Telekinesis in the Matilda Musical

Saw Bones is a show about medical history And nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion It's for fun Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery bil We think you've earned it Just sit back, relax and enjoy a moment of distraction from Weird growth You're worth St what thes doing. since that as Hello and welcome to Sawbones, a marital tour of Misguided Medicine. I'm your host, Siddney McArooy. And we're your hotel host, Charlie. Thank you Br Mcrooy. All right, as you can tell, this is a different episode today because Justin is just her Daddy has abandoned us Justin has abandoned us. He disappeared Where's my d? He's literally just one of you would pick that up. He's literally just in the over room. Yeah, he was in the next room. Yeah No, we thought it would be fun. This is a special episode. I always do the research, so I gott to be here to tell you the research But The fun stuff Charlie and Cooper are responsible for this week because what what our episode is inspired by what Theyell Matilda. Okay, we are doing Matilda the musical Where, Charlie, you tell us where at Heart in the Park in Hunington, West Virginia. Huntington arerea Regional Theater. Okay, now Cooper gets to do show dates. Do you know the show dates, Cooper So we We already did two shows and show tonight. And we have another show tonight and next week We have Weekend we have three other shows. The nineteenth through the twenty first and then the weekend after that, we have three more. What's that Um the twenty sixth through the twenty eight You got it And they're all at Ridter parking in the theater. Yeah. Now in Harton West Virginia. Don't forget that. Yeah. In the show, Matilda, Matilda has a psychic ability Telekinetic powers, if you call them. Yes So I thought it would be fun to talk about Telekinesis, You guys are really gonna to make a lot of drink noises on this show, aren't you? Cooper's drinking some throat coat tea to prepare her for tonight and Charlie's just gonna Shake that lemonade. Yeah. No but it's got those good little crunchy ice cubes. G's lemon. We're gonna get sidetracked so easily. Let's try to stay on track with the show U so We're going to talk about telekinesis. I want to tell you about the research because Here's what I think is interesting, girls. after you My feet are always cold. I read the book Matilda when I was a kid And after I read the book, Matilda, because she is a nerdy girl who likes to read and feels like a bit of an outcast T what you don't think nerdy that much Com Well, I was a nerdy girl who liked to read and felt like an outcast. so to me. And I thought after I read the book, maybe if I stared at things long enough, I might be able to move them with my mind. I also did think that. Of course you do. Did you both after watching the musical or the movie or whatever, 'use you haven't read the book? No, I'm reading the book. No. Have you ever looked at something and thought I'm gonna do this with my mind My name. Rightes Right after I saw that video of the guy bending the spoon and making it break somehow. I did ye. We're gonna talk about Yura Yeeller. that's fshadowing. I did try that and no I cann't. Have you ever heard the myth that humans only use ten percent of their brain powerower? Have you ever heard that? Yes. have you not heard that? That is a myth, but I think to that. But listen, I think it's pervasive for a reason. I think it's pervasive for a reason. I think a lot of people think that if they just pushed their brain further, they could do more with it. And not only do we think that, but girls, the U S. military And the CIA decided that they wanted to conduct research at one point into whether or not humans have the ability to Speak to someone in their mind to see locations they're not in remotely or even J like eleven from Stranger Things. just like eleven from Stranger Things, or move thingsings with their mind. Oh my good Lord. Yes I want to talk about some of the research And you can talk about how that plays out in Matilda Musical. Okay So Listen to me for a second. Listen, listen and I will ask you questions in a moment. but listen. The military has been interested in this kind of like Pseudo Science, you know what pseudo Scienceces girls? Yes. What is it Fake science. Fake science. there you go. Pseudo, meaning like It's not real. Yeahah.. For a second I thought sle meant like That one kind of like fighting with the Wh Sumo wrestling? Yeah. Not sumo Smocience is very different. Yeah, that's cabush. U But in the back in the fifties and sixties, the U. S military got interested specifically in like using drugs on people to try and make them tell the truth or to try and control their minds or that kind of thing. against stranger things. So that was was yes, true Sum. So that was bad and that has all been declassified and people were very angry about it and people were prosecuted for. It was a big thing It was called MK Ultra. there was a proroject Artichoke. That was all bad stuff But by the seventies, They decided they needed to do research that was less obviously criminal. and Cold Do you know what the Cold War was? Yes. No. Charlie, can you tell us what the what you know? I'm not putting you on the spot. I didn't expect you to say yes. Well we haven't learned about it in school, but I do know of the existence of it. Like I do know It was not was a thing It was not a war, war. Yeah. As in like nobody was fighting. Yeah. But we kept thinking that the US and the Soviet Union were going to fight Yeah. and that everybody kept making weapons and being really like secret and spyy and it was like a scary. That's why there were like the bomb shelters in Greece too. Exactly exactly. bomb shelter in Greece too. We've made so many references. Yes. That's why there's the bomb shelter in Greece too. And that In that time, everything that by the way, yes, we have all seen of the shows we are referencing. Yes, they have. they have. They're very good So the Soviet Union comprised a bunch of countries, but the main thing that you would think of today is Russia. o. And so think of stranger things. Yes sir. Think of stranger things In Stranger Things, the Soviets are doing research and trying to figure out super secret stuff And the US is also doing research and trying to figure out super secret stuff, right That's based on real events. Now they really didn't open a door to another dimension That didn't happen. No Will Byers was not kidnapped. But what they were trying to do with Elevven where she could like travel in her mind to other places without actually physically going there We really were trying to do that. The only two monsters say stranger things is is Will Byer's hairdresser? Thank you, Cooper So put that bowl cut like Okay, so what we were interested in were a few things One What you see in stranger Things, the idea that somebody could close their eyes and concentrate and see a place far away from them and describe it So the thought is like you could use that to spy on your enemies. Yeah. Okay. If I said like the line for on at Walt Disney was ten minutes long there was a guy in a red shirt in the line. or something like that. Like I could see the place without physically being good place. We are not in Disney. bllame my parents for that And then the other thing is, could we actually make things move with our mind like Eleven does? So this research started in the late seventies. There was a Princeton college student to tried to do an experiment to see Could we use our minds to influence the world around us? okay? So what he used was a random Eents generator Basically it was like a coin tossing machine, okay? And like if you toss a coin, Over and over and over again. Yeah. How often Do you expect it if you do it enough times, so you have a huge number of a huge It's about fifty fifty fifty fifty. because there's two possible outcomes. Right. What What he was looking for was if we Stare at the coin and try to make it, like in our mind go, heads, heads, heads, heads, heads, or tails, tails, tailes. Can we influence the flip of the coin I mean like we could just keep saying it and keep doing it. It it probably will go to the number The thing we're saying because the chances were pretty high but not because we made it. I mean just Humans are truly delicious on some topics. If we try if we did it enough times that it actually worked a couple times, We would bug right there We would very muchign We would very much believe that we had that we had done somethingomet like that with our minds because human race is sort of dellicious. Girls lock in Oh Thanks. Okay. So this study from this Princeton student, so a college student actually showed a difference Really that there was a difference when you when you just flip a coin and don't try to influence it, nothing happens But when you flip a coin, and try to influence it They saw a difference, okay So this was this was exciting to the Dean of the Princeton School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Professor Robert G. John And he decided We need to pursue this kind of research So they founded what was called the Par P EAR Laboratory What does Par stand for? Monnie, arere gonna ask me that, and I didn't include that in a minute. Oh there. It's a fruit No, it's not a fruit I mean, it is a fruit, but Princeton Engineering anomaly. first Pron first the doctor told you pairars a lot of fruit. Princon Engineering Anomalies Research Lab was founded in nineteen seventy nine. And the idea was, can we pursue real research into these these things, okay So one of the studies that they did was to see if you drop listen to this. do you know what Billiard is? Billiards? Yeah ool. Yeah, It's like pool pool table, like pool, shooting pool Pool sticks, pall balls. Okay. Yeah. So they took nine thousand billard balls, like billard balls. That's a lot. Okay And they were dropping them into a series of nineteen little . nineteen thousand you said? N nine thousand balls into nineteen boxes. into nineteen boxes. If they just drop them without a human thinking about it There was a pretty predictable pattern of where they fell. And the center box got the most balls. o Because they would drop them from the top, they would all fall down into these boxes, the center box would get full first and then the boxes to the left and right of the center would get less full then they asked a human to stand and focus move the balls to the right, move the balls to the right, move the ball to the right, move the ball to the right over and over and over again. And what they found is that there was a statistically significant difference When a human was moving the balls with their mind. Y'all Th are really delusional or this is pretty dang cool So based and then they did they did a couple other studies, like this is the telekinesis piece of it, but they did a couple other studies where they would like drop Like, imagine this. They would take Charlie and drop her in a remote location Yeah. No, listen to the study. We take Charlie here. We put her somewhere on Earth, she's never been and where Cooper you've never been. D. And then Charlie, you stand there and look around and just observe the things around you Cooper, you would be sitting here at home with a pad and pen focusing really hard on Charlie. Thinking about Charlie. would she know where I was? She would have no idea where you are or anything, but the idea is you would be sending her images with your mind of where you were. She'd be looking at trees or buildings or people and Cooper would be able to draw that here even though She doesn't know where you are. And they found that They were kind of successful. This is what this laboratory published that they could do that. Shing really funny. Me and my friends did an experiment sort of like that where we were in the classroom because it was raining outside. we couldn't have racist. So we were just all in the classroom like playing games and stuff and Me and my friend, I'm not going to say it' a name for like privacy issues, but let's just say Let's we won't say names. Let's just say, K, we this thing where we would one of us, so for example, I would look at a place in the room Close my eyes. And imagine taking a picture of that and sending it. T K, let's call him And so and then we did it a significant amount of times like ten times and it actually ended up Not more than half, but like four of the times it We the other one could see what we were what we were looking at exactly Pretty cool. So you were trying to do Remote location. Yes remote perception and studies. Yeah, you were doing those. And what the PAR laboratory would say is that There is that some people are able to do this and it doesn't matter how far apart you are or anything um, now, This research has been criticized many times. So I'm not going sit here and tell you girls, that this is like abbsolutely definitive science. A lot of people are like, M, I don't this sounds right. Like it hasn't been replicated. It's really important when we do science studies. that we do them once And we go, hmm, that's an interesting result. Let's do it over and over and over again and see if we get the same result. becausecause if we can't get the same result, then maybe it was just fluke. Yeah, maybe it was a fluke. Eactly. But there was compelling enough research that the CIA was paying attention. And at the same time, there was a very famous person making a lot of waves in popular culture And we're gonna talk about spoon bending, but first We got to go the buildilling depart Go Madison. Since that esc Hey listen guys. I'm here with my daughters, Charlie and Cooper and they are finally gonna get a job designing websites. Girls, are you ready for this job? Yeah. Oh yeah. Here's what I need you to do, okay? I need you to offer me everything I need with professional services to get paid all in one place. I want you to make my website look professional. I want you to streamline my workflow with built in appointment scheduling and email marketing tools. Can you do that for me Y Yes. Lucky for you. Squarespace can do that. Wait, so are here are you gonna Do you use Squarespace? Definitely. Yeah.. Well, why am I paying you so much then? Because squarespace is so amazing U Are you telling me that I can just take my content and use the templates that their world class designers make and then I can just use that for my amazing website. Yeah. So what are you two doing in the equation? What am I paying you these tens of thousands of dollars for You're just clicking the buttons and watching it work. Yep. Well, why don't I click the buttons and watch it work? Because you don't know what buttons to click or what to even do. We're good button clickers. No, I do actually, I need to head to squarespace dot com slash sawbones for free trial. And when I'm ready to launch, I'll use offer code sawbones to save ten percent off my first purchase of a website or domain. Y You're fired, by the way, obviously, you're fired. A man. Ready to go. Kock knock. Who's there? We got this. With Mark and Hal? you knew this one. I can't put that out as an ad. We just did new episodes every week on maximumfund dot orga or wherever you get your podcast. Now it's hwwn and rock. Hwn in rock. Yeah. How do you hue something in rock? With a chisel. There's only one hue in rock and it's Huie Lewis And the news is we got those of Mark and Hs available every week on maximfundot org. I walked right into that St Wonderful is a podcast where we talk about things we like. That's hard to sell in a promo like this, so we've enlisted the help of piano Rock superstar Billy Joel to tell you about some of the topics we've covered. Take it away, real Billy Joel. Cy Rck's been on Lake sign, Worstonsshire, Circle Time, S good drink as se' a salad tower of Nord. Keepy up at T capsules, Wayne's, World cheese Bulls, Wallace, Even, Stonky Gong, F size al Mmentoy They didn't stop the podcast! Except that's not true. They didn twenty two. They didn't stop the podcast. No, they actually did. That wast fact a bib. Listen to Wonderful everyvery Wednesday on maximumfund dot org comm or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks, real Billy Joel. No problem, Griffin All right, we're back from the billing department and Cooper, do you remember the name of the person we're about to talk about Nope Y Egaler. And you watched a video of Y Ealer, didn't you? Cooper, what did you see Yurie Geller do in the video So I saw him He was like on the news or somewhere He had a spoon And he was rubbing like the neck of it right in between the The long leg the handle, the handle and the actual like spoon part And and and he would rub it for a while And it wasn't getting hot. so it wasn't the heat and it would bend and then just break off And he believed that he was telling the spoon to bend and it was bending because he wasing to the spoon He was becoming one with the spin Eactly. He was using his psychic powers. What sets Yuri Geller apart from a lot of magicians is that magicians generally are saying like these are tricks, like we're illusionists. We're doing something. This is a physical thing that exists. There's no magic happening It's just, we're not going to tell you how we did it, but it is a trick Yuri Geller did not and to this day, has not come right out and said, I don't have psychic powers. These are tricks. He says, No, I have psychic powers. Yes. I use my mind to do things And in the seventies, he was really popular He performed lots of tricks. Well, and I think we were at a moment where everybody thought, I mean, and I think you all have seen stranger things and everybody was really excited about like moving things with their mind and. worried about what the Soviets were doing. That's all true for like Three days right after W watching it an'm sorry U I actually started weighing It sort of embarrassing, but I was laying my stuffed to animals out in Oh row and all would. each take Turns starting with the lightest to the heaviest trying to moveoved them with my mind. There' actually a VR game that I played just so I could experience that So I don't think you're alone, Coop. I think a lot of people and that's for me, Matilda was one of the first things that I read that made me think, well, I'm really smart, Maybe I can move things with my mind. But then I finally realized I couldn't do it Well So Yurie Gaylor says he could. Now it's interesting girls, because Yurie Gayler went on a talk show called Johnny Carson.. And it was kind of like, u ye Stephven Colbert or Jimmy Kimmel, one of those it was the same idea. Jeremy Powen Jimmy Fallon, yes Johnny Carson predates all those guys Johnny Carson was also a magician and a talk show host. And he worked with another magician, James Randy, who also set up the Skeptic Society, which is basically a big group of people who are like, listen, if you're out there trying to claim some kind of magic, we're going to come investigate you and prove that to no good. You're a con artist So Johnny Carson and James Rraandy had him come on the show to prove his psychic powers And they set up all the props ahead of time. They didn't let him bring his own props And when he got there He couldn't do any of the tricks. C couldn't bend to spo couldn't make anything work which should prove that he doesn't really have psychic powers, right didnn't because what he said was, well Listen I'm feeling psychically weak today. My psychic muscle is weak And if this was a magic trick, it would work every time. But clearly it's not a magic trick. It's just like sometimes you're tired And you can't like run as fast or jump as high You sounds like that Okay, now I used to have someone in my class said I'm just going I'm not going to say the name for privacy issues. that U, And They believed that they were A mythical creature I'm not going to say which one. Yeah. Yeah for that. No, can I say a mythical creature Sure. A vampire. They believe they were a vampire And they believe they had different like sort of powers in No, they weren't buding. they like truly believe they were a vampire no matter how much I told them. So And and to would like perform the trick. they would work The times that they didn't work she would be like there was like garlic around me or something like that. and I was like, girl. and she would freak out anytime she would sace over Even though I was like, girl, that's for whale Rules, notot vamp. and she was like, no, but's still. And still to this day, I really don't believe her, but she still believes herself. I'm out of school now so Well, you never know I mean, here's the thing The CIA believes so much in Yurich Geller's powers. They decided They were going to study him. So in nineteen seventy three the CIA the Central intntelligence aggency, they're like the U. S. spies. Their job is to like go gather information about things, okay They had Yuri Geller come in. So this is like a government thing. This is as official as it gets guys They had Yur Yeer come in and do some experiments with them so they could figure out like, does this guy really have psychic powers? They put him in an electrically isolated shielded room So that he wouldn't be able to like control anything in the room. They had him draw things like that he couldn't see, like somebody in another room is looking at something and he's trying to connect with them telepathically and draw things. They had him trying to move things with his mind. There's all these this is the declassified study that I'm reading right here was from august fourth through eleventh of nineteen seventy three hear the images of everything that they had him do. Do you see these pictures girls? And I'm drawing things And at the end of it all I don't know why drew picture of the devil. But at the end of it all, Here's what they determined. As a result of Geller's success in this experimental period, we consider that he has demonstrated his paranormal perceptual ability in a convincing and unambiguous manner. What that means is the CIA said, yeah, he's got psychic powers Oh see I tell Oh see someome of the pictures they dw Yeah Okay He he drew grapes and a sticky figure that said a devil and a had horns and a pitchfork Okay, I believe the great part, but like it's Yeah, he drewstick a dum dum mine scared for the person he was trying to read off of Because they apparently saw bird grapes A stick of dynamite that was Blit. in the devil Yeah. That is interesting that that's what the other person picked This led to, so initially the CIA had studies study the other person. This Yeah, really. They moved it to the Defense intntelligence agency and called it Stargate project, Um, That's what it was called at the time. And this led to there's a bunch like there's a movie about this. It was called Men Who Stare at Goats. like the idea that you could stare at a goat and kill it with your mind I know. Well, I mean, all of this was like, could we use these you got to understand what the government was trying to do was figure out could we use psychic powers to wage war on our enemies or to find out information about her. I love a good goat scream So they published this Especially fainting goats like the's hilarious. Everybody got really excited about it. Now there were later articles that were pretty critical Um There was evidence that maybe like this came out in nineteen seventy eight and nineteen eighty where they started finding evidence that perhaps Yuri Geller had a little hole in the laboratory wall where he was peeking through so that he could reproduce the drawings that the person in the other room was doing. I don't know if that's true, but that's what was alleged later on that Gellar had access to an intercom so he could talk to the person whoo was doing the other drawing U And then at the end of it all, there were othervent There were other scientists who went through it and said, we don't think he has any psychic abilities whatsoever And by the nineties, the CIA stopped all this research, declassified everything and was like, Sorry about that. Sorry about that. Oops In seeptember nineteen ninety five, they made everything available so you can read about the CIA's investigations into telekinesis. and now most scientists feel like We we're probably seeing some random things, some chance, some coincidence Um And then probablying. There's some really powerful stuff that magicians do with suggestion during their performances that can make you feel like they're making things happen. Like a basic card trick, like a sort actually learn how to do that Like a sort of like pick a card and I'll tell you which card it is type of. Yeah. Here's how can I tell you how the CIA hedge their bets? What they say now is like, look Maybe there was some evidence that this is real, but it was too Um unreliable for us to use in any real way. so we're not going to investigate it anymore. Instead of having to say, oops Probably Yuri Gelller didn't have psyic powers. To this day, though, Yuri Geller still says he does. He tried he did send a letter to Tereresa May, who was the prrime Minister of the United Kingdom at one point to tell her that he was going to use his mind powers to stop her from doingoin Brexit, which is when the UK left the EU But it didn't it didn't work. UK did Brexit Okay, so what I want to ask you, girls now that we've learned the history of telekinesis and the fact that at this point, we don't really have strong evidence that it's real. Tell me what you What tell me about a telekinesis that Matilda does in the musical. So first of all, who do you play in the music? I play Lavender, Matilda's best friend or as most of you know her the girl with the newot I hate it findind a new And I use that Newt, which is basically like a really, really ugly lizard I put it in that lives in water. The Tunch bowls jug of water So I pour it into a glass and giveave it to her after our phizette class or PE. And then what does Matilda do? And then Matilda uses her mind to the glass over and sort of Throw the newt onto Trench bowl So that's one magic trick we had to do for the show. Cooper, what's the big magic trick that Mat Well first of all, who do you play in the music? I play Bruce Bogtrotter, also known as The guy whos of the big chocolate cake Yes. Do you really eat a big chocolate cake? Yes. Yeah, it's magic. And then at the end of the show at the like very end met Tilda Like So we have just Like sort of on like started like fighting against Trench Bull a little. And then We realized we the plan backfired and Matilda started moving Piece of talkal with her mind and writing on the chalkboard pretretending it was a ghost could get the trchpool to be really scared and leave That's right. So we had so now we have chalk floating in the air and writing on a chalkboard, right? Yeah She's moving it with her mind and we're moving it with Don't tell. Mag No, how we just do that just It would have been way easier if one of you kids did have psychic powers because you don't. And so we had to figure out how to do all these magic tricks without your psychic powers But I totally do have seconds That's the history of telekinesis. That's why and so finally reached the top shelf. So you can see if they were doing these experiments in the seventies and eighties Matilda was written in nineteen eighty eight It was written in the se So it in that sort of cultural mil And as it was It was oh my go. it was written as it Oh my gosh, I can't talk. It was written as it was set in the Late seventies to the early eighties. This is this is a point of contention. It is set in the modern era It is. Yes. Sits when. I don't know. You guys decided it was the seventies and we just rolled with it because that's what Noirectors do. Well Well, the original book, if it was in the modern era would have been nineteen eighty eight. Exactly. You see? That's not the seventies, my love Cose. That's been a point of contention.. Anyway, the point is. the nineteenies. It makes sense. peoplee were thinking about this when Roll Dahl who we don't like, but we do like the book Matilda. We don't like Ral Dahl, but we do like the book of Matilda and the musical Matilda. But we at the time it was written, people were thinking about this. And Matilda has telekinesy system