deliberately.
Right, yeah, exactly.
But it's a sealed glass, like it's a closed glass.
It is a perfect environment for convection currents.
Yes, and that's that. That's all this glass. It is a perfect environment for convection currents.
Yes.
And that's that.
That's all this is.
You're dedicating your career to not understanding convection.
So, yes.
And so Sean McNamara, he is the meditation instructor, telekinesis guy.
He's going to teach Rachel from before the, the, the, the remote viewing.
He's going to teach her how to telekinesese, which I and I have to point this out.
She says at the beginning, she's like, well, you know, I'm a firm believer that you can
manifest things into reality just by thinking of them because I watched a movie once and I
realized that I wanted to be an actor.
And with just a few years, I was actually playing a role as in the sequel to that very same
movie, which means as near as I can tell, the movie that inspired her to act was Alvin
in the chipmunks one.
Right?
It has to have been.
It has to have been.
And the sequel that she was in was the squeak.
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
So yeah, but they're going to they're going to produce movement with their minds.
This is so stupid.
Guess I wrote my notes at this point.
It's like, wow, it's weird that Eli taught me to do this using nothing but static electricity.
But I was insulting Eli and his craft because what they do is so much less impressive than
the bullshit static electricity trick that Eli taught me.
Yeah.
They have like the tin foil inside of a glass jar that they can move with the mind.
And she says, I think Rachel even says during it, it really is like baking a cake. It's like, yeah, in that it's mostly
achieved via heat and convection. Yes, exactly. Yes. He goes, as he's explaining to us, like,
now, you have to keep working at it for sometimes for a very long time. I'm like, oh, okay,
until it does something, you have to keep going. Yeah. If you don't give enough time, it doesn't work, which is carry on until it does
something. Yes. Then it works. Right. He gives like a million different, like, okay,
this might not work, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work. Caviarits before they even
start. And then they put these tiny little pieces of tinfoil. They precariously put them
on these little tiny pins. They put a glass jar over it, and then they put their hands on the glass jar.
Yeah.
And thereby warming the air inside and shit starts moving in there and they go, huh?
Yeah.
It's like they almost give it away because he tells them when you put the glass jar over,
you got to be really careful because it's really easy to knock the tin foil off the needle. So does it move really easily? Does it? It moves really easily
as a shot? You got to be very careful because it moves so easily.
That's the tick-match.
I'd really like to see them knock over the thing that's holding the pin that's got the tin foil on
because tin foil moves really easily when it's balanced on a pin like that.
That's not impressive. It's really not impressive.
Show us your psychokinesis moving something way see
and I will be impressed.
Or even look, I don't even need that.
Just stop it and turn it the other way.
Right? Like just go, okay.
And now I'm gonna go counterclockwise.
That would be way more convincing than what we see.
Yeah.
Right? At one point, they're like, oh, well, you're not impressed by that.
Well, what if she puts two pieces of tin foil, poised on needles into the jar, and only
the much lighter of the two moves?
We see it for like a quarter of a second.
It's like a really short amount of time.
And then next, I just wanted to be like adding more and more bits of tinfoil, like evil, con evil with buses. Okay. I mean,
10 tinfoils. Yeah. But then they wrap all of that up. Rachel's like, yeah, I had a lot
of fun. And I'm like, well, that's the most important thing. She said she learned so
much about herself.
Ruth, what you've learned about yourself is you think she talks about love being involved.
She genuinely learned about herself that she believes tin foil can feel her love.
I mean, I'd want to know that about myself. I would want to love myself too.
At least he fixed this card to flow.
Yeah, right.
Knowing us have the battle.
Right.
So she says, yeah, no, I really felt super human.
And because this movie is so stupidly made, they can't just let the title drop sit.
Carolyn has to go, huh, that's the day of the movie.
All right.
So now we're going to be Dr. Mike Willicki in the middle
of trying to phone a home apparently based on all this shit
around him.
This is Dr. Mike Willicki of Berkeley.
Yeah, it's like, guys, you've got to be way more selective
over who you let into like Berkeley and Harvard and Stanford because we're seeing so many of them and they're all not great. They're not
great examples of those academic institutes and they're exceptionalism. Yeah. But is yet another
is yet another fucking one who went who when he was at university and went to a Zen center. Yeah.
Like this route is so frequent like like we need to understand what,
oh wait, hang on,
campuses is definitely drugs, isn't it?
It's not the Zen.
Yeah, I think the drugs.
Probably the drugs.
Yeah, he might as well have said,
I met this hippie girl, we did LSD.
Anyway, I can move things with my mind.
Right.
I'm dedicating 40 years to it.
Yeah, he gives us some,
the secret bullshit, you know, the participant of universe model
nonsense.
Carolyn decides it's been too long since she had a chiron, so she gives herself another
one during his thing.
It was great.
And he's like, yeah, so I can, yes, I can move things with my mind only if they're already
moving though.
This was such a bullshit experiment because he's like, yeah, I try to make this paper things with my mind only if they're already moving though.
This was such a bullshit experience because he's like, yeah, I try to make this paper move in a vacuum and, uh, well, I just didn't work.
Instead of trying to put in a vacuum, but it's impossible.
So I've added a little twist and the twist isn't magic.
No, it isn't.
Instead he put the speaker on it.
He put the pin that's got a little piece of paper on it on a little speaker. And he's
now piping noise through that. So it's moving on its own. But he's saying like, I can make
it move faster or slower. I just can't tell you what it's going to have done.
Yeah.
So, you know, and Carolyn comes in and voice over and she's like, well, obviously this
is super, pretty duper convincing.
You can see how we can spin tiny little pieces of paper that are on speaker needles with
nothing but our minds. But can we do that via Zoom?
Yeah, she does it for like a thousand miles away.
And she's like, oh wow, it's amazing that I can do it.
But like, how can she rule out that it isn't him doing it?
Given that she thinks he can do it.
And he's right there.
He's right there.
It's impossible.
I just wonder how they control
for other distanced influencers,
like what would happen if I happen to be thinking
about wiggling a bit of paper at the exact same time?
I have really hard to control for, actually,
now that you mentioned this.
They show us the results of this,
which is us dramatically watching a line of paper
jerkyly rotate for a bit.
We promise this is in real time because it's obviously a separate piece of footage, but
promise you this is when she was thinking about it.
Yes.
But yeah, she, but she gives her theory of how this all works.
She says, I think our consciousness switches our brain from linear firing to 100% capacity.
Dr. Alice, what does that mean?
That's, that's your, like, right?
Like, that's biology, isn't it?
Yeah, totally.
A hundred percent real biology, the brain, normally, it flies linearly and so on.
You can consciously switch it to 100%
capacity, which is nonlinear apparently. Completely nonlinear. Yeah. So okay. And then we get to our
final chapter. We come to chapter five, real humans doing superhuman things. And this is when we
finally make it back to the blind folded cockney kits. Oh, God, it's so good. It's even better
than introducing it as real humans doing superhuman things, not just like real humans doing
obviously fucking fake things. Yes. Like, so, fake, fake things. Yeah, she says, see, they
don't need to, they can be blindfolded because they could read with every cell of their
body, provided that the book is way below their
eye.
Like at one point, you even see the kids get asked to look at something and you see the
kid put the film on the blindfold and move it up a bit because it slipped and they couldn't
see.
Yes, it's only just moved the blindfold and no one stops them.
Right.
Well, and in case you're thinking that at the time, Carolyn like puts the mask on and
she's like,
yep, I can't see a thing, this is all legitimate.
And she's clearly wearing it lower on her face
than the children do at any point as well.
All of the children are wearing it on their full head,
basically, she wears it properly and says,
I can't see anything.
Well, yeah, exactly.
And the idea is that you can read with every cell of your body,
why does it have to be in front of your blindfolded eyes for you to read it? Yeah, right? Yeah. She sits
in the middle of the circle of children, like holding things up in front of them. It's
like, why don't you behind your back? You're not looking with their eyes. Right behind
their backs. But in a box, there's lots of solutions here. If you genuinely want to test
this, you can really, really test this. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. So, but she's just that
they can do this trick anywhere except under controlled conditions. Of course, by having
the kids go grocery shopping. And so they're like, you know, find the, you know, dawn brand
dish soap. And we watch these kids like lay their head back like Neo is dodging a bullet
to see that fucking mask. Oh, and this is where we meet Nicola Farmer, who's the one who's taught these kids that
this is Nicola Farmer, the founder of ICU, which stands for Inspiring Children Universally,
which makes no sense.
But it doesn't mean that you start with the initials first, which makes even less sense
because those initials were already taken by something quite famous.
There's already a ICU see you knocking around.
Oh, God, I looked at her website.
I want to meet this lady.
Her website has cartoons of kids that are creepily blindfolded, like one of those catalogues
that Andy Wilson used to pass around in that long running job that he lied to.
Yes.
And I went to the FAQ page.
There is a highlight on the FAQ page.
Of course, there is one of the questions in the FAQ, does this program work with blind children? Ah, the answer?
Yes. There is every possibility that we can deliver this program to children who've lost
their sight. However, we've not yet conducted a study and will endeavor to update this
information when appropriate. What? So like in theory, she could teach blind kids how to
see without using their eyes. She just hasn't
got around to that bit yet. Right. She's not quite there. Like she could have,
Nicola, do you want to, Nicola farmer, do you want to help these teachers,
teach these blind kids to basically be daredevil? Maybe later, I've just got some cards that need
red from a roughly 35 degree angle by some coffee six years. I need some help finding the Don dish detergents.
All right, so and I have to say
again, so that like apparently
like people are fooled by this
shit all over the world, right?
We go to Germany and we see
that there's people in Germany
that also buy into this nonsense.
One group do it as a part of their
martial arts training and one thing
I love about that is that they say the training is the main thing.
The being able to see is just a side effect,
which is true in the sense that they achieve the effect
by looking out the side.
That's all the training is making me as a side effect.
Well, what's amazing to me is they show these kids
doing their blindfolded training
and then their interview him afterwards
without the blindfolded and one of the kids
is wearing glasses.
Like, give me a fucking break.
Give me up.
But you're making this two goddamn easy for me.
And then I guess we go to the birthplace of pretending the blindfold is on properly,
which is Moscow, right?
Where all the best science comes from, that we hear from the founder who assures us as that
FAQ page did that this even works with blind kids, which is just terrifying to think.
Again, these people are selling this to the parents of blind children saying they can
cure it with their magic.
Yeah, absolutely.
Fucking disgusting.
It's awful.
But this lady explains to us how it works in very broken English.
And then they they insist
that they did this, you know, they did science with real scientists about this, right? And
they do this experiment where they like check to make sure there's no light can be seen
from inside the blindfold and then prove that it's all legit. But then you see the person
who's they've done that on very clearly peaking out the side. And I wrote, is this movie
gaslighting us? It can't be because they've established that light can't get in through the mask.
So I guess it isn't gaslighting us.
Yes.
This is the point where they go to this Italian scientist and they talk to the Italian
scientists for quite a while.
And I don't know if you noticed this, but they dubbed him.
Yes.
He's speaking fucking English the whole way through, but they dumped him anyway.
American audience Alice. Well, but they didn't even dub him within a, like a native English
speaker, the guy doing the dubbing also has a thick of an accent to see. So fucking
weird. Yeah. But it's okay. And then Carolyn takes this bullshit back to her very nearly
blind friend. Oh, this is so bullshit back to her very nearly blind friend.
Oh, this is so rough. This is so, so rough. It's like having hung around with a bunch of
frauds, I decided to kill someone who wasn't going to lie and pretend about it.
Yeah, man. That was fucking sad. So, yeah. So we see this lady who's, who's, I say,
is so bad. She's got to use a magnifying glass to read menus and stuff. But she, you
know, explains that her doctor's told her she would never get her and stuff. But she, you know, explains that her doctors told
her she would never get her site back. So she decided to tell them doctors to go fuck
themselves and support con artists instead. And again, I don't blame her for this, right?
Like I understand if you're, if you're told there's no hope by one group and you're told
there is hope by another group, I see why you tend towards that latter group. It's the
group that is the bad guy here. I want to make that super clear. Yeah. But they're going to, like, they're
going to give her a series of lessons in how to see blindfolded. And what's funny is we
get to watch this progression of like, because it's obviously like, all right, well, we're
just going to keep doing this until you start faking it. Yeah, right. Like the first instructor, like the instructor in the first lesson,
you can see how feeling out how to say,
just fake it.
Right, without being too obvious about it,
because at one point the instructor tells her,
so I want you to look around the mask.
I want you to look around in the mask.
So, get that literally the whole trick.
You could have stopped the whole lesson.
Yeah, right.
She's like, no, like look around in the
mouth and eventually you'll see things. I don't know how I
could be seeing this and he's saying this any clear.
She says, yeah, well, you know, at first, I just saw spots and
stars. I could see the whole universe. And I'm like, no, only
the half in front of you, the other half is completely
invisible. But that's not enough.
Like, yeah, you can see the whole universe.
You can't see the color of the paper that they're holding up.
You can't see that though.
We can't zoom in.
Yeah, you have to learn to zoom in.
Seeing lights is literally a symptom of some conditions, particularly those that affect
the eyes as well though, but like, okay, this magic, because she can see spots and lights
and things.
Oh my God.
That's so awful.
Yeah.
So, yeah, so we see it.
Session one, she doesn't get any of the colors right.
Session two, she gets one of them correct, right?
So they're like, they're holding up.
Should they're having her hold up pieces of paper and she'll go, it blew and they'll
like, nope, not that one.
Of course, we only see the one that she gets right.
We get a one second clip of an entire second session.
I don't know how long that lesson was.
I think it would probably more than one second long.
Yeah.
In session three, she specifically says to set your focus as a periscope and the woman
adjusts her mask.
Like, and in all the content we're not seeing, she's been told how to adjust the mask
so she can see a particular
thing and she calls that set your focus as a periscope.
Yeah, it's so good. And then we get towards the end where clearly the instructor has given
up trying to get them to cheat. And so she's going to cheat herself because she's like,
okay, I'm going to hold up a piece of paper, you tell me what color it is. And they're like,
yeah, blue. And she's like, hang on, hang on, scrabble, scrabble, scrabble around for a piece of paper, you tell me what color it is. And they're like, yeah, blue. It's like hang on, hang on, scrabble, scrabble, scrabble around for a piece of paper. Yes, she finds
a blue piece of paper. But hold up. She starts lifting, she's holding up the papers after
the subject that makes her fucking guess. It's crazy. It's Dr. Venkman at the beginning
of ghost busters. It's just nonsense. But then they say like, you know, oh, well, you
know, she has, she can see
all the colors now and only took three sessions. Her blindness is fixed. She doesn't even need
to use the magnifying glass anymore to read, trust us, just trust us on this one. And then
how she comes away from this, because she comes away, like the Kim Hay, she comes away
feeling happy that this was successful. And what she learns is that she was writing too
small on piece of paper when she was trying to read her writing. And what she learns is that she was writing too small on pieces of
people and she was trying to read her writing. So now she can write on piecebipper and read it.
And she just writes bigger. And she shows us like if I write it really big and then hold it close
my face, I can read it now. It's like, yeah, I don't think that's the solution to your problems.
This is not the panacea. This is not 100% success if you ask me. Yeah, and certainly isn't magical.
She's just genuinely come to terms with the need to make reasonable adjustments for herself,
which she's now making and can live her life more comfortably, which is great, but it's not
fucking magic. No, it's not superhuman. Yeah. So, okay. So, but then Carolyn wraps up by explaining
that scientists don't know everything.
She's like, you know, scientists say that the laws of physics are immutable, but we've been breaking them left and right on this documentary, right?
Yeah, if the current scientific laws of physical reality were complete,
they shouldn't ever be broken. It's that we'll know, but then also know, like, you are
afraid of human beings, but they're also not complete. That's not how that works either.
Right. Exactly. But yeah, but she explains that if you believe God exists and God does exist
it that doesn't work like that with rocks that are in favor any any measurable thing but only
a immeasurable stuff like God right she says at one point who's more powerful you are the physical
world I'm like yeah hard to see how that could go wrong.
She says, if you can influence an electrical device, she's like, a definitely fucking can. I'm doing it right this moment. I'm speaking and this electrical
device is reacting to my voice. I can see the waveforms on audacity and everything.
It's my view. But my view can match. And you're not even touching it.
Right. She doesn't even specify that. Right. She doesn't even say even touching it. Oh, right. And she doesn't even specify that, right?
Like she doesn't even say without touching it.
So like if you can hit the on switch, then you're magical.
Some guy comes in and his closing thought is, well, you know, what's more important to
you, the nice car that you own or the memories you make with your family?
And we're like, oh, yeah, no, the memories is like, therefore your car doesn't exist.
And we're like, wait, what?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's like just be nice and make nice choices.
Otherwise, you'll mess up the quantum field.
It's what they're all doing.
Yes.
Fucking one.
And this is where Michael Dorn comes up in his opening line is,
what am I doing?
Yeah.
Fucked if I know what.
Right.
But he's like, you know, it's all about love.
And I'm like, oof, that is nearly the closing thought of this stupid movie.
Well, they're talking about love.
I feel like the people who put in the stock footage
have just given up entirely, because there's just a random close-up shot
of a camera like walking into a Nick's make-up We have to know you're in the relevance to anything going on.
Well, because she loves doing that.
That's what Carol is doing.
A love.
Yeah, no, and they explain that the purpose of the universe is
awesome.
Like, oh, that's not arrogance us atheists are the arrogant ones,
I guess.
Jesus.
And then her last line is she goes, are you a super human? And we all wrote in
our notes. No.
Hell, man, my heart can barely pump through my coronary arteries. Come on, I'm definitely
not super human. All right. Well, Mars, Alice, I cannot thank you enough for dropping
in and lending your
expertise to this one. And here's hoping it's the least pleasant thing you have to do for
the rest of the year.
No, fingers crossed. Yeah. And of course, if you want to hear more from this week's guest,
be sure to check out skeptics with the K. It's one of the most entertaining and informative
podcasts on the internet. You can find it linked in the show notes for this episode.
And while that does it for our review, it's super human. That's not going to do it for
the episode just yet because we still need to step into the same mud puddle
next week. Eli's not here. So I'll just go ahead and tell you what's on deck. It is
the shift. I don't know anything about it except that it's from the people that brought
you sound of freedom and that I got to go to the theaters to watch it. So with that to
look forward to remember episode 432 to a merciful close once again, a huge thanks to Michael
Marshall and Dr. Alice Howard for all their help today and a perhaps even
Huge your thanks to all the patreon donors that helped make the show go if you'd like to have yourself in the range
You can make a per episode donation of patreon.com slash god awful
And thereby earn only access to an entry version in very episode
You can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review and by sharing the show on all your various social media platforms
If you enjoyed this show be sure to check out our sibling shows the skating a theist citation needed dnd minus and the skeptic
Grant available wherever podcasts live if you have questions comments or say to my suggestions
You can get me a god of
movies.
Jimmel.com, Tim Robbson, Dickscare, or social media.
Our theme song was written in the form by Ryan Slotny, Viva Girov, Sam Mars.
All the other music was written in the form by our audio engineer, Morgan Clark, and
was used with permission.
Thanks again for giving us a chunk of your life this week for Heath and right knee libos
to come to the Lucian's promised to work hard or earn another chunk next week until then.
We'll leave you with a breakfast club close.
Caroline Colory declared herself a superhero for her ability to slowly rotate tinfoil,
and instantly became the most interesting character in the D.C.U.
Fair! Fair!
The upcoming X-Men movie just added based on a true story to their title cards.
The blindfolded British kid went on to use his skills in lying and to British politics
and became the next Tory Prime Minister.
But sitting 4,000 mile one more time, but sitting bitch, you know what it's because I can
not use it in metric.
If I was using fucking metric, the surprise just flow.
I'm a fucking American.
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all rights reserved.
on the thunderstorm LLC Copyright 2023, all rights reserved.