The Cognitive Dissonance of Exorcisms

That's cos you know, you're angst and then wham, the rest of the evening you're just you know, carefree, laid back. Doesn't it end in laughter yoga? Well, laughter yoga's next door, but it's why so you can hear it. And it's kind of hard sometimes to figure out which classes which, Yeah is it exorcism, is it the laughter yoga? Is it the children's karate class? I don't know. It all kind of mills together. Yeah, yeah, well that's the wife

for you. Yeah, but I jove exorcism. A lot of people arguing it's not quite to the point yet where you can go and take it at the y But there are a lot of folks getting the devil yanked out of him by various holy people. It's true. In a two thousand and five gallop pole, they found that of Americans believe that quote people on this earth are

sometimes possessed by the devil unquote. And they didn't necessarily go and put this in their um straight up findings as they normally do, because they couldn't quite construe what that meant. The gallop pole was like, m do they mean metaphorically possessed by the devil? Do they truly think this?

And yet there that figure stands. Yeah, I mean because you can say, like, well, hey, that that guitarist, he is a man possessed up there in the stage, But it doesn't mean you actually think that the Lord of Hell has inhabited his body to enable more creative guitar playing. You know. Yes, Um, that's my own personal thing when I'm when I'm exercising myself out to be as a bulb. How do you exercise yourself? Do you like you have like a prerecorded video mirror mirror? But then you can't

exercise yourself if you're possessed, Right, that's the devil exercising itself. Oh, I don't know, Robert. It seems to me like there are all sorts of rules here with this whole exorcism thing, which we'll talk about in a little bit. But um, but I think that's piqued our interests because it actually

has been on the rise exorcisms. Yeah, and you know, we're at heart of science podcasts, so obviously we're not going to be We're not asking the question are these people really being possessed by demonic creatures from other planes of existence? I'm just gonna go ahead and say, no,

that's not actually happening. But but that doesn't mean that what's happening isn't real in in some senses, and isn't really fascinating you to try and figure out, Yeah, why someone would think they were possessed or another person would tag that person is being in the same that we've we've talked about alien abduction encounters, and you know, we're pretty sure on the fact that and we definitely approached the topic from the standpoint of no, they're not being

abducted by extraterrestrials and probed upon. But but what is going on is interesting in terms of of their of what's going on in their brain, how they're interpreting it, how they're weaving it into their worldview. And there's some similar stuff to discuss with exorcism. Yeah, and so we'll be talking about that, We'll be talking about why it's on the rise, We'll talk about what Mother Teresa has to do with it, and why they can actually be really,

really dangerous. Yeah, and there's a as far as exorcism goes again, ancient rights of exorcism exist in various cultures throughout the world. It basically comes down to ideas that there is an evil foreign force, spirit, a demon um they're you know, various versions of this have inhabited somebody's body and it needs to be removed, either sucked out

or banished um dependent by somebody who is holy. Now, most people are pretty familiar with the with of course, the movie The Exorcist or some of these more recent exorcism movies that have made the rounds, and that's a very you know, iconic vision of the the Catholic priest, you know, climbing up the stairs, going in and encountering a possessed child and uh and having all these uh vomit and urine, which I call motherhood on a day to day basis. That's right, that's just what I call it.

As male priests are freaking out, you guys are just like Tuesday, right exactly. But yeah, I mean that is the thing that I think most people refer to, and it is a terrifying movie. Yeah, but not to get on a whole discussion of horror movies thing, but I actually think the most disturbing things in that movie are not the oh my goodness, look what that child is

saying or doing. And I think there's some early like the early moments where like the child is referring to an imaginary friend or is making this little um I forget if it's like a little clay statue and it resembles the vaguely resembles this uh this ancient demon statue reference earlier in the film. Like, I think it's a great film, but I think the moments that work best or not those iconic crazy moments. No, no, well, and it is a good build up in the way it's

filmed is really interesting. But yeah, yeah, but this is not a discussion Exorcist. Sorry, no, no, I mean, but we have to talk about it. It's huge in in our parlance when we talk about these types of things. But then there are there are various other cultures. UM will take uh to take Judaism for instance. UM in two thousand nine, just to just to give you just a taste of another world of exercism. Uh. In two thousand nine, uh Uh, famed Israeli master of the Kabbala,

Rabbi uh Dovid Batsori, attempted to remove a debuck. Uh. It's like d y b b uk, which is which is another you know idea like I say, demons and

evil spirit, cetera. He attempted to remove it from a Brazilian man via the internet, like via via Skype, which I which I really love because because we were talking about this yesterday when we were prepping for this, and and I was like, well, you know, people do um like hypnotherapy through Skype, So I wonder if people can do UM or at least you know, an attempt to do exorcism through Skype. It seems possible. And sure enough, yeah, yeah,

and then you have this. That's the story that also mentioned the two fishmongers in a really orthodox orthodox suburb suburb of New York. They found a carp that was talking about the end of the world and it was singing yeah. And then what was There's some quote that said two men do not share the same dream, and so they both claim to have heard the carp speaking in another language saying the end is near. So that's what caused the fur because everybody's like, well, if two

people witnessed this, then it must be true. Yeah one man singing are talking, that's just too yeah. Um. But but then you have various other cultures that are that are far removed from this. For instance, then in Bedouin tribes, there's this tradition of like that they're really big into the whole idea of the evil eye, like like somebody gives you that weird stare like a stranger. You know, we just caused No, no, well that's more like, yeah,

because you have an evil stare. Um. But but that wasn't But but no, you get this evil stare, the evil eye, and suddenly it's like you know, and for us it just might kind of mess up your morning, like whoa, why was the dude on marta stare at me like that? But but in in some in bed Win tradition that means like you kind of got this curse, You've got this evil eye, and and you've gotta have it removed. And then a female healer would actually take

it out of you and bring it into her. But she's got enough like holy protections going on and she can handle it. Yeah, she's probably got some other rituals. Yeah, so you mean they're very all these different purging rituals. Um. You know, they're involving everything from like salt water too, uh, into rolling people up and runs and kind of beating them with sticks kind of a thing. Um, just about any way you could possibly imagine trying to coax a

demon out of somebody it's been trying. The latter one is the one that I said sounded like boor at. Yeah, but you do. You find it in all different cultures of religions um, Islam, Hinduism, but we mostly think of it in the Roman Catholic Church. And they define um a sort of possession to look like something like this, where you're speaking in a language that the person has

never learned. Uh. There's an extraordinary show of strength, a sudden aversion to spiritual things like holy water or the name of God and severe sleeplessness, lack of appetite, and cutting, scratching and biting the skin. Okay, so those are sort of the hallmarks that that Roman Catholicism looks for in terms of possession. Um. And of course, with Worth's worth noting that none of those things are are super natural.

You know, it's like anybody, anybody could could could have those symptoms if they just really wanted to do one more of their suffering. Well. And then also then we'll talk about this a little bit later, there's also the interpretation, right, so you how are you looking at the situation? What are you interpreting it as if someone is speaking in gobbledygook? Is that suddenly a language? Um? So there's that uh.

And then there's the question of what does an exorcism look like according to the Roman Catholic Church, and for them, it's a twenty four page ritual based on prayers in which the priest invokes the name of Jesus, uses holy water, the cross, and can alter the prayer depending on the reaction that he gets from a possessed person. So it's kind of it's a manual of sorts, but it's also one of those things like Okay, hey, if they're not doing this, go to kin to three A and try

this one. Y, Yeah, skip this and go forward. Um. So, in a person who claims to be possessed must be evaluated by doctors to rule out a mental or physical illness, according to Vatican guidelines issued in and Pope Benedict sixteen has supported wider use of exorcism in the Catholic Church as of late, like I believe the last five years or so, and this sort of wholesale return of Roman Catholicism, Catholicism back to its roots, so to speak. Okay, so

there you go. That's that's what we're going to focus on today, is this sort of Roman Catholicism. Um. But

also why people are submitting themselves to this practice. Yeah, that's the thing, um, I mean, really, the more you look at it, you look at this, this ritual, this encounter between the person who either believes they have a demon in them or is told they have a demon in them, and in doing so, I think in many cases come to believe they have a demon in and the person sent to cleanse them off it the and generally we're talking about an authority figure of some kind

at least in a spiritual sense. Yeah, and this is sort of a social role playing, right. You know, we talked about this a little bit, and you have a very interesting take on this, which is particularly in earlier years,

although it still happens now. If you are ashamed of something about yourself, right, and you can't quite square with the reality that you're living in, UM, then you might look at this part of yourself as part of your personality and think that it is part of this demonic possession because it's an easy way to sort of just sweep it away without having to actually deal with this

part of your personality. Right. And this is what behavioral psychologists refer to as cognitive dissidents, which is termed originating the n and it's basically refers to the feeling of

discomfort the results from holding to conflicting beliefs UM. And I think like the the most easily UM discussed example of this is in in some societies, you'll have somebody who has homosexual desires, but they live in a culture or a subculture that that tells them that this is not something that you that this is something you choose.

You cannot naturally feel this way, so you're in a situation where you feel something, and you feel something real inside you, but the world around you is telling you that it cannot be. It cannot be a natural part of you. Know, So it's not a natural part of you. You need some sort of story to explain. It's some sort of some sort of way to to deal with that cognitive dissonance. Yeah, And typically your brain is going

to deal with it in one of three ways. One, you may try to change one or more of your behaviors or beliefs, um. Two, you may try to acquire new information or beliefs to increase the consonants, which will lessen the overall dissonance. Right. So whatever part of the part that's making you uncomfortable, it could perhaps lessen that. Again, this is a good example of well that the double

made me do it, right Yeah. Um. Three, you could forget or downplay the importance of the cognition that's butting up against the contradictory cognition. So when we're talking about this exercist and really sort of falls into that second category. So, okay, if it's not if I can't explain this this sexual preference that I have, which is really butting up against this um religion that I subscribed to. Then it must

be this outside force acting on which is sort of interesting. Yeah, and I guess it's the kind of thing kind of takes uh. I mean just yeah, the the idea of the devil, Uh, it kind of goes goes back to that whole idea that like the devil getting made me do it. You know, So suddenly there's something that's not really cool with you, Like maybe it's you know, it

could be anything. It could be uh, you know, your your preference to to go out and have a drink every now and then, or or you know the fact that you're kind of a jerk sometimes you know, you can just explain it away and blame it on some external force that's not you, and you're like, well, hey, you know I And then you know, it takes the heat off of you. It's like I can't really help it.

The devil actually made me do that, so right, and then you've got the whole social role playing right and um, as you've already noted that the extra this was completely iconic movie, you already have sort of a game plan here for how you're going to be possessed UM and through folklore, you know, two movies, there has been some sort of UM guidelines so to speak to how you're supposed to act. Right. It's kind of like the first

time you're pulled over by a police officer. You know how it's gonna go because you've seen it happen and on TV shows and movies, magistration and license right exactly, UM or UM job interviews like that's another like classic, like you go in, you meet somebody and you go through these various exchanges. It's kind of like an exorcism, right. And then it's that you know, you encountering this figure, certain business is going to take place, and everyone pretty

much knows how it goes. You're both playing a role, right. And so then you've got this social contract that you've entered into, right because you're trying to lessen the dissonance, and you say, okay, this must be this outside force. All right, now, I'm going to enter into this sort of confirmation bias world. And when I say confirmation bias, it basically means that you're gonna start to see patterns where there may not be any patterns. Um. This is

from physicist Leonard Meledina's drunkards. Walk books quite interesting when he talks about confirmation bias. He says, when we are in the grasp of an illusion, or for that matter, whenever we have a new idea, instead of searching for ways to prove our ideas wrong, we usually attempt to prove them correct. Psychologists call this the confirmation bias, and it presents a major impediment to our ability to break

free from the mist misinterpretation of randomness. So I bring this up just because if if someone again has this part of their their self that they might be ashamed of, or they have a mental illness, or um, they just might have something going on with themselves that they can't quite understand or pin down, then they could start to say, well, I have this feeling in myself and uh, you know, and I'm acting out in rage at times, and there

are irregularities in my personality. This is starting to fit into possession, right. So it's very easy for the person to go down that road, and it's very easy for the person who is acting on that person as an exorcist to start to cobble together those details too. And

this is I think really important too. And understanding the past and how exorcisms came to be because think about prior to UM, to neuroscience, to gosh, even like the nineteen seventies, if someone had a toddler, if they had night terrors, a parent could say, oh my god, my kid must be possessed because my kid is acting like she doesn't know me. She's spitting, she's biting, she's vomiting.

You know, I don't know that vomiting actually happens with night terrors, but she's really upset, and people could easily misinterpret that for her being possessed. UM and she's seventeen fifty nine night terror. Yeah. So we're going to continue to discuss extitism, but first let's take this quick break. This presentation is brought to you by Intel Sponsors of Tomorrow,

and we're back. It's it's worth it's worth stressing again though, the power of the role playing aspect of all of this, because I mean that encounter like it's such a I mean, it's it's such an ego stroke. You know that at a devil or the devil has inhabited me and it's responsible for my problems. And now I'm gonna go to somebody important and they're going to remove it from me, and I'm gonna start fresh, um, and we're all going

to congratulate. Congratulate because the person who's doing it to you has all the power, and then saying, oh, look what I did, and you're saying, oh, thank you for vanquishing. Yeah. I actually I wasn't present for an exorcism, but I did like walk in on an exorcism once sort of like an acknowledge it. And then I was like okay, and then I walked in back into the next room. I should probably back up and explain you should we

need Yeah. Uh So when I was in high school, I had a brief period of light where I was like really really into um into the church I was going to at the time, which was a small Southern Baptist church in in Tennessee. And uh well, I mean it was a fair sized church for a small town, but anyway, Southern Baptist church, and they would have this thing for the youth on on weekend evenings, like maybe it was like every Friday for a while or something. But they would have a coffee shop, you know, kind

of like the old nineteen fifties Christian coffee shop. You know, they have live acoustic music and kids would have cappuccinos and stuff, and you know, and that's all well and good. You know, I would you know, I might go to something like that today. But but also we were like a lot of teenagers that were really into this, uh, this spirituality at the time and into what it into

what it might mean and uh. And you know, teenagers think they're pretty important and they see the world they want to fight the man or or stand up and make a difference in the world. And so what better way than like dealing with the devil head on, which also plays into the whole angst, right, Yeah, the teenager's experience. Not to mention naval gazinglin why am I here? Yeah exactly? It like it, it plays into into all of that.

So so I remember like exploring something like I remember going to a church we uh with a friend of mine. We went down to check out this church and in Huntsville, Alabama, and it was one of these where they would touch people and they would fall down, not healed, but laughing hysterically.

Like everyone who was touched would fall down to laughing hysterically, and and it was really something to behold because it was you know, it was like this was the environment everyone was acting, and this was the social contract of this scenario where this man would would touch you and heal you and like in a hysterical sense, and you would you would fall down and then they'd come and

cover you with a blanket. And so if if that is possible, then where you can where you can enter a social contract where a man's touch will bring ing out this you know, this total positive response in you, then it makes perfect sense that that the that that that you would have an exit, that the exorcism role playing scenario would work as well. But but anyway, so one night I was at the coffee shop and and my my friend there came up and he said, he said, hey, uh,

you should come check out in the back room. We have we have this this guy and he has the devil in him. We're going to exercise him. And uh. And I was like, all right, you know, I'll check I'll,

you know, i'll I'm interested in saying this. So I walked back there and sure enough, there's this guy, this other kid, you know, I don't know, he's like, you know, thirteen fourteen something like that, and uh, and he's just setting there kind of look looking kind of dejected, you know, like he's got some some heavy stuff on his mind. You know, he's not you know, strapped to a bed.

He's not cursing and spitting or anything crazy. You know, he just looks like he's got some stuff he's dealing with. And uh. And so I was kind of like, okay, cool, I'll leave this to you guys. Um he took off. You're like, I'm not saying around for the Well, yeah, I don't know. I guess I felt like I probably didn't have much to offer. My exorcism skills weren't very good then and they haven't improved over the years. So um, so I was not going to be much help. So

I just left them to carry it out. But it was, you know, it was kind of like I can easily imagine like a dude feeling like a teenager, feeling kind of depressed, like a lot of teenagers do. And uh. And you're in an environment where like, hey, this might be the problem and we can fix it, you know,

why not why not engage in that situation? Well, and that's what I think is interesting about that scenario because it seems like a safe sort of scenario for a release, right, because that's what we're really talking about, whether or not you're being touched by someone and and made to laugh hysterically, or if if the devil is being vanished from you.

It's sort of a metaphorical thing in these cases, right, And neither one is really that far from like just the the old fashioned come to Jesus, you know, thing like walk forward and be saved kind of a deal where you're calling on people like, hey, come try this out. It'll change your life. And then ultimately it's kind of well why not. All I have to do is walk down there and if it doesn't work, I'm out, you know, right right in this in this sense, it's really is

very safe. It's a I've heard it referred to as like a proto psychotherapy session, you know. It's it's it's a bit of psychotherapy. You can get it out of your system, so to speak. Um, And I think again with with kids, it's really interesting because you do sort of you are dwelling in that that area of your imagination at that time and trying to work out a

lot of the world's mysteries. At least I did, And you know, I mentioned to you that Dark Forces was a book series of my brother and I just consumed when I was very little and very little eight or ten or something, um, and was completely obsessed with with the occult and and all these different things. So I think it's a I think it's an interesting way to

go about it. I think where it gets dangerous and problematic is when uh, exorcism is foisted upon people who don't really have a voice for themselves, and that can be kids and teenagers and certainly mentally folks. And they've been deaths. I mean, there's been like I was, I

think I mentioned earlier how saltwater sometimes used. There have been people who have died from saltwater poisoning due to exorcisms people have I mean, it's you can do a Google news search and you'll find some rather harrowing results. Oh yeah, yeah, there's there's a laundry list of of different ways that people have died, and unfortunately a lot of kids too, with the hands usually of their parents. UM. And of course the Catholic Church will tell you, okay,

well we screen, but again it's up for interpretation. And in the earlier days, like in the seventies, I think they were looking for people who had epilepsy and saying, oh, well they must be epileptic. They don't worry there, you're not possessed. But there wasn't really a good understanding of

mental illness or even something like Tourette Um. So you know if you if you had Tourette syndrome and like teen fifty you have, you know that you might be an atmosphere where that cultural script said that you were possessed. But I mean recently there have been deaths um. I think one of the most famous ones is annalyse Michelle. This is a twenty two year old German woman who died from starvation and dehydration and underwent sixty seven exorcisms over a year and a half period. Uh yeah, by

the church, um I should add. And then there were Pentecostal ministers in San Francisco who pummeled a woman to death in nine as they tried to drive out her demons. Uh. In nineteen seventeen year old girl was suffocated by her mom with a plastic bag in effort to destroy the demon inside her. And most recently, a two year old died um in Fort Wayne, Indiana this year from an exorcism exorcism performed by his mother. And I won't go

into details because it's terribly depressing. Sorry, sorry, but you know, I think it's important just to throw that out that, um, there has been an uptick in exorcism. So it's that's why I think you have to look at it as a whole and say, Okay, here's the metaphorical part, not not a problem. You know, kids working things out, um, people working things out for themselves on a metaphorical level. Here's the physical level where it can go way too far.

And this cognitive dissonance really becomes a problem if you submit yourself to that level where you say, okay, I submit my mind in my body to this act um. And actually the uptaking exorcism is happening here in the United States and Poland, in Mexico as well, and in a November article in The New York Times called for Catholics interest and exorcism is revived. UH says priests say they're overwhelmed with requests for exorcisms in the US. Conferences

have been held to prepare more priests and bishops for exorcisms. UM. A recent UH conference they had sixty six priests and fifty six bishops turn out, and the goal was for each diocese to have someone who could at least screen request. So the Catholic Church will say, though, that the purposes not necessarily to revive the practice, but to help Catholic clergy members learn how to distinguish who really needs an exorcism from who really needs a psychiatrist or pastoral care.

M okay, which I still think, Okay, well, all that's interesting, and yet it does seem like a practice that is should have maybe gone away within the age of horse and buggies and uh. And then there's the whole point that Pope Benedict sixteenth has been returning to more sort of classical um, I guess ways of looking at the church and um and caring for its church members. Yeah, I guess I would. I would hope that most people that would come in seeking an exorcism would be it

would would be advised to pursue various other treatments. It just seems I just I do hate to think of somebody with any kind of legitimate problem being referred to the exorcist. Yeah. Yeah, and this this art coal it said, um, this man by doctor Apple be a longtime observer of the bishop said, what they're trying to do in restoring exorcisms is to strengthen enhance what seems to be lost in the church, which is the sense that the church

is not like any other institution. It's supernatural, and the key players in that our heart are the hierarchy and the priests who can be given the faculties of exorcism. So, you know, the syneca me says that it's just it's a it's a bit of a power thing. Yeah, I don't know. I can't get too into hole into them. I mean, I'm as discussing the past. I'm all open for like the you know, the positive aspects of various religions, you know, take take what you want and run with them.

But I don't know, when you start throwing devils into the whole mix, it gets a little problematic in my opinion, it does. It doesn't. Like I said, for the metaphorical part, I'm all for that, this sort of like proto psychotherapy of hey, let's let's work this out with this part amount. Uh, But yeah, when it reaches the physical realm, it's a bit problematic. Um. Mother Teresa, did you know that she

had an exorcism performed on her. This was late in life, right, yeah, yeah, she underwent an exorcism after a bout of insomnia was blamed on the devil, so says the Archbishop of Calcutta, Henry Sebastian Disusa, who happened to be in the hospital

with her at the same time. And she would had been admitted for heart problems before her death in September, And so when doctors couldn't find a medical reason for her sleeplessness, he thought that she was being attacked by the devil and he wanted her to calm down, and so he went to her and said, would you like to have an exorcism performed on you? And she said, okay, sure. Well I guess there are two ways of looking to seither.

This is outrageous because Mother Teresa was you know, great woman, did all this work, Beacon of light, beacon of light, you know, super holy. Why would she have to deal with this especially right, you know, right, why would the devil dog her now? But then also you could look at it, well, she's super you know, um hooked into

all into the spiritual world. You know, she's like a So she's kind of like a computer running without firewalls or virus protection, and so if she gets one bad email in it could it could mess up the whole system. So yeah, yeah, and he claims that she she was fine afterward, and um, the all they did was a prayer of protection, So it wasn't like they were I

imagine I wasn't there. I haven't read any accounts, but I would like to think that they were just sort of saying the prayer and not um not like for four hours screaming in her Yeah. Maybe maybe she got an abbreviated version. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, someone was standing over you for four hours screaming prayers in your face. Do you think you get so upset that you would vomit? Maybe? I mean I'm just saying like, this is when the

hallmarks too, right. I mean I get kind of auntie if I have to set still for you know, over a half hour. So yeah, I imagine it would be pretty rough. Yeah. I'm just thinking about it because especially if the expercis wouldn't let me like check my my iPhone, and then I would be like, ah, this is the worst. Maybe I am possessed by the devil. I'm just thinking that,

you know. I mean, it's certainly something that could get a person riled up and start behaving unusually, if if they didn't already have some sort of pre existing condition that would exacerbate that. But anyway, did you know also that the Pope has a chief exorcist? Oh? I bet he does. Yes, of course he does. Um. And his name is Father Kirila and Morth and he has carried out more than seventy thousand exorcisms in a career spanning twenty four years. Wow. Do you think there's ever like

a big Vatican like Christmas party? And because I'm just thinking, like, uh, um, our friend guy, the Vatican astronomer and protector of that does he is the guy who protects the meteorite collection. I mean that maybe another dude, but all right, So so imagine the Christmas party where uh, for a guy walks up and then he runs into the the exercy. It's like, hey, guy, I'm in charge of keeping an eye on the cosmos for for for the Vatican, and you know, and these are my science credentials. What do

you do? Well? I cast the devil out of people. You know, those guys are not gonna sit probably next to each other at the Christmas dinner. Like I can tell you that they probably whoever was planning the event was like, do not put these two together because this

opposite ends the where the Catholic churches in modern time. Yeah, because they're like Father and MOR's going to start saying that this thing again, this, this is actually quite from We have cardinals who don't believe in Christ, bishops connected with demons. Then we have these stories of pedophilia. You can see the rot when we speak of Satan's smoke

in the Holy rooms of the Vatican. So he feels like, I mean to him, like the Satan's around and this is the reason for all the horrible things that have happened to people in into the Roman Catholic Church. Yeah, well it certainly takes the heat off of people. Yeah, but definitely do not put consulmar me mis dude together. Yeah. All right, Well well that let's let's exercise some listener mail mail bag here, it's getting a little backed up.

Let's get a little coffee. Yeah, we have one here from a listener by the name of Alicia and Alicia Wrightson and says I used to work in my college bookstore. One day we received some boxes with a funny word on him. I didn't know what the word meant until I opened a box and saw what was inside a blood pressure cuff. The word was and we take a shot at this vy gummm on the meter alright, like I'm am on a meter. Yeah, it's just the side of the word. Sent me into utter hysterics, and I

was useless for a good half hour. Then I said it out loud, which got got the giggle started all over again. To this day, it remains the funniest word I've ever seen or said, and it can still make me giggle. Um. Keep up the great work with the podcast, and please check out my band The Wag at the Wag get banned dot com. Some of your HSW mates have our CD. There you go. Um, And then we have and I did check out that link to make sure it didn't like, actually go somewhere horrible. It does

go to an actual fans website. All right, good good. I'm not just simply I'm not just gonna throw links out here. Um. We also heard from a listener by the name of Samuel Um and uh which Samuel. If I'm just to get into the whole devil thing. Again, Samuel means venom of God and it was like an old demon name the old is this venom and not poison? Yeah, poison of God, venom of God. I don't know anyway. That's like again in high school is really into all

that stuff. So, but I don't have all the knowledge with me anymore. Anyway, Samuel the human not a demon, um wrote in had some very nice things to say, and then added at the end, I just listened to the podcast uh Religion in Space and Roberts saying something along the line with him loving idea of religion being carried into space in June really made me laugh, as I thought it would be the worst nightmare of Dawkins

or someone like him. Also, I imagine that a religion developed for existence in space could be like Julie joked and revolve around checking valves and taking data the same way old religions like Christianity and Islam condemn eating shellfish and uh, and shellfish, which is a primitive lifestyle, can easily cause a disease if verage wrong way. Um, So anyway,

that's interesting. Indeed, Yeah, there uh, there are a number of people who would who would get in quite a tizzy at the thought of of us taking religion in space as we as we discussed. Indeed, yeah, I thought the Dawkins part it was interesting as well. Um, yeah, he certainly probably would flip. Yeah. Um, so hey, uh, we would love to hear from you guys. Uh, your thoughts about previous podcasts, but also about this whole exorcism thing.

What are your thoughts on it? Do you, like me, have any strange encounters with exorcism or or just kind of perplexing religious experience in the past. Uh, let us know. I'd love to hear what you have to say. Um and uh. And you can also find us on Facebook and Twitter. We are blow the Mind on both of those and we regularly update that with al sorts of cool links, updates about what our latest podcasts are and what we're planning to do in the future, and we

take requests. I believe I believe this one was, like you said, it was requested by a few different people before we decided who wanted to say, why in the heck are there so many exorcisms? Yeah? What's up with these actives going on? Where can I get one? You can also email us at Blow the Mind at House to Fooks dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join House to Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.