STBYM Listener Mail: La Muerte

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NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, a.k.a. neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can scroll the headlines all day and still feel empty. I'm Ben Higgins, and If You Can Hear Me is where culture meets the soul. honest conversations about identity, loss, purpose, peace, faith, and everything in between. Celebrities, thinkers, everyday people, some have answers, most are still figuring it out. And if you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to If You Can Hear Me on my iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, listener mail. My name is Robert Lamb. And I am Joe McCormick. And hey, folks, I know we don't usually do a preamble on our show before every episode, but I thought it'd be good in case there were some new listeners out there to kind of remind you who we are. If you're new to the show, Stuff to Blow Your Mind has been an audio podcast for like 15 years or 16, Rob. When did it actually start? We've always been here. It's been a while. our core episodes publish on Tuesdays and Thursdays of every week and those are about diverse topics that we get interested in usually they have something to do with science or culture in some way most Wednesdays we publish a short form scripted episode and then on Fridays we do a sub show called weird house cinema where we just talk about a strange film you can find all of those episodes in the stuff to blow your mind podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts. In today's episode, this is a recurring segment we do called Listener Mail, where we're going to read and respond to some email from listeners. We do this at variable intervals now, usually maybe once every month or month and a half. And I'll go ahead and give you the email address in case you would like to get in touch and send us a message that could be featured on a show like this in the future. That email address is contact at stuff to blow your mind.com. Also, we just wanted to check in about the fact that just within the past month, we started recording a video version of the show that you can find on Netflix. It's the exact same content. It's just with the cameras turned on. And so we're still relatively new at this. We're kind of getting used to the merciless unblinking eye. But we have gotten some encouraging emails from listeners saying they're enjoying the video version. So thank you for that. The kind words really do mean a lot to us. If you happen to be watching us on Netflix now and you want to subscribe, you can click the Remind Me button so future episodes will pop up when they publish. And please, listeners, if you're game, we encourage you to just leap wantonly from one platform to another and consume the show however you like best. So if you found us on Netflix, please, yes, go subscribe to our audio format wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're an audio listener, please look us up on Netflix if you're so inclined. Yeah, if you're listening to us, if you're watching us, whatever you're comfortable with, we're just pleased that you took time out of your day to listen to our content, and we're grateful. All right, Rob, are you ready to get right into the messages? Yeah, a lot of these, or at least the ones at the top, are going to have to do with our recent series on personifications of death, anthropomorphic personifications of death, like the Grim Reaper, certainly in Western traditions, but other related figures. We weren't able to cover everything out there because this is a sort of figure that occurs just throughout human cultures. And there's so many different varieties. And yet, at the same time, there are certain aspects, certain tropes that you'll find again and again. And so we reached out to listeners because we knew that people would have all sorts of personal but also cultural details to fill in for us. Right. So, Rob, if it's okay with you, I'm going to do this message from Maya. Yeah. and there are hundreds, I looked, is a feminine noun. La muerte, death, is feminine, but so are la parca, one of the fates in Greek mythology, and la flaca, the skinny one. Folk images of death seem to be divided. A very well-known representation of death is la catrina, an image first created by the engraver Jose Guadalupe Posada that depicts death as a high-class lady. Its name means something like the well-dressed one. And Rob, I went and looked up this image and pulled it into our outline. So this is La Catrina by Jose Guadalupe Posada. It's a figure of a skeleton who seems to be, I don't know what these kind of fluffy things around its shoulders are. Maybe they're bushes or clouds. I guess clouds would make sense. But it's wearing this big, elaborate, beautiful hat. It's like a gently sloping kind of domed hat with flowers on the top and big, you know, dangling feathers coming off. And then also something sort of seemingly tucked into the skeleton's ear, though, of course, the skull wouldn't have an ear. But what are those things down there? Are those like tassels or flowers? Yeah, yeah. The overall appearance is death in a festive hat. And this image was discussed in some of the sources that I was using for those episodes, but I just didn't get to it. But it is quite an important one to understand. And Maya's email goes on to say, the Mexica deities of death were a male and female skeletal figure. Mictlantacutli was the lord of Mictlant, the underworld, and Mictacasiwat was his wife. and Maya this you may have written this email before we discussed them on the show but these figures did come up I think in part four of our discussion there where we were talking about a paper about what were the cultural inputs on the creation of Santa Muerte which does come up in this email by the way Maya says in many other visual traditions death is a male figure Rob will be happy to know that there was a Lucha Libre character known as La Parca although he tragically died as a result of injuries sustained in a match. Rob, I think you've got some stuff on La Parca later. I do, and we have another listener mail that will also fill in some of the blanks for us. Okay. Maya says, punk and heavy metal depictions of death as a male devilish figure coexist with the controversial La Santa Muerte, the holy death, a folk cult figure that appears as a female skeletal deity who personifies death and is venerated by people from all walks of life. An Argentinian equivalent, in contrast, is a male figure, San La Muerte. And, of course, during Dia de Muertos, the Day of the Dead, you can write your name on the forehead of a sugar skull and add it to the altar or ofrenda. And in doing so, you turn a neutral, genderless confection into your own gendered alter ego. That's a nice tidbit to mention. Yeah, there's an excellent Day of the Dead celebration here in Atlanta. every year they hold it at the historic oakland cemetery and we generally try to go as somebody who didn't grow up with day of the dead celebrations i i for a long time i think i had the wrong idea that it was only it was like mardi gras that it was only like this big public festival kind of thing um but uh i realized more recently yeah that you know you can have uh private celebrations and i actually went to one uh that was uh hosted by some family of ours uh this this past fall it was beautiful. And the ofrenda was, I don't know, I found it very touching. Oh, nice. Coming back to Maya's email. As for grammatical gender, its influence on our perception of external objects is still up for debate. Some studies have found that we tend to think of feminine inanimate objects, such as table, mesa, as having more feminine attributes than masculine objects. But other research has found these effects to be more subtle or even non-existent. Yeah, we talked about that in the episodes too. There's kind of a mixed research picture on to what extent this is really happening. But Maya says, in the case of death, nothing seems to prevent us from thinking about it as both a masculine and feminine figure, despite the grammatical gender of the noun we use to refer to it. A wonderful series. Keep up the great work and know that you have many non-native English speakers as fans all over the world. Maya. Thank you, Maya. Very nice. Wonderful. It warms my heart. And then also, Maya had a follow-up email just to share a picture with us. She says, Dear Joe and Rob, by the way, here you have a picture of the Santa Muerte van that makes the rounds in my brother's neighborhood so her devotees can worship her from the comfort of their own homes. All the best, Maya. And this is wonderful. It's a Santa Muerte figure enthroned on a big chair draped in, looks like gold satin or something, kind of a gold leaf texture, sitting in the bed of a trailer or the back of a pickup truck. or might be like one of those small three-wheel pickup trucks. And so she's a very dry skeleton, as we talked about. She usually, you know, she's very parched, but she's wearing a pink floral gown and a mantle like a hood over the top of her head. In her right hand, she's holding a scythe. In her left hand, a golden ball, which I think could be the earth. It's like a globe. And then she has an owl perched over either shoulder. Do you see the two owls, Rob? Oh, yeah. I didn't see them at first, but now I see them. Hiding in the ruffles of the gold on the chair. That's great. And then also in the same hand as the scythe, she's got some kind of foliage. I don't know exactly what that is. I was wondering, could that be a palm leaf? It does kind of look like a palm leaf. Yeah. Yeah. I can't say for sure what that is, but this is great. Thank you so much for sending Maya. Yes, indeed. All right. I said we were going to have more about La Parca, the luchador. and indeed we're going to read this next one from angelo angelo says hi robert and joe while listening to your podcast series about the personifications of death your mention of the mexican la parka immediately got me thinking about professional wrestling the wcw promotion um this was some of you may not be aware that this promotion used to exist uh yeah heyday during the 90s um wait what's it called now is it it's not that anymore it's just it doesn't exist it was okay yeah but it went away it was purchased by um wwe and okay it's now part of of that conglomerate uh anyway angelo writes the wcw promotion showcased luchadors in the mid to late 90s including one named la parka he wore a skeletal mask and costume to look like a reaper but instead of a scythe he always carried a steel chair to the ring he would of course use it on his opponents during matches but he would also play air guitar air guitar on it during his entrances and post-match celebrations he used the chair so much that announcers gave him the nickname the chairman of wcw while he did while he did use the mexican Grim Reaper costume, the gimmick never really went with the subject of death in the same way that another wrestler, The Undertaker, did in his earlier days. Other wrestlers would take on the La Parca mantle with the character making an appearance in this year's WWE Royal Rumble. Anyway, the series was great, and I really learned a lot from it. Please keep up the great work. Thanks, Angela. So yes, La Parca. Believe me, when La Parca came up in our death episodes, I did have to fight the urge to bring him up, but I was like, we can save this for later. Somebody will write in about this and we can follow up. I don't think anybody would have minded if you brought him up. We had a lot of ground to cover. It was hard to argue that we needed a side trip to Lucha Libre at that point. And I knew we'd come back to it. So Angelo did, I think, a great job here summarizing the La Parca that wrestling fans of the 90s in the U.S. likely remember. Tied to the AAA promotion in Mexico at the time. And then I think he was full-time with WCW for a spell there, too. And he was played by a wrestler named Adolfo Ibarra, born 1965. And I believe his real name, this character, this luchador has never been unmasked, but I believe his name and age are of public record. So we're not spoiling anything there. But when he left that promotion, AAA, AAA retained the rights to the costume and the gimmick. And so they handed the gimmick over to Jesus Escoboza, who lived 1966 through 2020. This is the La Parca that was mentioned earlier that died in 2020. So but this handoff was occurring in the late 90s. And I believe there was a lot of like legal back and forth about the gimmick. But certainly by around 2003, Abara, the first La Parca, ended up altering his costume to look like a combination of Darth Maul and the La Parca skeleton costume that he had been wearing in order to perform in televised matches for CMLL. That's Mexico's biggest lucha promotion and arch rival of AAA. At this point, he changed his name to what, as an English speaker, I always read as L.A. Park. But I'm to understand in Spanish it is pronounced L.A. Parka. So it still sounds like L.A. Parka, but it's spelled differently for legal reasons. I see. Yeah. So he did some great work for CML during that time frame. I watched some of his CML matches back in the day. And since then, the La Parca legacy has continued with a third La Parca in AAA. And then at different times, there were various family members of Agbaras that ended up taking on some sort of La Parca gimmick. So there was a Super Parca, various sons of La Parca. There was also some La Parquitas, more than one, like many La Parcas. And for a short while, there was a female La Parca as well. So it just goes to show, you know, once you've established a great gimmick, you just can't keep it down. People are going to wear the hood no matter what. Wait, do you know, how did Darth Maul get wrapped in? Is that just zeitgeist? I think it was just, yeah, in the zeitgeist at the time. And I don't know for certain, but I'm assuming he just realized he needed to mix up the look a little bit. And so it made sense for him to do this. He might have actually done it a little bit before he became L.A. Park, if you will, just because it was fun. You know, like sometimes costume wrestlers in Mexico, the luchitos will do this where they'll they'll take their existing costume and they'll tweak it a little bit. Maybe it'll align it with something in pop culture beyond what they have going on. But but yeah, I'm mostly familiar with with the guy who would become L.A. Park. And I generally describe him as a brawling wild man luchador that could still bust out some really sweet maneuvers here and there. But, yeah, one does not get much of a traditional mainstream grim reaper vibe from him, though. Especially the WCW days. He was dancing. He was playing air guitar. He wasn't coming for people's souls or anything like that. He was doing spin kicks. Well, Angela, thanks for writing in about all that. It was nice to dive in on a little La Parca history. And then there are so many other luchadors that have skull motifs incorporated into the look. You know, there's a whole army of them. Yeah. Thank you, Angelo. Hi this is Jo Winterstein host of the Spirit Daughter podcast where we talk about astrology natal charts and how to step into your most vibrant life And I just sat down with a mini driver The Irish traveler said when I was 16 you're going to have a terrible time with men. Actor, storyteller, and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom loving and different perspectives. And I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius, like, are misunderstood. A sun and Venus in Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership. He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms, on different houses, in different places, but just an embracing of the is-ness of it all. If you're navigating your own transformation or just want a chart-side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity, and real life, This episode is a must listen. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind Games is the story of NLP. its crazy cast of disciples, and the fake doctor who invented it at a New Age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all? NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What do you do when the headlines don't explain what's happening inside of you. I'm Ben Higgins, and if you can hear me, it's where culture meets the soul, a place for real conversation. Each episode, I sit down with people from all walks of life, celebrities, thinkers, and everyday folks, and we go deeper than the polished story. We talk about what drives us, what shapes us, and what gives us hope. We get honest about the big stuff, identity when you don't recognize yourself anymore, loss that changes you, purpose when success isn't enough, peace when your mind won't slow down, faith when it's complicated. Some guests have answers. Most are still figuring it out. If you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief. The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history. Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict, a villain, a nurse named Lucy Leppie. Lucy Leppie has been found guilty. But what if we didn't get the whole story? The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby, we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it to ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Letby was. No voicing of any skepticism or doubt. It'll cause so much harm at every single level if the British establishment of this is wrong. Listen to Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, are you ready if I do this message from Louisa? Yeah. Louisa says, Hi guys, I hope this 2026 is a great year for you and yours. I've been fascinated by your death series. You always give such an interesting, deep analysis of obscure information. Thank you, Luisa. That is what we hope for. We try. However, I had hoped you would mention Las Intermitencias de la Muerte by Sarah Mago. And that title is usually translated Death with Interruptions. Luisa says, if you haven't read it yet, I can't recommend it enough. It is elegantly written with a mysterious plot and a beautiful ending. Please consider it in your reading list for this year. and if you do happen to talk about it further on the series uh my apologies as always thank you so much for your wonderful podcast louisa oh and then louisa says um p.s every time you go over the weekly schedule when you say and on fridays we're gonna say we do weird house cinema but she says when you say and on fridays i expect you to say i'm in love pop culture and printing i guess that's the cure right yeah yeah that's the cure that's a great song uh so this novel is by the Portuguese author Jose Saramago. I have not read it, but Luisa, I looked it up on your suggestion and I genuinely ended up ordering a copy of the English translation. This is the translation by Margaret Joel Costa. And just to give you a taste, the opening sentence of the book is, the following day, no one died. So it's a pretty cool premise. I don't want to spoil too much about the book, though I did kind of read ahead about what the plot is and that got me hooked on wanting to actually read the book, but just to sort of sketch it out, the premise is that one day in one country, death just stops. People become unexpectedly and suddenly immortal. And while this seems like a great blessing, actually, it is horrible. It turns into a crisis because it doesn't mean that people are now eternally well. It just means they don't die. So people with fatal injuries and terminal illnesses do not get better. They just don't die, which is actually a nightmare. And so that happens. I was reading about some interesting plots in the middle of the book where the government is trying to figure out like workarounds, like what can we do with the people who are like basically dead, but not dying. And then there is another part in the book where apparently the character of death decides to resume allowing people to die, but she gives them a warning a week ahead of time so they can prepare and like prepare and use their final day as well and this also seems to go disastrously it increases dread and obsession so it seems like this story is going to be about paradoxes in how we think about death like a lot of things that we want with respect to death like knowing when it will happen or avoiding it entirely would be absolute curses if they were to really happen and finally the story does seem to involve involved death falling in love with a mortal, which we were just talking about stories like that, weren't we? Yeah, yeah. Well, actually, several aspects of this story match up with some much older tellings, you know, death being taken out of commission, to what extent death is going to give you a heads up on his or her arrival. So, yeah, this sounds very interesting, like taking all these ideas, these literary motifs that we've been ruminating on and sort of updating it for a 21st century literary treatment. Yeah. So anyway, thank you for the recommendation, Luisa. And I am going to, my copy's on the way and I'm going to be trying to read it this year. All right. This next one comes to us from Albert. Albert is the name of the human who assists death in Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. But I think this is a different Albert. This is not a pseudonym. Albert has written to us before. Okay. Or it could be a different Albert or could be the fictional character from the Discworld. We're about to find out. We're about to find out. Albert writes in and says, Dear Robin Jo, I have been thoroughly enjoying your exploration of the anthropomorphic personifications of death. I'm writing this after listening to part three. There have been many depictions of death in various media over the years. Some of my favorites are from the films, and we get a short list here. The Seventh Seal. You know, classic. Monty Python in the Meaning of Life. Yes, that's another great one. And Meet Joe Black. I haven't seen Meet Joe Black. Who plays Death in that? Is that Brad Pitt? Is he Death in that? Is he Joe Black? I think so. Or is he, he ages backwards in this one. Towards Death. I can't remember. I can't keep my mind. This is one from the 90s. In my brain, I merged, I used to merge Meet Joe Black and City of Angels, the American remake of Wings of Desire, into one movie. But they're different movies. Okay. All right. Meet Joe Blight. Maybe I should give it a go. On the small screen, the Hitchhiker episode from the Twilight Zone was quite memorable. And in the various comics and graphic novels, Death of the Endless in the Sandman series is my favorite. And we can't forget about Death, the Pale Rider in the Book of Revelations. Although, side note, apparently the original word describing Death is not pale, but a light green, indicating that it's actually the color of rotting flesh. anyway in both meet joe black and in sad sandman death is shown to be a comforting presence fulfilling the role of psychopomp that you mentioned that's right so the distinction there is that the the psychopomp is the figure like uh like like the way hermes is sometimes depicted in greek mythology the guide of the soul to the afterlife takes you from one place to the next yeah uh albert continues i also looked into japanese culture's depiction of death When I do a search on Shinigami, which literally means death god, the search shows either the soul reapers from the anime Bleach or Western depictions of the Grim Reaper. As far as I know, there is a judge of the dead, Inma Dayo, who is derived from Yama of the Hindu pantheon. This judge of the dead is present in many Buddhist cultures, but a death god, a reaper, a harvester of souls seems to be absent. Anyway, looking forward to part four and possibly part five. Thanks, Albert. Oh, that is interesting. So that would be, if you're correct here, Albert, this would be the case of a culture that doesn't really have anything quite like a Grim Reaper figure. Like in Japanese culture, there's maybe just not a native equivalent of the figure that appears at your death. You know, I haven't researched this for myself yet. One of the main sources, as I mentioned in our series, definitely focused more on Western models. But, you know, I love looking into Eastern cultures as well. So maybe in the future we'll come back and look at some of these models from Buddhism and Hinduism as well. Ready for me to do this one for Matt? Yeah. What does Matt have to say? matt says good day fellas happy new year very much enjoyed the series on personifications of death it's a subject i've often thought about and had a couple of thoughts based on my own cultural interest being a canuck with scots irish scotch irish ancestry and a general fascination with gaelic culture i've long been interested in the myth and stories of those cultures and how they can bleed into the modern day, Halloween and various other holiday traditions being easy examples. One I was attracted to from an early age was the Banshee and the Morrigan. I've written to you previously on some explorations I've done into Morrigan lore, and then parenthetically, a place called Rath Krogan and the cave of Ophnagat, for example. I vaguely recall that. I don't recall what we said about them. Was there something about a cat at that cave? That sounds familiar. That sounds, maybe a rabbit. Yeah. Maybe not a rabbit. Matt says, what I find interesting about the Morrigan is that she, while not exclusively a death figure, is a death figure which seems to both mock and take delight in trickery, while one who also acts on savage impulses. Less in the tradition of the Reaper who gets closer over time and more in the chaotic neutral vein where anything can propel her, can propel you to her cold embraces if you're not careful. So sort of like the deceiver figure we were talking about. That's a common image of death, the one who embodies a fatal irony. So Matt says, I've only listened to part one of the series at this point. So perhaps you mentioned this in part two, but I find the Morrigan to be a wonderful embodiment of both the malevolence and randomness of physical danger in our lives. To me, it's a, quote, nothing personal, but you are going to die now because you screwed up and the universe has little sympathy mentality. Then there's the Banshee, the ghostly version of a keening woman at a funeral, which many a person is said to see or at least hear before someone they know or they themselves die. I learned of the Banshee when I was about 14 years old and had just started getting interested in my family's history, culture, and stories. We didn't have much, if anything, from the old country, but a few funny sayings about not being out in bad weather and shutting ears to strange voices. I always found that strange. Then I came to know about the Banshee. And if you saw a piece of clothing, shoe, etc. in the road at night, you may want to walk elsewhere. Not sure if that's a real thing or not, but that is what I thought at the time. I remember being out hunting one night near the family farm and coming across a child's dress caught on a bush from the wind. Was it a sign? Of course it wasn't, and was likely just caught on some foliage after some critter ripped open a garbage bag during the previous pickup day, it being blown by strong winds common to my home area. Regardless, it freaked me right out, and I went home immediately. I'm not a religious or superstitious person generally, but must admit I still get a chill thinking about that particular evening. Anyway, I suppose the lesson, as you both put it so well, is that the personification of death is, in a way, a very individual process, defining what we each fear, expect, and want to a degree. Personally, if I have to go with the morgue and cackling at me, telling me how stupid a decision I had made was, that's all right with me. As always, love the show, and do keep it up. All the best from Ontario, Matt. Well, thanks, Matt. I'm going to have to say no thank you to the Morrigan with the whole death blaming thing. I mean, come on, have a little bedside manner. Send in Joe Black instead, I guess. Yeah. All right. This next one comes to us from Stephanie titled Death Listens. Hi, Robert and Joe. Thanks for the episodes entitled Oh Death. This has been among my favorite series from the show. I've had a lot of fun reflecting on what I think death looks like. When you mentioned the Death Listens artwork, I looked it up since I found it interesting that one of you thought the figure looked a bit awkward or similar, just hanging out. I noticed that Death was holding flowers and almost contemplating the figure playing the violin. To me, this figure is one of the comforting Deaths. She knows this is hard for the humans, so she takes time to enjoy the song of the young man before she goes about her duties. This thought was confirmed for me when I realized Seinberg also painted the Garden of Death, which features three figures tending a garden with care. One is particularly enraptured with the flowers, which is impressive to convey on a skull. Thanks again for such a fun and interesting series on this subject. It's so neat to learn about the cultural and historical differences of how death is personified. Thank you, Stephan. So, Rob, for reference, I put both of the artworks that Stephanie mentions in our outline here. So first you can look at the, this is the one we were actually talking about in the series, the painting Death Listens by Hugo. I was saying Simberg. Did you say Seinberg? I might have said Seinberg here, but off the top of my head, I'm not sure which one is correct. I don't know either. Okay. So Hugo Simberg or Seinberg. This was painted in 1897. This is the one we talked about where there is an old woman lying in a bed in the background looking very frail. And then the weird thing is that death is not oriented toward the dying woman. She is standing there draped in black. It's a skeletal figure draped in black, holding flowers across from a young man playing a violin. So it's like she's listening to the violin, just kind of ignoring the dying woman. And we were wondering what to make of that is very curious. But then, yeah, so Rabbi also pulled in the garden of death, which Stephanie brought up. And I see what you're saying, Stephanie. It's hard to convey expressions on skeletons because expressions are movements of the soft tissue of the face. but yeah this this one skeleton in the middle here and so the main layout is three skeletons are tending to plants in a garden with raised beds and then also pots that are down on the ground and they're they're just one of them is watering plants one of them is bent over looking away from us probably looking at plants and then one of them is just clutching a flower almost as in like the way a child clutches their stuffy just i love it i you know a happy little embrace of an inanimate object clutching this flower and it does have a big grin on its face i think the way simberg did this is by like curling the the mouth into uh like a u shape so that it looks like a smile even though i think you would actually to convey that you would have to move the lips which the scale the skull does not have so it's a bit of trickery here yeah i don't know i get a real sense of sadness off of that that middle skeleton here they feel a closeness to humanity. That's what I get from this, and that there's sorrow in their work, and they have mixed feelings about it. But it's part of the process, you know, it's part of the garden. Yeah. In both of these paintings, there is a mix of imagery, because, of course, a comforting death figure is not all that unusual. In fact, in the American psychology studies we looked at, it was the most common type of death figure people imagined, some sort of a soothing comforter. But that, the comforter was usually depicted as more human, you know, fully fleshed and maybe like an old man or a woman or, you know, somebody, somebody coming to you with the flesh still on here. We're combining like the imagery of the monstrous rotten, decayed death figure who's skeletal in nature with the, the posture and the emotional tone of the comforter. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's quite a feat to pull off visually here, But, you know, they managed to do it. I'll go ahead and add, you know, we're always referencing paintings and works of art and visual media in these episodes. And we generally cannot show it to you. So if there's ever an opportunity to look something up that we've talked about and analyze it for yourself, write in and give us your feedback. You know, that's always fair game. Always fun to talk about these images more. Hi, this is Jo Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast, where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a mini driver. The Irish traveler said when I was 16, you're going to have a terrible time with men. Actor, storyteller, and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom loving and different perspectives. and I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius like are misunderstood. A sun and Venus in Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership. He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms, on different houses, in different places, but just an embracing of the is-ness of it all. If you're navigating your own transformation or just want a chart-side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity, and real life, This episode is a must listen. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind Games is the story of NLP. its crazy cast of disciples, and the fake doctor who invented it at a New Age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all? NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What do you do when the headlines don't explain what's happening inside of you. I'm Ben Higgins, and if you can hear me, it's where culture meets the soul, a place for real conversation. Each episode, I sit down with people from all walks of life, celebrities, thinkers, and everyday folks, and we go deeper than the polished story. We talk about what drives us, what shapes us, and what gives us hope. We get honest about the big stuff, identity when you don't recognize yourself anymore, loss that changes you, purpose when success isn't enough, peace when your mind won't slow down, faith when it's complicated. Some guests have answers. Most are still figuring it out. If you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. in 2023 a story gripped the uk evoking horror and disbelief the nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern british history everyone thought they knew how it ended a verdict a villain a nurse named lucy leppi Lucy Letby has been found guilty. But what if we didn't get the whole story? The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby, we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it to ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Letby was. No voicing of any skepticism or doubt. It'll cause so much harm at every single level if the British establishment of this is wrong. Listen to Doubt, The Case of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're going to go and skip out of the death zone here, and we're going to talk about the twilight zone a little bit. This one comes to us from Paul. Paul says, hey guys, you were talking about high-end aluminum wares during the episode on the Twilight Zone episode. This is the Rip Van Winkle caper. I guess we should reestablish the context. The story of the Rip Van Winkle caper is about some guys who steal a bunch of gold and then they go into cryo sleep for 100 years so they can get away with the crime. And then they come out and then there's a bunch of drama in the middle where they're betraying each other, stabbing each other in the back and stuff. Uh, but the twist at the end of the episode is that in the future where they have emerged to finally take advantage of their, their ill gotten, uh, gains, the gold they stole has become worthless because now, uh, we have the technology to just manufacture gold. So it's, you know, it has lost all value in the episode. We talked about how it's unlikely that in any real timeframe, we would be able to manufacture gold in enough quantities that something like this could happen. You know, it might be a byproduct of fusion technology or something, but it probably would not be manufactured in mass quantities. However, we did come up with a historical analogy, which was aluminum, which over the course of a few decades in the 1800s, in the late 1800s, went from extremely precious and rare because of how difficult it was to extract from the ore form in which it occurs on Earth to much, much cheaper. I mean, like if you had stolen a bunch of aluminum in 1860 and then waited 100 years, you would be severely disappointed in your returns. Yeah, absolutely. And so that's what Paul's following up on here. Paul says, I have a very old aluminum breadbasket sort of piece that is a sheet with cutouts to mimic lace, then scrunched to form a 10-inch scalloped bowl shape with textured a fourth of an inch wire coiled into discs and attached as handles. Okay, kind of hard for me to picture all that, but I'm just going to imagine it's ornate, it's scrunchy, and it's made out of aluminum. He continues, based on the workmanship, it is probably from shortly after aluminum became more available, but before it became cheap because the handles are clearly just cut wire bolted on. I got it at least third hand, so no origin story. Now, this is where Paul gets into fantasy territory, and I love it. Paul says, Aluminum is mithril, or at least that is my headcanon. Mithril is a whitish silver metal that is light, extremely hard, magically scarce, and doesn't corrode. Aluminum is a whitish silver metal that is light, extra hard at the surface, magically scarce as metal, and doesn't visibly corrode. Therefore, mithril is aluminum. I like it. Sacred metal from Lord of the Rings. Aluminum. is that what Bilbo's mail is made out of? Yeah. Yeah, I believe so. Yeah. All right. I applaud all of that, Paul. Uh, but then Paul switches over to another past episode and he says, I'm sure you've gotten this a bunch already, but in the licking episodes, you left out the movie trope of licking a blade, sometimes bloody or licking the hostage or victim's face, uh, as a threat. Hmm. This is true. You do see the, the licking of the blade. Um, I guess I instantly think of Bram Stoker's Dracula, Francis Ford Coppola's. Same here. Yeah. Gary Oldman. It's the, uh, the shaving razor there. Remember he's shaving, he's giving him a shave and then he's. Yeah. I think of that every time I lick peanut butter off of a butter knife. I think of, uh, I think of, uh, Dracula. Even a butter knife that creeps me out. No, if you, if you know what you're doing, like I do, uh, it's never an issue. Uh, don't tell the people that we're going to get sued. Don't lick a knife. yeah be careful out there everyone you're not a vampire you can't regrow your tongue we don't know how many tongues Gary Oldman's Dracula lost over the years perfecting that little trick so yes but good point that is a common trope especially the blade licking sometimes the face lick I don't know the face licking sometimes is a bit much Paul continues I sent you a suggestion for content a while back on the theme of you are what you eat citing several animals that concentrate poisons from their food and wanted to expand on that idea. Microplastics, mercurial tuna, C-14 dating, land reclamation using heavy metal sequestering plants, flamingo feathers, salmon flesh. I forget a couple. LOL. Keep up the good work, Paul. Thank you, Paul. That's a good topic idea. Yeah, yeah. You are what you eat. Yeah. okay another response to that episode comes from brian this is subject line death from gold happy new year robert joe and jj loved your twilight zone question can you die from being painted gold we didn't actually answer that question in the episode it just came up because we were talking about goldfinger and is that is that what it's from goldfinger yes i think i mentioned that growing up everything i knew about gold i learned from gold finger um that you could paint somebody to death with it and that if you radiated a large supply of gold then your supply of gold would be worth more gold finger science yeah uh well so we talked in the episode about whether that's actually true that you can be painted gold or not but we didn't research it for the episode it just kind of came up in passing so we didn't know the answer uh brian says believe Believe it or not, someone did it, as in killed someone by painting them gold. His example is Pope Leo X, a Medici and arguably the worst pope of all time, had a boy fully painted gold to celebrate the pope's return to Florence. The boy died mere days later. I'm sure paint in the 16th century was highly questionable in and of itself. So presumably any of the substances in the paint could have been the cause. but yes we do have death by gold paint and maybe also Ian Fleming's inspiration for the gold finger woman all the best Brian well Brian I looked this up one so obviously with stories like this you never know how much faith to put in but I did look this up and this is a real historical anecdote that part of this big festival in whatever year this was this was the 16th or 17th century uh that uh whatever year this was uh there was a big parade a big festival and yeah it was a baker's son was painted gold as one of the dancers at this festival uh and he it is said that he died later and it like gives the it gives the measly sum of money that was paid to his family as i was saying you never know for sure how much uh to accuracy stories like that have uh from that far back in history, but I guess it does seem plausible. The commonly given interpretation is the one they talk about in Goldfinger where you have to breathe through your skin and painting your skin gold prevents you from breathing. That, from what I can tell, is not true. I mean, as we talked about a bit in the Twilight Zone episode, you breathe with your lungs, not significantly through your skin, but painting your skin could still be dangerous for other reasons, not related to, you know, preventing you from getting oxygen. You can breathe through your lungs, but you need to, say, sweat and, you know, exchange heat with the environment through your skin. So painting the whole body, not just gold, but painting the whole body any color could quite possibly prevent you from getting heat out of your body and could lead to overheating and heat stroke, which, if this story is true, could be the more likely cause. Or what Brian is saying, since we don't know what was in the paint could also be the paint was fairly toxic yeah well it's harder to do this on mythbusters i guess right yeah um or we'll probably hear from them maybe they did they'll be like yeah they did it on mythbusters multiple people died i don't know they painted jamie gold so i would say questions remain there but yes thank you brian all right here's a quick one this one comes to us from zach this is a response to a vault episode about the rowan tree Zach says, greetings, Robert and Joe. During the episode on lightning struck trees in the rowan tree, you mentioned using rowan sticks to protect milk. This reminded me of a practice continuing until as late as the early 20th century of putting frogs in fresh milk to keep it fresh. Researchers recently have found that antimicrobials on the frog's skin probably helped in this. It also harkens back to the protective properties of frogs in magic mentioned in the hearth episodes. Thanks for the wonderful content, Zach. interesting huh yeah let's try this out too let's get some frogs in our milk does it work with oat milk do i have to use a different frog maybe i'm supposed to use a toad in that case or a newt i'm not sure okay next message uh david got in touch with an email that does not seem to be related to a particular episode i think he just wanted to share something that he thought would appeal to us he attached a photo he took from Visalia, California. It's a bit of graffiti on the side of a building that just says one word and the word is Cthulhu scene. So the word play here seems to be on the names of geological epics like the Pleistocene or the Holocene. And I originally interpreted this to just be a joke, meaning that we live in a particularly wretched and monstrous time. Like it is the cursed era, the time of Cthulhu. We are being, uh, we're living under the reign of a, of a wretched, hateful, monstrous being. Uh, and maybe that is it, but I decided to look up this word to see if it's actually from something and it is. Uh, so I found references to this term used by an American scholar and critical theorist named Donna Haraway, who was a, uh, is a professor emeritus at university of California, Santa Cruz. She wrote a famous essay from the 1980s called The Cyborg Manifesto. Did you ever talk about this on the show, Rob? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, this has been discussed in the show in the past, in a much older episode, so certainly something we could come back to. Yeah. So I was trying to understand what she means by the term Cthulhu scene. Obviously, I haven't read the book that is mainly about this idea, and I was trying to understand it by reading some summaries. I think I apologize if I'm misunderstanding this in any way but I think she is proposing it as an alternative to the term some people have used the term Anthropocene to describe our current age the Anthropocene is the idea that the age we live in now is the geological age that will be defined by human influence so it's our influence on the climate on geology on the environment and ecology again this is my best attempt to understand what her work means here it's that anthropocene is too human-centric a term and so she uses cthulhu scene as the name for an age in which the illusion that humankind is separate from and dominant over nature will no longer be sustainable and it will become obvious that we are not discrete individuals that we are not separate from the natural world that everything has its tentacles in everything else, us in nature nature in us because we not actually separate We just fully entangled Again apologies to Haraway if I mischaracterized this in any way but that is my understanding of this word And so I feel like I understand it less as a graffito with that meaning, though I don't know, maybe it's just trying to bring awareness of this concept. I can't rule out that it's just a coincidence that somebody independently came up with this word to mean like we live in the age of monsters. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I'll have to read more about this Cthulhu scene idea. It does kind of feel like a shoehorning of Cthulhu into something that didn't require Cthulhu, but I don't know. The general idea sounds really fascinating. Maybe we'll come back to it. Hi, this is Jo Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast, where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a mini driver. The Irish traveler said when I was 16, you're going to have a terrible time with men. Actor, storyteller, and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom loving and different perspectives. and I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius like are misunderstood. A sun and Venus in Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership. He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms, on different houses, in different places, but just an embracing of the is-ness of it all. If you're navigating your own transformation or just want a chart-side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity, and real life, This episode is a must listen. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind Games is the story of NLP. its crazy cast of disciples and the fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all? NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What do you do when the headlines don't explain what's happening inside of you? I'm Ben Higgins, and if you can hear me, it's where culture meets the soul. A place for real conversation. Each episode, I sit down with people from all walks of life. Celebrities, thinkers, and everyday folks. And we go deeper than the polished story. We talk about what drives us, what shapes us, and what gives us hope. We get honest about the big stuff. Identity when you don't recognize yourself anymore. Loss that changes you. Purpose when success isn't enough. Peace when your mind won't slow down. Faith when it's complicated. Some guests have answers. Most are still figuring it out. If you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2023, a story gripped the UK, evoking horror and disbelief. The nurse who should have been in charge of caring for tiny babies is now the most prolific child killer in modern British history. Everyone thought they knew how it ended. A verdict, a villain, a nurse named Lucy Letby. Lucy Letby has been found guilty. But what if we didn't get the whole story? The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapses. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby, we follow the evidence and hear from the people that lived it to ask what really happened when the world decided who Lucy Letby was. No voicing of any skepticism or doubt. It'll cause so much harm at every single level if the British establishment of this is wrong. Listen to Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, here's another one. This one comes to us from Lawrence. Subject line, Flower to Disappear. And I guess we should establish the context in which this came up. I was looking back and trying to figure it out. I think it was, we were talking about Star Trek. And the question was, does the flower to disappear from the Mexican Santa Claus movie have the same philosophical problem as the Star Trek transporter where we can't know that it doesn't just kill you every time? I think this was, yeah, I think this connection, specific connection, was brought up by a listener. I think maybe this is a listener mail response to another listener mail, which is totally fine for folks to do. I thought we brought that up, but maybe I'm totally wrong. Either way, we made it our own. We ended up talking about it. Lawrence gets in touch with an email that kind of obviates that debate. Yes, he says, Hey guys, just a quick correction of what I think is a mistaken conclusion from your last mailbag episode. You considered that Santa in the 1959 Santa Claus dies when he uses the flower to disappear and is recreated when he reappears. I just rewatched the film this past Christmas. If you're not familiar with this film, look it up. We also did a past Weird House Cinema episode about it. It's one of our favorites and MST3K fans are well aware of it as well. but Lawrence says it's pretty clear the flower to disappear is not teleportation it's not a teleportation device it's an invisibility device Santa sniffs it once and once when visible to become invisible and sniffs it again while invisible to reappear he doesn't dematerialize he can see, hear, think and act while invisible this is made pretty clear in his dialogue with Merlin yes, if you're not familiar with this movie Merlin is also in the picture. Thanks guys. Lawrence. Thank you, Lawrence. Now that you say this, I think you're exactly right. I remember scenes like this in the movie, but is it not actually both ways? I thought I remembered teleportation as well. Doesn't Santa sniff the flower to disappear and then like appear on the roof above or something? I'm going to have to watch it again now. I'm blanking as well. What is the sense of it? Okay, Rob, should we skip ahead to some messages about Weird House Cinema? Yeah, let's do it. Okay, I'm going to read this one from Hannah. Hannah says, subject line, Happy New Year, justice for Kiefer. I thought this was going to be about the drink, but it's about the actor. Oh, Kiefer Sutherland. Yes. Hannah says, hi, dear hosts. I had a sort of potpourri of remarks to share this time, but I wanted to start with heartfelt gratitude again for the companionship and brain candy your show provides. Spotify tells me I'm in the top 0.5% of listeners this year, which was delightful but unsurprising since in addition to keeping up with new episodes, I frequently re-listen to old ones when there's an idea I want to return to and nibble upon like a squirrel gnawing on an unsuspecting tourist. I like it. I support it. Thank you, Hannah. Hannah says, plus there were a couple of weird house selections this year that made me audibly squeal with delight when I saw their titles in my feed. On that topic, Dark City. Controversial opinion, perhaps, but I don't totally hate Kiefer Sutherland's performance. I speculate the intention might have been to imply that he was a polio survivor with the breathless speech plus the limp. Just a thought. Interesting. I wouldn't have even had the background knowledge to understand that reference. Yeah, that could make sense. Yeah, I mean, obviously, it's often the case where actors will make their specific choices based on things that are maybe no longer in the actual shooting script, or it's just outside research, something that they need to do to stitch together their approach to the performance internally. Hannah goes on, next topic, crabs. Last year, or maybe the year before, you read my letter about crabs in a Werner Herzog voice, which has indelibly associated Herzog with crabs in my mind. imagine the end scene of his Nosferatu with the rider galloping into the mist but instead it's a crab okay anyway I was driving to work in the breaking dawn the other day after an ice storm took down the last of the leaves and I thought it's getting pretty bleak out here makes me think about crabs I am not demanding a crab episode by any means because it's much more fun to hear about whatever y'all feel inspired to cover but I did ponder the idea that just like the process of carcinization, all podcasts may eventually become about crabs. Finally, a Weird House Cinema recommendation, Delicatessen, the 1991 French dystopian romantic comedy about cannibalism. Warmly, Hannah. Well, thank you, Hannah. By total coincidence, it was not because of your message. Just last night I was looking into like, is there any really good crab stuff we haven't covered yet? I just feel an itching to come back to crabs. I was coming across a few things. I was having to get deeper into the more obscure corners of crab science and crab history, but I was getting some good stuff. So, Rob, we may go there in the future. Yeah, I mean, I think tomorrow's monster fact episode is going to deal with a fictional crab. Just happens to be the case. and I'm not 100% certain, but I think there's like a 30, 40% chance of crabs in the next core episode that will publish this Thursday. Don't hold me to that, you know, just a 30 to 40% chance. So there may be no crabs. Don't blame the forecast if that is the case. But yeah, thanks for this email. I appreciate the insight on Kiefer's performance in Dark City. Um, always, always open to discussion on that sort of thing. And as far as Delicatessen goes, uh, yeah, I, I, I've thought about doing a Jeanneau film at some point. Uh, maybe this or City of Lost Children would be appropriate. Um, Amelie even, uh, that one's, that one's still plenty weird and very, very visual. Uh, used to be one of my, my favorite films. I haven't seen it a long time though. And of course, there's Alien Resurrection. Wait. Sorry, I just had to look this up because I was thinking, wait, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, I was sure that we're mixing up two people here, but you're right. All of those are City of Lost Children, Amelie, Delicatessen, Alien Resurrection. Yeah, I mean, Alien Resurrection is definitely one of his films. I mean, the visual fingerprints are all over it. Say what you will about it. It has a distinctive visuals though. All right, here's another one. This one comes to us from Scott. Scott says, I look forward to each Friday when the latest Weird House episode drops. It is always interesting to hear your take on those with which I'm already familiar and have added several to my to-watch list based on your reviews and dissection. It recently occurred to me that Ralph Bakshi's Wizards would fit nicely as a Weird House candidate. I was rather surprised on checking the past episode list on Letterboxd to see that you haven't covered any of Bakshi's work. While his films can be somewhat uneven in terms of quality, they almost universally tick the weird checkbox. I'd love for you to cover any of his work. Granted, several of them aren't exactly conducive to being covered in a family-friendly podcast, but there are several very good ones, including my favorite, Wizards. I mean we should we one day do Lord of the Rings but then it's like oh no it's this one yeah I mean that has greatness in it but it is a very very uneven film but there are some great stretches there's some weird choices and you know it feels rather unfinished for a number of reasons but we very well could isn't it the one that after the Battle of Helm's Deep it's like and thus concludes the tale of Lord of the Rings yeah Yeah, and we also have the wizard, I think they call him Arumon in that instead of Saruman, because they didn't want the Sauron-Sauruman confusion to take place. And he looks like Santa Claus. Well, you know, he does look like a wizard. Oh, maybe I'm misremembering. I thought he was wearing a red robe. Saruman the White is wearing a red robe. Am I remembering that wrong? He might, yeah. Okay. But like I say, I still have a lot of love for that picture, but it is very uneven. Scott continues, the classic good versus evil theme mixes well, talking about wizards here, with a magical natural lifestyle struggling against corrupting technology conflict premise. The movie is mostly classical pre-digital animation mixed with rotoscope snippets from classic war movies such as Zulu, The Battle of the Bulge, and Alexander Nevsky. Some of the animation is stunningly beautiful. The movie combines a generous amount of humor with an examination of some disturbing aspects of human nature and history. there are lots of nods to underground comic legends robert crumb and von bode i'm not familiar with this latter figure anyway scott concludes here if you haven't seen wizards i highly recommend it as always thanks for all the content you provide great stuff yeah i've never seen it i've seen images from it and it always looks interesting but never seen it yeah we'll put it on the list all right do we need to call it there for today let's go ahead and call it uh this will be an end to this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind Listener Mail, but there will be another one in the future. So continue to write in. Write in about new episodes, past episodes, episodes from the vault, episodes you would like to hear in the future, weird house cinema selections you would like to gleefully discover that are coming to fruition. All of it is fair game. Just write in to say hi if you want. Just a reminder to everyone out there that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, a short form episode on Wednesdays, and on Fridays, I'm in love. Huge thanks, as always, to our excellent audio producer, JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hi, you can email us at contact at stufftoblowyourmind.com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. In 2018, the FBI took down a ring of spies working for China's Ministry of State Security, one of the most mysterious intelligence agencies in the world. The Sixth Bureau podcast is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Adventures of Curiosity Cove podcast, when peanut butter disappears from school, Ella, Scout, and Layla launch a full detective mission. Their search leads them back in time to meet a brilliant inventor whose curiosity changed the world. In this Black History Month adventure, asking questions, thinking creatively, can lead to amazing discoveries. Listen to Adventures of Curiosity Cove every Monday from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, a.k.a. neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can scroll the headlines all day and still feel empty. I'm Ben Higgins, and If You Can Hear Me is where culture meets the soul. Honest conversations about identity, loss, purpose, peace, faith, and everything in between. Celebrities, thinkers, everyday people, some have answers, most are still figuring it out. And if you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.