Do you like telling children that Santa doesn't exist?
Welcome to Splintered Spirits. I'm your host, Gary, along with
my nephew John Santa from Santa Paranormal, where we try to find
the answer to the question, what are spirits?
Today we are bringing our questions to the ultimate test
by welcoming James Underdown as a guest who specializes in
applying scientific rigor to extraordinary claims.
James is the Executive Director of the Center for Inquiry West
in Los Angeles and the founder of the Independent
Investigations Group, an organization famous for offering
a $500,000 prize to anyone who can prove paranormal ability
under test conditions. As the host of Point of Inquiry
podcast and the creator of the Skepta Lab web series, James has
spent years debunking wacky claims and investigating the
unexplained. And, well, shit, John and I are
loaded with those. Let's dive into the
conversation. Hey James, welcome to Splintered
Spirits. Yeah, great.
Great to be here. Thanks for having me on.
So, you know, I wanted, I don't know how much you know about us.
You know, this whole thing started with me trying to figure
out what the hell my nephew John here is doing for a living.
You know, and I was very skeptical.
John and I were both raised Catholic in New York.
We're both atheists. Yet he has got a million
followers as a live, as a very successful live streamer on
social media. He's not a ghost hunter.
He's a documentary, and he just talks to spirits through various
apps. And I've got into this thing
trying as a producer out here, trying to figure out a, a format
around this in a podcast kind of way, but also for my own, for
myself, just really find it interesting talking to different
people about what they think spirits are and how it comes
about. And that's when I sort of
discovered the, the CFI, you know, and what you do and I'm
fascinated by it. So maybe really quickly, can you
tell me what tell me and the audience here like what CFI is
and how you came about being a being a part of it?
Yeah. So in general terms, CFI is a
non profit educational organization.
Our two main areas of focus are secular, the philosophy of
secular humanism, separation of church and state, that sort of
thing, rights of non believers. But the organization actually
started from what we call the skeptical side.
We started publishing Skeptical Enquirer magazine in 1976 and
that end of the organization just deals with all these wacky
claims, paranormal claims, everything from UFOs to the
Bermuda Triangle to spoon bending, you name it, we've
investigated it. So we have a, we have a, a
branch out here in, in Los Angeles called CFI West.
And at this branch I run a group called the CFI Investigations
Group. And we do investigations about
paranormal claims that we're the world's largest testers of
people who claim to have paranormal ability.
We have a half million dollar prize for anyone who thinks that
they can douse or look into the future or move.
Forward. So that's so that's you, James.
That's you and your organization, because I've heard
of this. Yeah.
I, I mean, that's part of the organization.
But yeah, that the CFIIDII did start the investigation's end of
it. Nice, cool.
Now James, how did you get what attracted you personally?
I mean, you were a com, you're a stand up comic and what it So
what attracted you personally to go from comedy to being which I,
you know, obviously very creative endeavour to being a
skeptic professionally. Yeah, well, I mean, I always, I
left the Catholic Church when I was like 10 or 11 years old, and
I always had an interest in religion and what people
believe. And I think, you know, when I
was a teen, I had some interest in UFOs and I read Eric von
Doniken's Chariots of the Gods and read some stuff about ESPN
and all all sort of interested me.
And then I, I found out that Skeptical Inquirer existed and
started learning the science side of all these beliefs.
And I was like, you dumb ass, you had it all wrong.
And, and then I started getting interested in, well, why do
people believe in these things and what's really going on
there? So I kind of started working
with the organization and just got deeper and deeper into it.
Do you like telling children that Santa doesn't exist?
I actually did do that. I I've ruined Christmas for my
sister and a lot of other people.
And yeah, I mean, listen, get on the right track at a young age,
all right? No, look, I appreciate, look, I
appreciate skepticism. I, I like to, you know, I, I
understand the necessity of it. What for me and for this, you
know, for what we do here and, and I got a lot of more
questions for you, but just so you sort of understand where
we're coming from. It's like for I always find
debunking unfun, right? It's just not the fun.
Like, it's easy to me to say no. And I and you know, when I look
at science as a whole, right, like more advancements have come
from, you know, the search to prove something than to disprove
something. And while yes, we can point to a
few things where disproving has worked out great, right, like
pasteurization. He Louis Pasteur was out to
disprove a theory or, you know, cars get safer by disproving how
safe they are. You know, there's certain
advances, but for the most part trying to prove something, even
in failure to prove something leads to something has has led
to greatness and moving forward. So it's, you know.
Yeah, but let's, I mean, let's be clear.
We're, we're, we don't, we're not out to debunk things.
We're out to find out what the most likely explanation for
something is. So, and you know, in our case,
that often means it's, it's this instead of that.
But I mean, it's, it's really, it's almost impossible to
disprove something depending on what it is.
Are you do you believe in do you believe there's something out
there like do you believe in ghosts or, or that or, or is it
no too far gone for? You no, no, it's it's I, I've so
I've been doing this for like 26 years now.
The investigations and and when you have a logical science based
explanation for virtually every claim we've ever encountered
either. I mean, some things we just walk
away and say, I don't there's no way to know what happened.
But when we really look into things, there's almost always a
science based explanation that is consistent with the laws of
physics and with modern science. So instead of making that leap
and saying it's a ghost or it's magic or whatever, we'll go with
the more logical explanations. Which, you know, which people
have a hard time doing, You know, you know what James is
talking about. People, especially in my field,
have a horrible time doing that. And I can give a prime example
of this. A name will come through on the
spirit box. Let's say Rachel, you know, half
of my chat is turning around saying, oh, that's my grandma.
Oh, that's my best friend. And it's like, what?
What are you talking about? It makes no sense.
It's this association that people have which is a big.
Pitfall. Well, and let's not forget too
that and this I include myself in this, we want most people
love to think that there's an afterlife, that we're going to
go somewhere and we get to see our dead relatives and friends
and things like that. We want to believe this stuff.
So that pulls most people who don't have the skeptical mindset
well into that direction at the very beginning.
And it's it is funny too that you say that because my findings
prove the opposite of that, that the afterlife as we know it
isn't this fluffy heaven clouds. We get to see grandma again,
afterlife and and people don't like to hear that.
People don't like to hear that at all.
Yeah. Well, that may be that that may
be the case. But I, I guess what I'm talking
about is that, you know, human beings understand that they're
going to die someday. And most people don't like that
idea. So any continuation, any way to
keep going has a sort of natural attraction to it.
Well, I have to. I have to say this real quick.
Once I'm unable to wipe my ass, I want to be out so.
Yeah. Because nobody wants to do that
for you, let me tell you. Why?
I don't want anybody doing that for.
Me. Nobody wants to do that.
Don't be. Out Gary, I'm sorry to keep
cutting you off it's. All right, James, what was what
do you find in all of your, you know, work has been the most
common natural explanation for what people perceive as energy
or a presence? I would say two things,
something going on with the state of their brain and and I
don't mean that as an insult. Sounds like it.
No, it's great. I love it.
No, no. Good going?
Sure. No so.
So that could be anything from some Gray area between, you
know, actually for the statement between.
Mental illness and being an idiot.
And stress. There's all sorts of things.
Exactly, stress, lack of sleep, drugs and and schizophrenia.
And I mean people see things all the time that aren't there.
So those are just sort of malfunctions of the brain or
states in some extreme that causes you to have this.
And then I always ask someone, you know, when did this thing
happen? And nine times out of 10, it's
when they're asleep. I mean, I know you guys go out
the the ghost hunter people go out and, you know, are walking
around and they're perfectly awake.
But when someone usually tells a story about a ghost encounter,
they're on the way to waking up or on their way to going to
sleep. And you get that Gray area where
you're pulling from dreams and being awake.
What is the You know, what's been the funniest failed attempt
you ever witnessed to win the 500 grand?
The funniest fail? There's been a lot of them.
I mean, as you might imagine, we we deal with some interesting
people. Oh yeah.
I bet during COVID, the guy came over and said he could teleport
himself across our parking lot, which I mean, I, this is the
test I love because all I have to do is put like some police
tape across here and tell him to go from this side to that side.
And we're just kind of everybody's got masks on.
We're like, oh, you know, anytime you're ready.
And he goes, I did it. And we're like, no, no, you
didn't. Wait a minute.
Did you guys have security? I mean, aren't you nervous about
like, let's letting this guy in the door?
Well, I yes, yes, we have security.
Yes, we are nervous sometimes. I mean, look, I have two ex cops
on my investigations team, so that helps.
And you know, I've been in a few fights myself.
So between the three of us, that calms me down a little bit.
But yeah, I mean, we've had people show up drunk off their
asses to do a telepathy test. Yeah.
Well, you know, they showed up early one time, the two guys.
And by the way, they took a bus all the way from Tacoma to get
here for the test, which raised some suspicions right away
because why would you, I mean, the, at the time, this is years
ago, at the time a, a flight from Tacoma like it was like
$225 and the bus was $223. So why not just take an airplane
to come down here? I bet, I bet in the zener test
everything was WAVY, right? WAVY lines, WAVY circle, WAVY
square. Well, he made the mistake it it
was a regular playing card, so he had a one out of 52 chance
for each guest. And so they they came early and
we said we're not ready for you yet to come back in an hour.
And they came back in an hour with this much vodka left in an
empty bottle, and they were stewed.
And we had to kind of get together and say, do we even
test these idiots? And, you know, the answer was
the answer was yes. I mean, being drunk doesn't
necessarily preclude you from having paranormal powers.
We can't just say, no, we're drunk.
We don't want to deal with you. So we let them take the test.
James, have you ever gotten a? Have you ever gotten a psychic
reading yourself? Oh yeah, many times.
What do you think? How's that been?
Well, it's I, I mean, I know a fair amount about the technique
called cold reading, and that's all it ever is.
It's, it's people prodding and probing, asking questions,
making guesses that apply to lots of people.
And you know, there's, there's books written on what cold
reading is. But it is a technique and it
does if it's done well. And some people are quite
skilled at it. If it's done well, it it, it
sounds like at least at points of the conversation, it sounds
like you know something you couldn't have otherwise known.
In 26 years of testing and and dozens and dozens of tests, what
percentage of people have tried to fool us to win the money?
Is it a 0 percent? Is it B about 50%?
Or is it C all of them tried something.
What do you guys think? I know the answer.
I watched your, I watched your website.
So I'll let John take a guess. Well, because I know how humans
are with money, I'm going to have to go with C I'm have to go
with 100%. Yeah, And that's what most
people thought. And going into it, that's what I
thought as well. And that's what.
And we still prepare for that, by the way.
We prepare for it. But the answer is A not a single
person has tried to trick us in 26 years.
Everybody who shows up is a true believer in their own abilities,
and they're often shocked when they can't perform on demand.
Wow, that's something. That's their own version.
They need their own. Yeah, they they have performance
anxiety. Yeah, right, psychic.
Performance anxiety? Well.
I mean listen, I mean. It's, it's insane.
Like, listen, I document spirits, right?
That's what I do. I'm not like Gary said, I'm not
an investigator. I'm not trying to prove this.
I'm not trying to prove that. It's amazing the amount of
people that are like, you know, we're going to send you the
healing light of the Phoenix to protect you or the, the, the
dozen Walmart mediums that come into the chat that claim that
there's a, a little boy standing in the backroom.
And it's like, like that's not logical.
There's there's no logic there. And even if they have a gift,
how am I with the three to 400 people that are watching me live
supposed to take that? We don't have a gift.
We have no special powers. We're supposed to take that at
face value. Yeah.
So yeah. James, has anything ever given
you pause? Have you ever been around
something that is unexplained? Well, the closest thing anyone
ever came to closest person anyone ever did to to pass a
test. And by the way, our tests are
two-part you have to pass what we call preliminary
demonstration. Then if you pass that, you go on
to the half million dollar prize.
And the the best anyone ever did in 26 years was one of my own
guys sitting in the hot seat during a rehearsal where we had
a bunch of objects behind a curtain.
And he had to guess, you know, one out of 10 of each of the
objects. And he got like 3 or 4 in a row,
right? And I was like, all right, quit
screwing around you guys who's playing games.
And no one was playing games. He actually just got super
lucky, you know, for those first few guesses.
After that, he tanked and, and missed the rest of them.
But yeah, I the answer is nobody has gotten that close.
It's really been sort of anti climactic.
So no one's made it to the second part, is what you're
saying? No one's ever made it past the
the first part. Not even close.
So a lot of our listeners, a lot of a lot of our listeners and a
lot of John's followers, they use a lot of, you know, all the
gear in the ghost world, right? They love it from an engineering
and you know perspective. Why do you why do you think
these devices yield so many false positives?
You know, and is there, is there any equipment that you even find
remotely interesting? No, we don't use any of that
stuff. I, I mean, first of all, it's
based on the premise that ghosts have a, an electromagnetic well,
it's based on the, the premise that ghosts exist, A and B, if
they do exist, they have this ability to interact with an
electromagnetic field. So those are two assumptions
that people are making about this gear that are unproved as
as far as we're concerned. So when you're firing up an EMF
meter and the dial moves over or the thing lights up or whatever,
yeah, it's detecting something. It's detecting EMF.
There's EMF everywhere. We're bombarded by radio waves
and microwaves and, you know, across the spectrum.
And ourselves. What's that and and?
Ourselves. And our, yeah, I mean it,
there's, there's all sorts of reasons for these instruments
going off. Well, yeah, I mean, look, you
know, we we met this one ghost hunter from the UK and this guy
really sort of he he really impressed me in just terms of
how he thinks about things. This guy, Stephen Parsons, and
he wrote a book called Ghostology.
And all it does is the majority of the book talks about
equipment and it's not about, it's like, listen, man, this is
an EMF meter. It measures electromagnetic
fields. It doesn't measure ghosts, it
just measures electromagnetic fields.
This is a camera. It's the human eye sees at this
rate. This camera sees at 8 pixels.
It's not that good compared to the eye.
No way. And he talks about it and you
would love this. The one thing that he that stood
by us, he described ghost hunters to to like real
scientists, whereas a real scientist will do a triple blind
experiment and if the results come back, that's not in their
favor, they go, well, I guess we were wrong.
Whereas a ghost hunter will do a triple blind experiment and if
the ghost and if the results don't come back in their favor,
they'll go, well, I guess the ghosts are really just something
must be wrong. It didn't, it didn't it didn't
match. So, you know, it just doesn't
look like they won't it. Didn't match what they wanted.
And he's a ghost hunter, right? He's a believer.
He understands, you know, he but he values a human experience,
you know, which I think is, is sort of an interesting sort of
take on on all this stuff. Do you find in, in your
experience as a showman and as a professional comedian that you
sort of understand how people are coming at you in a certain
way when you're, when you're trying to deconstruct like their
story, It's like, or, well, I mean, you said that they're not
trying to hoax you, but do you feel you have a better eye for
bullshit because of it? Well, yeah, I mean, listen, any
of us, James Randi used to say this all the time.
Any of us can be fooled. You know, Penn and Teller don't
know how every magic trick in the world is done.
So, you know, there, it's possible that we can be fooled,
too. We we we take these precautions.
But yeah, I, I mean, experience helps a lot.
Knowing people in the magic performer world helps because I
have some a little bit of knowledge about how mentalists
work and conjurers work, all that stuff really helps.
And by the way, I also have, let's see, I think either four
or five mental health professionals on our team right
now. So that's a big deal too, to be
able to look through the lens of people who are experiencing
unique things that the rest of us are not experiencing.
Are you seeing things? Are you hearing things that no
one else is seeing or hearing? Well, there are reasons and
explanations for that. And sometimes the mental health
world is are the people that tap for that.
So James, the the majority of the the cases that you deal
with, would you say they're like psychic or mediums or is it like
mixed? It's what are they trying to
prove. Yeah, it's it's pretty mixed.
Probably telepaths are the most frequent person and, and, and we
find this sort of weird. Most of the people who contact
us say they are transmitting and other people can hear their
thoughts, which raises the flag of schizophrenia or some other
mental issue. So I can't hear other people's
thoughts, but they can hear my thoughts, which sometimes causes
a problem because we're like, well, we don't want to be the
other side of that equation. You got to find someone else who
can hear your thoughts and we're going to give you some stuff to
send across. So, so those are that's probably
the most we get a fair amount of dowsers people can douse for the
water or. Oh, dowsing rods, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and a lot of telekinetics
people think that they are moving things with their minds.
And you know, if you have seen the stuff online, it's almost
always something super light, like a little.
Oh, yeah, like tissues or something.
Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, it's, yeah, It's something.
I know exactly what you're talking about.
Although a couple of people have said that they can move a car
and I'm like, OK, you know, let's see it in the parking lot.
We're going to tape off the wheels.
Just get it past the tape and I'll write the check right now.
It's not just not my car, right? It's just not my car.
James, James, do you believe in, you know, intuition or certain
things? Like, do you think people have
anything like that? Yeah, I, I mean, I think that
sort of thing. I guess it depends on what you
mean by intuition, but if well. You know, here's what I mean.
You know, everyone has a, you know, in a bar.
Right. And then all of a sudden
somebody walks in, your back is to the door, yet you get that
feeling like, oh crap, you know who just walked in here?
And you look and it's like, OK, who is this?
Like that, that sort of thing. Just getting like a bad vibe off
of somebody like the fighter, you know, like a fight or flight
sort of reflex that we all have, like an, you know, like just
something like on that level. Do you believe in that as a?
Well, I do believe in that, but I don't think there's anything
magical about it. You know, I think we perceive
the world unconsciously in a lot of ways that we're not aware of.
We're hearing things, we're seeing things, sensing, feeling.
We're using all our senses in a way.
And if something all of a sudden, and I was a bouncer for
a while, so I, I sort of know what this is.
If something's not right, like it gets quiet over there or you
know, you know, something weird out of the ordinary happened,
you may not be consciously aware of it, but it does grab your
attention in some way. And I think that's what a lot of
people are talking about when they're talking about intuition
or if someone's like creepy somehow, or you like you like
you say you're getting a bad vibe off them.
That's not happening in a vacuum.
You're observing something that's causing that feeling.
That's all. That's all true.
I don't I don't disagree with that, I just I agree with that
100%. I just wonder if what that means
though. Some people are better at
picking up those signs than others, right?
Like, I look at it, I compare a lot of this and a lot of the
people I've talked to just doing this podcast, right?
Like, and people have heard me say it before, you know, someone
who could throw a baseball at 98 miles an hour.
I don't think you can teach it. You might be able to get, you
know, if you're, if you could throw a baseball that fast, you
probably could throw it fast and then you can get a little better
with training. But you can't teach someone who
can do it, who can't do it to get there.
And I yeah. And it's a gift, right?
To be able to do that to me is some sort of a difference in
your Physiology, that it's a gift.
Yeah, but nobody walks out of the house and throws a 98 mile
an hour fastball. They work at it for years.
And so there is I I know what you're saying.
I mean, this is, you know, when you start talking about pro
athletes, which the same concept could be expanded into other
things, you know, your genetics and your environment are are,
are key to that. And so can genetics and
environment make someone a better observer or be more
sensitive to something that's going on around them?
Absolutely. I mean, I depend on it.
But before I leave the house, I ask my wife every time, you
know, everything OK, You know, do I have the green light to
leave? And she's like, yeah, I trust
her vision and sensibilities more than my own.
So it happens. Right, you know, there's a lot
of with all of the paranormal shows that are out there, right?
You know, and that sort of really popped, which is probably
why, you know, the tech is so big, you know, and it's you got
to show up in vans to to sort of with gear to to prove to people
you think that you're a scientist by having gear.
But has that, you know, sort of do you feel like that's just
harmless fun or is it really dam?
Do you find it damaging to the public's perception of science?
I, I mean, it's mostly fun. And I, I mean, I know a lot of
people just don't take it that seriously.
It's not, but the problem is it does influence people's beliefs
about things and because it's one sided you get to shoot all
day and edit it down to the, you know, the half hour of
interesting stuff that happens to the exclusion of all the
boring and nothing happened stuff.
And it's not, it doesn't represent reality.
So I, I do get a little discouraged that, you know,
people walk away from a show like that and they're like, how
do you explain that? And I say, you got 5 minutes.
How do you explain John Edward? How do you explain Theresa
Caputo and all these other people who are doing this stuff
on TV? They're editing the hell out of
this thing. And what you're watching is not
what happened in real life. But nobody knows that.
What is the single most persistent myth that you find,
you know, people that you consider intelligent, rational
people still believe in? Well, I mean other than God.
Well, yeah, that's he's #1 the big guy #1 I don't know.
I mean, you know, the the UFO thing is a little discouraging
because, you know, again, and you got to remember people are
making money off of all these beliefs.
They're they're they're doing podcasts and they're writing
books and there's TV shows and all this stuff.
So there's great incentive for people to perpetuate a wrong
version of some of the stuff that happened and with the UFOs
and with the ghost to all these things have real rational,
science based explanations and most people just don't go seek
those out. It's a lot more fun to think
that we're being visited by aliens from another planet or
that ghosts are living in our attic.
That's the bore. That's the sexier, more
interesting story. Then here's the science behind
why this video looks like this. But it's really that.
Do you leave yourself open though, for the unknown?
I mean, you know, it's like we've talked about it here,
right? The, you know, we didn't even
know how lightning works until we invented the high speed
camera. You know what I mean?
It's like there's still, you know, and I've heard some of the
people on your, you know, it's like the neuroscience, the
neuro, the neurologist on your show talk about consciousness.
And it was, you know, and yes, you're, you know, I agree.
Consciousness is developed in the brain, but then he sort of
stops there. And I think the truth is we
really don't know what consciousness is.
We know where it starts, but we don't know what it is yet.
I mean that, you know, that there's a lot to learn about
consciousness is true and and I think the people who studied in
depth would admit that. But what we were talking about,
and the guy's name is Steve Novella and he's he's a
neuroscientist and he's a brilliant guy that was in that
discussion was talking about whether something survives
death. And so for this ghost or
whatever that's walking around and can talk and scaring people
and blah blah blah continues on after your body is dead, that's
extremely unlikely and not at all supported by the science.
So consciousness goes away when the brain stops functioning and
it doesn't have its own self existence like some ball.
It just leaves your dead body and goes find somewhere else to
be. That's just not consistent with
the science. Yeah, Listen, you know, I can't
argue because I don't know how it how it all works.
There is some, there's the one thing, look, one thing that we
sort of play up in here or talk about a lot and.
Which but you can't argue science.
Well, yeah, but the one thing we talk about here a lot.
A bull doesn't fly out of someone's body.
And you know, that's the spirit. You know, that's the trouble I
deal with when when I'm documenting spirits, you know?
So, James, I don't know if you know this, but I have theories,
right? About memory and about what
spirits are I I believe they're memory, right?
Because I like you, James, the way you described it, there's no
way the brain dies and then all of a sudden some our spirit
floats out of our body. You know, trying to explain this
to people in such a saturated environment is near impossible.
Nobody wants to hear that. They want to believe in God.
They want to believe in angels, they want to believe in all
this. They can't they, they first of
all, people have a hard time knowing that I'm an atheist and
I document spirits. That's like, you know, but.
But just just just make it succinct.
John believes that that the spirits he's talking to are
memories that are somehow attached to energy or
electricity and matter that that disperse or dissipate from our
body when we pass. Because we do have electrical
synapses in our brain, that energy does go somewhere.
We don't know where, we don't know how, and we don't know
truly what consciousness is and that these might be imprints of
memory somehow. Whatever determined, I don't
know, you know, I don't know what the fuck it is, but it's
like that's might be what it. Right.
Like that's a theory. Well, no, that's OK.
And you can't argue with science.
You can, if you have a a competing theory with you know
what the popular scientific consensus is on anything,
absolutely come up with something better.
Throw it out there, document it, test it, do it.
I mean, I don't know of anyone who, who thinks that in the
world, who understands what both memory is and physics are, that,
you know, somehow those two things could be reconciled.
Maybe it can, but the onus is on you who are saying this is what
I believe. The onus is on you to show how
that's possible. No, for sure for you.
And look, look, I love, you know, I love reading like I'm
right now. This is my book of I'm on to
this book, right, Carl Sagan's, which is a great, you know,
skeptic, you know, skeptical. Look at all this stuff.
And it's I read another book by a professor named Mark Eaton
called Sensing Spirits, which is great because it's really about
the social construct of ghosts. Like the only reason you call
the unexplained a ghost is because it's how you were
raised. You heard a ghost story, your
parents talking about this horror movies.
The only reason you know what a ghost is is because you were
told what 1 was when you were little.
If you, you know, it's like the gods must be crazy.
If you never had a coke bottle, you wouldn't know what it's for.
So it's that you know what I mean?
Like it's that idea. So I'm I, I do get a lot of it.
I think for me, I put a little more stock in this idea of
intuition from what I've seen and sort of like this muscle
that some people just might be more in tune with something for
now and we don't know how to measure it.
That unexplained thing that we don't know how to measure.
Because when I, you know, I've had, I've gotten, I've gotten
readings and I've had one reading that just blew my mind.
And I, and I am can't figure out the specifics of what she told
me. I can't.
And it wasn't a cold reading either.
It wasn't. That was the.
It wasn't a cold reading. It wasn't a cold reading.
It was very strange. Hey, James.
Real quick, yeah. Wait, wait.
Wait, wait, wait, John. Go ahead, James.
Cold reading is rambling. It's I, I would love to hear
that reading a recording of that and go over it and, and, and
analyze it a little bit and talk about it.
What we can. Make that happen.
Yeah, yeah. It's, I aired it, I aired it.
It's it's the whole. Thing OK, yeah, send that to me
because I'll. I'll send you a detail.
I'll tell you exactly how she did it.
Probably I could be a whole episode.
Practically. Hey, James, listen, James, can
you tell us the funniest thing that you've come across when
dealing with this, with just dealing with people and their
and their claims? Like what's what made you when
you rest your head at night, just put a smile on your face
and chuckle before you go to bed thinking about it?
There was one guy, there was one guy in the South Side of Chicago
where I'm from, incidentally, and he said that he had a
magical horsefly that could escape his cookie jar.
So I said upward, tell me about the the cookie jar is sealed and
he was in there last night and this morning he's gone.
Yes. Are you sure it was screwed on
tight? Yes.
And and then he came back like 6 months later.
The guy's name is John. And I said, John, I don't think
flies live for six months. Are you sure it's the same one?
And he said, Oh yeah. Oh yeah, that's it's him all
right. Yeah, no mistaking this guy.
So I said, all right, John, what?
This is what the test is going to look like.
You're going to have to catch a horse fly and put him in the jar
and you're going to have to give me the jar for a night or
something or I don't know how we're going to do this, but
we're going to check him in the morning and see if he's still
there and that's going to be the test, so.
James, what do you, what do you think the test would be for for
us, for John's theory, if we wanted to try to win the 500
grand? This time I got, I got to time
you out for a second there, Gary.
I wouldn't be able to do it because I feel I have no guess.
I know that. I know you wouldn't.
That's why I'm asking James. James.
I know. That's why I'm asking James.
What would be if, if somebody walked in with this theory, what
would you say to them? How would they to to try to
prove it? Or just prove it.
Oh, you're talking about? It's different.
This is part of our process is we have to narrow down what
you're saying to a provable, demonstrable claim that we can
test. So I, I mean, the way our
process would work, I would say, John, you know, you're, you're
saying that a memory somehow attaches itself to something
physical. You know, how do you know that?
How does it manifest itself? Could we, you know, I'd have to
dig deeper into it just to see what it is in the 1st place and
if it could be demonstrated. Because a lot of people come to
us and there's they're like, oh, I can do this, this, this and
this and you have to follow me and around.
And it's like, no, give us your best thing.
That is, sort of. Yeah, No, See that?
Yeah, See, that's the thing. You wouldn't have to, like,
shadow me around. We wouldn't have to go to a
cemetery. You know, according to the
theory, you know, spirits are everywhere, Memories are
everywhere. It could be a building that's
been there for 50 years. And you, we run a spirit box.
I talk to whatever's there and in hoping that we get somebody
who worked there, that would be that would be the only way to
test it. But then again, then you go
against the validity of the spirit boxes and you go up
again. You know, the random chance of a
name being said. It's yeah.
Listen, I trust me because, James, I am, I am a skeptic.
I always say this. I am 90% skeptic, 10% believer.
And I set the bar high for myself with my documentation and
I get it. But I also don't claim to have
any gifts, you know, I have no claim in that 500K because
there's nothing special about me.
I'm just a regular dude. We're definitely skeptical about
the spirit boxes That's going to be, you know, those things work,
right? Oh, of course.
Yes, yeah, yeah, sure. Listen, we, we, we're we're
under no delusions. We always say, like if someone
created an app that could talk to the dead, the world as we
know it would change forever. You know, it's like, I don't
look at, I, I don't look at any of this stuff as any, as any
sort of secret weapon. And, and I'll, I'll joke around
about a lot, right? Like if, if you hire a Carpenter
to renovate your house and he fucks the whole thing up, you're
not going to blame his hammer, you know what I'm saying?
It's like it's, it's the it's just some tool that these guys
use, which is why, you know, I, I tend to, but when I, when we
talk about intuition or and I'm using the word intuition, by the
way, which might be the wrong word, but it's just the simplest
one that I think we can all get a handle on.
But it's AI do think John is a little more plugged in than some
other people and sort of recognizing what is happening
because when I use these devices or these tools, I get Dick and
when he and when when I see him use it, it's like it's what the
specificity that pops up I find very strange and it's.
I mean, the, the part of the, the what, what I would say is
happening with things like those spirit boxes and, and this was
the same thing that happens with cold reading as well, by the
way, is your, you'll get some feedback from the thing word or
a name or whatever. And then you, the user, has to
retrofit that name to fit something that makes sense.
People do that all the time. I don't disagree with James one
bit. In fact, that's one of my,
that's one of my big things that I speak about on my live stream,
which is the association. Like I need more than a name
like, so here's what I do. And a lot of people don't like
this spirit comes through and says, let's say Frank, Hey, hey,
Frank what's going on? Frank How old are you?
Frank, No age is given. I move on to the next thing
while everybody is stuck on that name.
Frank. Well, if Frank can't give me an
H, what am I supposed to do with that?
That's nothing. That that's nothing.
That's randomness. Even if there is something
there, there's no way for me to prove that that Frank is there.
I need an H OK, so let's say Frank does give me an H.
Then the next important question.
Hey, Frank, what the hell are you doing here?
You know, why are you here, Frank?
Why were you here in the 1st place?
You know? And then I try to build a
conversation off that if the answers aren't specific, I want
nothing to do with it. While in your experience, people
using spirit boxes, as you said, they associate with everything.
They try to connect the dots and it's, it's, it gives no credence
to these actual devices when people use them that way.
Is everyone scared of how they're going to look, you know?
Right. Or or it's like, you know, when
the you know, John Edward or James Van Prague or Caputo or
whatever come and says I'm getting an emerald J name.
You're connecting the dots who the amber J or even if it's more
specific, someone who is Mary over here?
Yeah, I know Mary. OK, well that's who I'm talking
to one of. The most common names in the
19th century, 18th to 19th century.
Yeah, exactly. And I actually, yeah, it's funny
you mentioned that because we went to watch a couple of
different James Van Praagh when he had his show was being taped
out here pretty close to CFI. And I heard him do two or three
times say I'm getting an M or AJ name.
So I went straight to the computer and I was like, you
know, what are the most popular names over the last 50 years?
And out of the top ten men and women names like 4 of them were
M&J. So he's making a good solid
guess and he gets a lot of hits that way.
All, all, all I know is that what James is saying is 100%
correct and I deal with it constantly.
I can't tell you how many people, I can't tell you how
many people come into my live streams and say, John, you're
ignoring the spirits. And it's like, no, I'm not
ignoring the spirits. There's nothing viable here.
You, we. I need more.
My logical brain needs more. Well, James would say the whole
goddamn thing is not a lie. Well, but that's the thing
though. There are times where I get that
there are times it's not all the time.
And that's what you're talking about, Gary.
When I'm walking through a cemetery and all the sudden a
name Chaz Fields comes up. Chaz Fields.
Who's name Chaz these days? Nobody.
And then the last name Fields, that's when it's like, OK Chaz,
let's have a conversation. And that's what I.
There's been some weird stuff. There's been some weird stuff.
That's why I don't James, I have to ask you this because we asked
all our guests this. I mean, I don't know if maybe
I'll love the answer, but do you think, you know, it's like you
know, do you, do you believe? Do you?
What do you think spirits are? Yeah, I don't think I don't
believe in spirits 0. OK, so hold on James, let's say
did. Let's say all of a sudden you
got some evidence and you're like, OK, 90% of this is
bullshit, but there is that little bit that's real.
Let's say that happens in the near future for you.
What would you think they are? Well, I, I mean, the first thing
I would do is what was that evidence and do I trust it?
Because I mean, you know, a lot of people have these experiences
and they're misinterpreting the, the, the experience.
I, I woke up 1 morning or one night, I don't even remember
what it was now, but I, I felt a hand grabbed my calf and it
felt, I can testify, it felt so real.
I jumped out of bed and thought someone in the house was playing
a joke on me. But the door was locked and the
windows were locked and no one's under the bed or in the room at
all. But I dreamt that that hand
touching me. So when evidence comes up that
sort of leads people to believe in something like that, I take a
breath and say OK, what are the logical science based
explanations that could be responsible for that experience
and go from there. Would you, But if you know, I
think the, the real, the question here is sort of, you
know, if a, if a ghost walked into the Center for inquiry and
passed every test, how would, how would you change?
Would your whole worldview change?
I mean, would you just be like, well, you know, would you sign
that check and quit and go back to the improv?
Or would you just like, you know, what would be, what would,
what would happen? Yeah.
It's like, OK, it's time to retire.
No, I mean, it's so hard for me to imagine that knowing what I
do, I, I would really, I mean, first of all, I, I might even
say, I mean, I'm kind of at the point where I look at stuff like
that. And even with like Perriadoglia,
you know, picking images out of noise out in.
The world and something because. That's right.
Very good. So, you know, sometimes that
stuff is really cool and I really try to appreciate, you
know, like seeing a face in something that shouldn't have a
face in it or a wild coincidence that, you know, so many things
had to happen in in the right way for this coincidence to
happen. I try to just take a step back
and say, wow, that's really cool.
That doesn't happen very often. If we started getting science
based information that spirits existed, then there's going to
be a a good scientific explanation.
And yeah, science doesn't know everything yet.
It's possible that we missed something or don't understand
something about how the universe works and now we look into it
and ghosts aren't paranormal anymore.
There's science based and there will be an explanation.
When I owe you? How many, how many of these, how
many of these come in James, how many of these come in a year for
you, these claims of, you know, paranormal activity?
So we got for well claims in general a a a much bigger
number, but. I mean just specifically like
they want to win the 500. Grand Yeah.
So applications for the $500,000 prize, we get between 150 and
200 a year and we end up testing usually between 8:00 and 12:00.
People out of that 150 to 200. Most of the people, you know,
find out what the tests are, we're going to get going to be.
We always tell people try this at home first, you know, this is
what it's going to look like. And you know, most of them just
never show up to be tested do. You ever?
I mean, Jay, is there any hope or like of when you go to the
when you go to the office that you will be proven wrong?
Like do you ever just like hope for the wonder?
Do you know what I mean? Like is there anything left in
you that wants the joy of being blown away?
Or you're just like, fuck, I got to listen to this crazy person,
this guy, and it's like, get a load of this guy, you know?
Or is there any like, let me let today be the day where it's like
I am blown away? Officially, I never say that.
Oh no. You're right.
But no, you know, I, I mean, I'm so, and I was a crappy science
student when I was like in junior high and high school and
all, most of my science understanding, limited as it is,
has happened after college. And I'm so fascinated about how
the world really works and how psychology really works and
physics and everything else that I'm so much more excited about
that aspect of what reality is going to bring me today than,
you know, hoping some wacky paranormal thing comes true.
So I mean, that's kind of my angle.
How cool would it be if somebody walked through his doors one day
and you know a whole new area Science gets discovered.
Like screw the supernatural and and paranormal element of it.
Imagine that. Imagine someone comes walking
through your door and bam it opens up a new you know, 50
years of discovery and whose names attached to it.
Man, yours. That would be wild.
I I do picture James to be the Genghis Khan of the paranormal,
where he's sitting there with the next having people coming in
and showing him suddenly like. You will spend the night with me
tonight. You're out, You're out.
You're out, you're out. Yeah, that's exactly how I want
to be remembered as wasting the last 26 years of my life looking
for some shit that doesn't. Listen, James, you know, James,
thank you so much for your time today, man.
By the way, I really appreciate it.
It's it's really interesting. It's really funny.
What is what is the ultimate goal?
You know, if I could leave, leave you with this question for
the for the center of inquiry, you know, like where, where is
it going? And you know, it's what is its
pursuit if not to actually prove one of these things is real?
Like why being an organization, you know, like to have an
organization to knock to, to disprove, Isn't it really to
then say we hope to be, to prove it?
Well, I mean, part of it is, and the reason I started the CFI
Investigations group is because storytelling is what gets these
things, these beliefs going in the 1st place.
It's a very powerful tool for getting memes out into the
world. And if all we do is sit around
and say, oh, the physics doesn't line up with that.
And you know, we just think this is bullshit and let's go on to
the next thing that doesn't convince anyone.
If I could come in and tell a story about the dozens and
dozens of people who absolutely believe they have these powers
and come out with a story and some explanations for why they
thought they could do this and, and why these beliefs persist in
general. But I think it's a much more
powerful teaching tool than, you know, just saying there's no way
this could possibly be. So I we're trying to get people
to especially now today, you know, there's a, there's been an
assault on science that's horrible.
And you get idiots like RFK junior running science based
ends of the the government. It's dangerous, man.
If, if you have people who don't understand science making
science based science, science decisions, we're all in trouble.
So we're trying to nudge people on the side of knowing things
through that process of science. Gary, we talked, so are you.
Trying to tell me, James. No, I know.
But James, are you trying to tell me then that the aliens did
not build the pyramids? Is that what you're saying?
I'm saying that the aliens didn't have to build the
pyramids. A lot of was set upon
unfortunate sons of bitches built the pyramids.
Total side point, I have my own theory and how the pyramids were
built which. Is well listen, I figured out
how pyramids were built when I was installing generators.
I used to be electrician. OK, we're talking about big ass
generator. Let's hear this five £600
monsters then I'm moving myself. OK, And it's called.
Let's hear this too. No, it's just simple.
You just, once you once you crowbar it up, you get a, a, a,
a pipe underneath it and then you push it a little bit, you
get another one underneath it and you keep going.
Next thing you know, one man is moving a £600 generator across
the lawn by himself. That's how those pyramids were
built. Human engineering.
I think it was these my my theory is my theory is the use
of a lot of slaves and a lot of sand.
I think they used sand. Well, not all.
I think they used sand. Hold on a second, John.
Hold on, I think they used sand to bring the rocks up to glide
it up and they keep using sand and then when it was done, they
used all those slaves to literally dig it out because the
one thing they have in have out there is sand.
And that's like they wonder how they got that rock up at the
top. That's what I think.
There's a like a 40 year old video of of some guy in Florida
who built the Coral Castle. Did you ever see that?
Oh. I I know.
What you He had these big blocks of coral and he moved them all
himself and he was like in his 50s when he did it.
But yeah, it was all leverage and fulcrums and pry bars and
stuff. That's wow.
I don't know how we got here. Just sort.
Of one of my. Biggest.
One of my biggest gripes with the paranormal especially, but
everything with aliens, the pyramids, you name it, is how
people just take away from us. They take away from us, they
take away. Listen, we could do some vile,
horrible, amazing, beautiful, incredible things as a species
and that gets shipped away from us when we start adding aliens
in and this and that. It's pretty crazy to think
about. But I've always thought of that
like, whoa, we're we need help. You know, we can create and
destroy things all the time. We need help.
No, no way, we do. Because look around, John.
I mean, if we are there's, you know, intelligence is a curve
and there's a lot of stupid people.
So you think about there's no way.
I look around. I'm like, like, there's no way
we could have figured out how to do that.
You know, there's a lot of like. Well, you keep the stupid people
out of it. That's.
The James got James has people who think they can teleport
coming in. You're going to tell me that guy
built the pyramids like there's a million of them.
Like they built like this guy built the pyramids.
Well, that's why we think it. That's not the guy you put on
the Pyramid project shovels the donkey shit or the camel shit.
He could. He could barely handle the lunch
order for the pyramid guy. I mean, it's just, you know what
I mean? It's just like you don't know
what. That's why we always think the
worst of us, John. We got teleporter over.
There, Yeah, No, according to his ability, that's the key.
James, this is this was super fun.
I think people, you know, it's good, it, it's a good for us.
It's a good balance of things. And I always like getting it
outside in a different perspective on, you know, what's
happening. And it's good to keep it
grounded, you know, and, and as we move forward and sort of
explore this, and I mean, dude, we talked to everybody.
We talked to parapsychologists and mediums and witches and
other ghost hunters and skeptics and we like to hear it.
It's a fun. It's a fun world of.
You know, I guess, you know this parascience, right?
I mean, it's, we all like to think we, we've got a handle on
it, but it's I, I find it really fascinating.
It's, it's interesting and that's why all these shows are
on and, and movies and TV shows over the decades.
I mean, people are interested in this stuff and, you know, let's,
let's give them another side of it to think about.
That's our our approach. So James, you got anything
coming up or you want to you want to promote, you know you
want to promote, you want us to tell plug people like which?
Yeah, the bands got 500500K waiting to get fucking away,
yeah. Yeah, start with that.
Go to the CFII, g.org and the $500,000 challenge.
If you think you have superpowers, come and take our
money and good luck to you. You're going to need it.
Also, our so our Skepta Lab is our web series where we take one
belief and debunk it per this is actually is devoted to
specifically the bunking things that we've worked on for years.
Check it out at skeptalab.tv. They have a great guest.
On there. Yeah, yeah, there's like, yeah,
Walsh was our good friend Matt Walsh was on there and Andy
Richter was on there. Jim O'Hare, Julia Sweeney.
It's it's a lot of fun and informative.
And then finally, if you want to go crazy and.
And come to our 50th anniversary party, we're going to have a
conference in beautiful downtown Buffalo, NY in June 11th to the
14th, and it'll be June so much. But wait, hold on a second.
I think let's let's talk. You want to talk about
something, but isn't Buffalo, it's one of.
The horrible places. I went to listen.
I went to school in Syracuse and the it's.
Beautiful in this in this was. Just no, dude, it's got two
seasons, humid and freezing and it's just it's, you know,
upstate and I mean, it's I listen, God love Buffalo.
I guess I feel sorry for, I mean, why would you of all the
dude? You live out here.
Well, I Are you going to Buffalo?
No. Our headquarters is in Amherst,
which is suburban Buffalo, so that's why it's there.
And, and Buffalo in June is great.
The lake is right there. There's a lot of cool
neighborhoods and it's it's a town on the comeback, you know,
do you want to be driving your car there in February?
Probably not, but it's in June so don't worry about it.
Well, that, I mean, we'll definitely promote it.
I mean, it's fun. Yeah.
Sorry, Buffalo. It's like you're.
Listen, what do you mean? You should all over to Buffalo,
something we did. No, they're great.
No, no, I I always make, we always make fun of Pennsylvania.
It's the only state we laugh at here.
We just. Hey, James, listen, this has
been great, man. This has been great.
Thank you so much for taking this.
It really is. James, I really appreciate your
time. Yeah, this is super fun.
I hope you have fun. Yeah, thanks for having me on.
It's been great fun chatting with you guys.
And, you know, if something comes up that's a little weird
and you want to set a skeptical scientific eyes on it, give me a
call again. And tell me if somebody ever
teleports for. Real.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't hold your breath.
Don't. Hold your breath then.
If you want to invest in the 500 K, your money's safe would be.
Will do man. Thanks, James.
Awesome, James. Thank you man.
Well, that's it for another episode of Splintered Spirits.
Be sure to like, share, and subscribe to our YouTube
channel, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Until next time, stay curious.