Nothing may ever be the same around here, it's skeptical. Okay, you don't need to take your clothes off, it's not...  It's not that kind of thing, I don't think. Not yet, not yet. It could get there, I don't know. I'm a little skeptical about that. That's Meryl and Bo from the Camp Fire Shit Show. And you'll hear a lot more about them, you'll come to understand what that show is all about and maybe even why I decided to do kind of a wacky show on conspiracies. I think it came out great. I think these people are extremely talented and are on the edge of where podcasting is really going. They do such a great job and it was so fun having them here in the studio for a little while to talk with me. It really doesn't require a lot of introduction. Let's get right on to the show. Today I have a special, if you will, episode of Skeptico, special for me at least because Meryl and Bo from the Camp Fire Shit Show podcast are actually joining me in my little home studio. So you guys, welcome. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you. We're so excited to be here. We are trapped in a dungeon if anyone's wondering. If they don't, if you never hear from Meryl and Bo again. Just leave us here. It's really nice. So we'll just stay and serve me food like once a week or something. We're fine. Well, thanks. We're really happy to be here. So it's great to have you here. So Meryl, I met you online because I have this wacky idea of doing this conspiracy show kind of thing. And it's a new project and I ran across you and it just was so fun because you were such a cool person and you're into conspiracies like I am, which was cool. And then you introduced me to this awesome podcast that you do with Bo here. And you guys have such a great dynamic and I really enjoyed it and I thought, you know, this might be fun to talk about both from the conspiratorial angle which we both are interested in and I'm interested in and I'm always trying to pull skeptical listeners in because I say this is essentially at what's in one way or another it's the heart of what skeptical is about because we run into these conspiracies whether we want to or not. And I've certainly run into them just trying to follow the trail of consciousness science. So with that, I thought I'd turn it over to you guys to do a little bit of introduction. Tell us more about yourself.  Yeah, go for it. Okay, I'll start. Yes, do it. I'll start. I'm Meryl.  And I worked for 11 years in the music industry. Oh, nice neck out. Oh, there you go. Okay. That wasn't on screen. See, they're only seeing. Oh, yeah. Exactly. Okay. Yeah. And I just say nice neck Alex. I have like a sickness where I just couple my people in their body parts and I would say I got into the kind of conspiratorial realm or, you know, whatever realm a few years ago, I actually had a weird thing that we can talk about, but I was doing a lot of yoga and kind of like healing practices. And I almost want to say that I had some type of like weird soul breakdown. It's really, really weird, but we'll skirt over that now and maybe get into a little bit later, but it kind of it opened up. It was like a mix with a little bit of like a nervous breakdown mixed with, I would say, like kind of a soul awakening and maybe some type of opening. And once I kind of recovered from being able to like function a few months later, I started. We've just lost about half of our audience there, Meryl. So keep going with whoever's still remaining. Sorry, you're pouring your heart out. I'm making jokes. You're supposed to be the comedian anyway, but no, that's all real stuff. Please. No, continue. My grandma just passed away. So she's not listening. But who knows, according to this podcast, she may be listening from somewhere.  And you go, well, the reason that I'm a skeptic is Yeah, yeah. Okay. So long story short is I do some comedy writing. I do some copywriting, all that kind of stuff. I'm very involved in the music industry and events. And we have our podcast, but the more exciting part is I'm a huge, I'm a seeker of truth and information. So. Oh, you're not buying the seeker thing. Oh my gosh.  I'm telling you. No, no, Meryl believes everything that she says. She doesn't make stuff up at all. I just, that's where her and I sort of like, I guess disagree in many ways.  We worked on a TV show together. And short films and things like that. And then that turned into, I realized she was doing a podcast. I wanted to do a podcast. And they're like, well, let's do something together. But what would it be? And I was like, well, let's just talk. Let's talk. And I know that seems very like boring. Like, oh, what's your show about? There's two people talking. You know, it's like, but honestly, we get together and we have all types of topics.  This all happened last week, by the way. It was just a normal week. That's just one week, guys. Yeah. But in the process of that, like, she's always like, well, that's, you know, doing others lizard people. And I was like, wait, what are you talking about? Or don't let's talk about pizza gate. And I'm like, oh, you're such a mess in so many ways. And so I am very skeptical. And when she told me about this, I'm like, oh, no, I got to see these crazy people. I'm like, we're going to this guy's house. I met him on Craigslist. Yeah, I was like, oh, this is danger all around. Let's do it.  Exactly. And that's what we brought, you know, for people who were just joking around.  I'm all about that. That's great. You know, and one of the things I thought was really cool about you guys and what you do and being on the scene in San Diego in terms of the comedy scene, the TV scene, trying to make all that stuff happen, which is crazy, as anyone would know. But, you know, one place we might start to kind of jump into this thing, which Marilyn and I talked a little bit about, is this connection between comedy and conspiracy. So, you know, it's, so I had a couple examples. I mean, you listen to Dave Chappelle on Netflix, right? And he's dropping the conspiracy bombs.  And what if, you know, the reason I went to go, went away for all those years, nobody really knows. And then, Bill Burr, I don't know if you guys know Bill Burr. I mean, Bill Burr is like way out there. I mean, he's just directly talking about the conspiracy stuff. And then, of course, Joe Rogan with the most, who is, I guess, a comedian. I don't really know if he's a comedian anymore. I never thought he was a comedian. Was he ever a comedian?  Yeah.  But who cares? He's still, you know, talking about conspiracy in a very serious way, and then at the same time poking fun of it. And then you have, you have conspiracy culture.  That's some crazy Luminati picture. Well, look at the bag down over here in the corner. It's Taco Bell. That's a Taco Bell ad. And anyone who's seen those ad, you don't know whether they're totally making fun of the whole conspiracy thing. Right. Or if they're trying to embrace it in some way. So I think there's a lot to talk about both in terms of conspiracy in comedy, where, you know, the truth tellers, are they telling us a different truth? And then conspiracy in culture. I mean, any thoughts, Meryl? Let's start with you. I think that's on what's going on there. Okay. So my first thought was a few weeks ago, I had Vogue research with me on if Dave Chappelle is even a clone or not. So that's kind of where I'm, you know, I think he may have went away for a few years, just like Eminem did, and come back a model of himself, like built by cloning agents. Really? Yeah. So the other half of the audience was listening. Alex is looking at you. I'm so sorry, but you're too weird. She sent me a whole page of YouTube videos like why Dave Chappelle is a clone. And I was like, this is a thing. God, you can get so deep into the dark internet. Just even on YouTube. Cause he went away and now he looks different. Like I know his cheekbones are kind of different and it looks like him. Same thing as Eminem. Is there like facial features have changed. You know, it's funny that whenever any of these celebrities changes in any way, you know, then we're like, you know, give me the old Eminem. I don't care what I have to substitute to get him. Me too.  I think Chappelle is different because the new Chappelle is awesome too. But he is so different than the old Dave. I think we want to substitute in that stuff.  It's crazy. It is crazy. On the other side too, as I am in the music industry as well and I attend Coachella and a lot of shows. And now when I'm there, I'm noticing like a lot of the symbols that I kind of associate with Illuminati. But now it's almost become so mainstream that almost everyone knows that. Like I've seen a lot on Katy Perry's Instagram, you know, her latest album has the I, a lot of stuff, a lot of people wear like Baphomet jewelry in their videos and people are commenting now like Illuminati or stuff like that. So that's almost become kind of like mainstream now for people to call it out on people's things. So I don't know if they're, and I'm still discovering my own opinion on this of whether or not they're shoving it down our throats and kind of not caring that it's so obvious or they're like making a whole mockery of it in general and they're doing it almost like, you know, kind of mocking way. Well, that was the whole point of bringing up the Taco Bell ad, you know, I mean, that certainly touches both of those because if you watch the Taco Bell ads, they're not totally, they're not totally suppressing the giggle factor but by the same token, they're not totally embracing it either. But where do you come down on some of that stuff, Bo? Is it just too all too... I mean, I kind of think like, my gut reaction when I'm at, like see something that's like, Meryl bring up an Illuminati or some sort of symbol and I'm like, why would it be so blatant in the public eye? Why even take the chance as she says like, Beyonce makes the triangle or whatever? And it's like, what's the point? So she does it and if anybody's like, well, what is that? It's like, well, they're not going to immediately be invited into this club. So there's like, why put it out there for people to even question? Why wouldn't it just be a secret society? Instead of being like, there are all these images in all these places where it's featured and we want to tell you that it's out there. So come on everybody, join our big group that's secret. It's like, what? As far as the Taco Bell thing, I think that's good branding. I think that's just an idea, that's an ad campaign of good branding. It's like anything else. Like you want to put your brand everywhere and this idea, it can't be completely comedy because it needs to be a little bit like, not spooky but like interesting. And if it's just funny, then it's like, it's a quick joke and see you later by, but they're doing this whole, is it Baluminati? Yeah, Baluminati. It's catchy and they're playing on this idea that it's kind of like, isn't it like a late night thing? Isn't it? Like, after night and it gets dark and that's when the Baluminati come out. It's like, it's kind of catchy and I think it's just a job of branding. Okay, okay, okay, okay. I hear you. Piss all over it. No, because there's two places I want to go with this because we can't kind of trace all these conspiracies and they're not worth tracking them all down. Even the ones that I think are true. But let me hit you with a couple of things and this is a long way around the barn to get to the conspiratorial stuff that interests me which is primarily science and consciousness as I've explained to you as we were chatting a little bit about who are you, why are you here and science tells you you're a biological robot in a meaningless universe. That is a conspiracy but we want to deconstruct that. Now, I'll give you a really just kind of plain example in your face example that is just impossible to ignore. New York Times. Okay, so this is from December of last year. This is like two months ago, right? Did you hear this? Did you process this? No. I mean, okay, just watch the video. Okay.  There's a whole fleet of them.  Oh my God. They're all going against the wind. The wind's 120 knots west. Oh, thank you. So what you have here is the New York Times saying that UFOs are real saying that Harry Reid, congressman Harry Reid ran a project, a secret project and they were investigating UFOs and they found them to be real.  So, you know, it's cool that, I guess it's cool that you haven't heard about this but what are you going to do with that? Okay. So, no, my mind is not alone. It's a UFO, an unidentified flying object. That could be some, anything that's unidentified. It could be some project of something, right? That the government has plenty of things going on that you have no idea about. Hold on, Bo. I mean, see, this is the problem that I said before. Like, if you haven't investigated at least a little bit, then the conversation gets kind of... Stupid.   What they're investigating is UFOs. UFOs in the sense of the word. You know, I just did an interview with Colonel John Alexander, who is this guy who's been in the military for 40, 50 years. All the MK Ultra stuff is associated with all that kind of stuff. In a real way. I mean, that's his history. You know, he worked in Stargate programs, Psychic Spying. He is a colonel, retired colonel. He just wrote a book about extended consciousness and drinking ayahuasca and all that stuff. Well, he has long been known to maintain this position that the government isn't hiding anything about UFOs. They just don't know about UFOs. Well, the main point, one of the main points I had with John is you can no longer maintain that position. Everyone who's in the UFO community has known that the government is hiding this up for 50 years, and now it's in your face in the New York Times. So it's not like you can put the genie back in the bottle and say, as Neil deGrasse Tyson said, is exactly what you did. Well, they are unidentified. That's laughable.  These things are maneuvering. They're not just objects. They're maneuvering. They're not us. We don't know how to do any of this stuff. We don't know how to move at 6,000 miles an hour and make right turns. But if you accept at all that this is real, that it appeared in the New York Times, and it did, and you can go read all about the disclosure of it and stuff like that, then you have to accept that since 1955 that we have released documents from the government that said, we know these things are real. We know these things are happening. We don't know what to do with it. It's our highest level security item. So I'm going to sound kind of like a jerkish here, but if you don't know that stuff, you don't know that stuff. But you can't just fill it in with the gap of saying unidentified means unidentified. That's just, that's not responsive to the data that's at hand. It doesn't really deal with the data. Right. And we're open to having aliens on the podcast. I mean, we'd really love to have. I'm actually seeking. I have already had conversations in my mind with when I do encounter someone from another kind, what I would say to them. And I'm not quite sure if I think aliens are like a dark force trying to kind of pull us in and do some demonic stuff on us or if they're trying to help us and raise us up and have stuff to help the human race or somewhere in between. So I'm not quite sure where I... I do like the idea that we make first contact and the thing they say right out of the gate is, hey, can we get on that show, Campfire Show? Can we really want to do the show? So if there are any ET beings listening, we would love to have you on Campfire Show. The problem is it's so hard to see... It's so hard to know what's real and not real even in the news. And I say that in the sense that so much can be fabricated. I could make that video. I could make that video. Now that's not saying that that video is not authentic. I'm just saying like somebody could make a video like that. Right? No. You don't think so. You don't think that someone... That's not the point. I mean, the point is not that someone could make that video. It's like, okay, Bo, go down that path. Who made the video and released it in the New York Times as being a video, a part of a $20 million US secret program into UFOs? Sure. Who went and talked to Harry Reid, who they went and interviewed and said, yeah, I ran the program. So go ahead, make that... Tell me how that all happens.  Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. Well, I mean, then in that case, like the reality is I don't know and I do believe that there's something bigger than what I understand for sure. And so... We're available to get like beamed up if someone wants to take that... This could be a shortened show. We're going to get beamed up? No, we can't. But, yeah, no, listen, I want to be open to the idea. Maybe it sounds like I'm being very close-minded. I'm throwing the response out there that's like, well, it is hard for me to believe some of these things, not because they can't be or could not exist, but because I have not spent my time and I'm very much ignorant towards a lot of these subjects.  We don't have to throw that out. Throw the I-word out there.  What I found is consistently the problem is that we hold on to our belief systems. And we all do that, you know, because when you wake up two o'clock in the morning and you're wondering how life should even go on or what my role is or all the dark night of the soul moments that we have, even if we don't believe we have a soul, the only thing you have to hold on to are your belief, your structure of how the world works. And when somebody comes along and says, nah, nah, nah, nah, that's not how the world works. We're not real comfortable with that. And consistently we show that we're not. Like, you know, we all look at, like, Scientologists and people like that. And we go, gee, how do those people hold on to the beliefs and then they haven't they seen the TV shows? Haven't they seen this? Right. I always point out this sociologist who wrote this awesome book a long time ago and it's called When Prophecy Fails. And what he wanted to do is he said, you know, what happens when a cult leader has a group, has a belief system, and is prophesizing about the end of the world and the end of the world doesn't happen? I mean, that's a pretty definitive event. Yeah. The world's gonna end on Friday. What are you saying on Saturday?  You know, it's closed down and they don't. What they do, what he found, the sociologists who studied this, is they double down. They don't say, oh, okay, our leader is not all-knowing. They say, oh, he knows you just got the date wrong. They double down and we'll do anything to protect our belief systems. So here, you know, it's unfair for you, Bo, because we're exposed to the reality that the government has known about UFOs. From another planet, there's from another system, whether it's time travel or whether it's multi-dimensional.  It ain't a mistaken, unidentified thing. It's a superior technological thing that's up there. So your world is blown and that's just the reality, but you're gonna not face that. You're gonna do everything you can to work around that. But I want to be hardcore. But I want to be clear. He's sweating. He's sweating. But I want to be clear. It's not that I don't believe that that could exist or that does exist. I do believe there's something else out there. Absolutely 100%. I just feel like in the same breath, I look at things with a skeptical eye or I just look at things maybe with a closed mind. I'm listening to you and maybe I'm looking at this with a closed mind. Are we taking our clothes off now? Is it getting hot in here? What's going on? I was buttoning up. No. He's exposing. It's getting cold. It's getting cold, I guess. Yeah, so I do believe. You show me a video of a UFO and it's like, I can say, yeah, I totally believe it. That probably exists. But at the same time, I can go the other way like, but could anybody make this video? What's to believe and what's not to believe? Merle, Merle, jump in there. Rain, just reach up there and knock him on that head. Well, I'm almost to the other extreme where I think some people in the culture right now might be even, I think they may be integrating another part of extraterrestrial people within who we're seeing today. So I feel like some people are being made into like half aliens, half humans. I really do sound crazy, but I agree with that. So I almost think alien and extraterrestrial is like seeping in more than we know and it probably already has been. And I feel like the government really has come out and said, yes, there are UFOs and that has been leaked. There has to be. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, it may be even more integrated than we know currently. So I think we may have, the government may have more contact with extraterrestrials. Well, but before we totally blow bow out of the water there, just send him. I like, I like, I feel like I'm the science experiment. I love that. We're going to break this dude. Yeah, we're going to break. Yeah, this is an MKL program. Oh yeah. We are going to break you down mind control at the end. You will. He's going to be having like a butterfly on his eye and holding like in a bathtub. Alex, I would like to expose something. Okay. Okay. So I would like to ask you your thoughts about yoga. Because we're here in Southern California. Yoga is very popular. I am like, I don't practice yoga anymore because I was doing a lot of Kundalini yoga a few years ago. And that's what ultimately I think led to my like psychic meltdown at the time. And I think yoga is like an opening to dark forces and not to completely change it, but I wanted to get your take on it. And if you've had people, I've talked to a lot of people that are based in Eastern philosophy and Eastern practices. But to me, like I'm very skeptical about yoga and I think it should be practiced kind of with care and concern. Not that it's very popular here. But I think yoga is kind of like a cult practice. I know. I'm going to practice a yoga for like 30 years. Well, maybe you can also have the makeup for it. First up, like, I think for someone that's already kind of teetering off the edge when I do yoga, it seems to open up like portals to things that aren't the best for me. So when I was doing a lot of Kundalini yoga, I genuinely think I got some type of like weird spiritual like meltdown thing happening and I was having hallucinations and I was like feeling weird things and almost like kind of hearing voices and it was not good for me. And then when I stopped, it took me a while but everything kind of settled down. Well, you know, the thing that I think is kind of an important part of this whole process in a broader sense is and I think that's what Skeptico has kind of been about. You know, Skeptico, the origin of it is kind of be skeptical and it took me a long time to figure out the true meaning of it and that is inquiry that perpetuates doubt. So I am in some ways more sympathetic to bow. I think we should always be doubting. I think that's the only place to be. I think that's the true spiritual path is to always be doubting. Don't be accepting. Always taking our experience but compare it to other experience and see what that means. As it relates to yoga, what I think a lot of folks don't fully appreciate is man, you got people who have been studying that stuff for 2,000 years. And you know, I was like, do you know who Ram Dass is? Yeah. So Ram Dass is a really cool guy. If you go back and look at the history, you know, Ram Dass is this professor, Richard Halpert, at Harvard. And he's there with another guy you might have heard of, Tim Leary.  And he says, you know, how is this going to work? What could we do with it? We'll start doing some experiments and they do. And the next thing you know, they're like, woo! So we all know what Timothy Leary does and that causes a cultural revolution, a cultural change. But Richard Halpert, who becomes Ram Dass, he goes to India and he says, you know, what is the deeper meaning of this? And does anyone else know about this stuff? And he finds this guy up in the Himalayas, Neem Karoli Baba. And he gives him the LSD. And he says, here. And Neem Karoli Baba takes a bunch of it and says, there, it doesn't do anything to me. And it didn't do anything to him. And he said, okay, look, I'll tell you the truth. If you've really developed your yoga, I'm making this kind of a character or a chair of the story, but then you control your mind. It's just a mind game. But it is an interesting medicine. It helps you see God, da, da, da. Ram Dass is totally blown away. Oh my God, this is real in a whole different sense than we've understood it. It's not just a pharmaceutical. It is some kind of doorway to this higher thing. Well, the point of all that for your situation, Meryl, or your experience is that Ram Dass goes on to say, you know, a real eye-opener for me was looking at this culture. They deal with Kundalini awakenings of the kind that you're talking about all the time. Not all the time, but it's understood that people might have a spontaneous Kundalini awakening, this transformative spiritual experience. And they're kind of crazy for six months.  You know, they're going through it. You know, that's it. It'll work out. They don't put them in an institution.  They don't point fingers at them and say, oh my God. As a matter of fact, they say the opposite. They say, wow, that person has made another step either voluntarily or involuntarily along their spiritual path. They've worked through a lot of that stuff that we from the West come at it and go, oh no, no, no. We've figured it all out. We're all biological robots in meaningless universe. So therefore, if anything happens, it has to have a chemical origin to it. And we can figure it out. And we can medicate you for it and all the rest of this. So the point being that when you say yoga, there's just a ton of cultural experience and human experience that thousands of years at it that really has to be studied and understood and nuanced. And there's a lot of people that are going through a lot of the same things that you are. And you can find support groups. You can find people to talk to that have had those kind of experiences. And it's a whole rich area to explore would be my thing. That's not me. I mean, I'm kind of spiritually dense. I see it. I can get slight glimpses of it. There's nothing like what you experienced, but I still see the value in it because I'm not a biological robot in the meaningless universe.  We all hear it. It's no joke. Is something more than just a random firing of chemical reactions that will go all pitch black when they stop existing?  That was my first kind of foray into another realm. And I am a silly person, but it was a terrifying experience.  And meanwhile I was like really at a time I probably could have or should have felt like I was like institutionalized or something like that. I had to take off work. I missed work for a couple of weeks.  That kind of scared me into being fearful of the realm, but now I'm in the way where I'm like free will trumps all instead of feeling like I'm at the mercy of having any sort of like evil spirits or anything like that. I just have backed up on the yoga and a lot of TM and stuff like that. And just because I know for my own genetic makeup it might not be for me or I'm kind of just scared to go further into that route to be completely honest. You know, I had to like integrate myself by drinking alcohol and watching baseball games and like bringing myself down a little bit because I just don't think I'm like I wasn't rooted enough to go up there at the time and I still kind of think I'm not. But what went down the path of that is being really interested and open to the idea that there's a lot of other kind of forces at play because I experienced it myself of feeling like stretched to the point of like losing grounding a little bit. And that's why I'm on Lexapro. No, I'm scared. I should be. Thanks to our sponsor, Lexapolta. But no, that's not it. But it's good to talk about and I think it's like especially being out here in Southern California there's a lot of spiritual work and energy work and everyone's a crystal healer and everyone's into Reiki and I think like I had the experience where I'm like wow if you do a lot of that and you're around people that aren't safe it can be a really, really terrifying and lonely experience. But now I make a joke out of it instead of being really afraid of it. But there was months on time where it kind of ruined me. Well, you know, there's like I can't speak directly and never would try to speak directly to kind of your experience. But I can speak to the show Skeptico and it's, I don't want to say common but it is the same story that you're talking about is told over and over again in a bunch of kind of strange places. I mean one is the kind of spontaneous spiritual transformative experience that you're talking about over and over again. You hear it the same way. You know, we were talking a little bit about near-death experience, science, you know, which is something that I really latched onto. What is the science behind it? Are there any peer-reviewed papers that would lead us to believe that consciousness does survive death? And at this point there's over 200, which again Bo doesn't know about every time. Bo doesn't know. That's our new campaign. Bo doesn't know.  And it's all about going to the light and light and love and all these unbelievably fantastic experiences. But then look at the other side of it and some researchers have. It's the same kind of integration problems that you're talking about. People go through depression. People experience much higher rate of divorce. People have this euphoric feeling of connection with everyone for a while and then that dissipates and they can sometimes feel lost. Now a lot of times it turns around and they actually build upon that and feel greater. But these recurring themes of Dark Knight of the Soul, transformative experiences that kind of totally blow our reality and knock us on our butt. All those things are are just commonplace in this realm of spiritual transformation and just extended consciousness beyond this kind of dorky existence that we're told is all there is. That's really interesting. I feel like there should be a skeptical guide to having a spiritual breakdown slash awakening. I buy it. She would buy anything though. She would buy anything. I think now when I see my mind is open to anything. When I watch a lot of music, which I'm very versed in, Bo and I are both versed in, a lot of the bands, when I watch their videos, I see the same symbolism of in a bird cage, in a bathtub, butterflies all over. I wanted to get your take on that in terms of now when you watch something, watching with the eye about what's going on, or do you watch a lot of stuff just for enjoyment? I think I'd take that in a different direction. And again, to try and be engaged with Bo, because he does seem kind of put off of it. I'm not put off at all. No, you are so cool, I could tell. You're more spiritual and Marilyn and I combined.  But Bo, when we were sitting on the couch, you were talking about and you didn't even finish the sentence, but you were talking about experience. And I think where you were going was experience, trumps, everything, you know. And that's where I think I would go with your point, Marilyn, but before I can go there, I got to hear what Bo has to say. So how do you feel like, how do you process your experience in terms of your experience, trumps, everything? Well, I guess I kind of mean like hearing a situation like today, knowing that I'm coming into a conversation with two people who are almost already connected in many ways, a belief system. And so knowing that, I know I'm coming in from the outside, but I feel like the experience of that, I will learn something. I'm never going in, I'm going to go make these people sound like they're crazy, or I want to disagree with them in every way. If I do disagree, I will. I just feel like honesty over kindness always is actually on your mind and accept new experiences in every way. I don't agree or subscribe to any one belief system.  And so ever since then, I've never looked back. I'm just kind of like, take what you feel is important or what you find interesting from all these different parts. And experience has been the one thing throughout my entire life where I thrust myself into things that I'm uneducated on uncomfortable with just because I know I'm going to grow through that.  So I should really go in there and let him. Which is why we did a lot of LSD. The last six months. Totally purple right now. Microdosing in the driveway. I saw it. We had it with our Starbucks chicken biscuit. You know, I think that's cool. Speak to the other part because this is like kind of a pet peeve of mine is trusting your experience. Do you trust your experience and to what extent are there limits to how far you would trust your experience and maybe just that. Hmm. Well, I mean gosh, that's such an interesting question because of course I trust my experience. I try to believe what I see. You know, I don't even know if I totally understand exactly what you're asking me because it seems like the answer is of course just yes. Do you trust your experience? Well, yeah, maybe I was being a little bit kind of obtuse there. You know, one of the things that happens when people have unusual experiences like Merrill was talking about their force with this dilemma of how much do I trust my experience? How much do I trust an experience that shatters my reality? And I think on the edge of that to me is really kind of an interesting place to be, an interesting place that we all are. Like one of the kind of driving forces of this show has been you know, trust your experience but don't trust it too far. I mean, that is the beauty of science. What science says, you know, science at its extreme at the ridiculous dopey level that it usually is portrayed says don't trust anything about your experience because you don't have an experience. Your experience is an illusion. Your experience is the, now think about that. See, it is random firing of the neurons in your brain. You have no free will. There is no way around that.  I don't need to pick on you. I'm just saying it's so hard. My wife is a PhD in psychology and I say this and she gets mad at me too. No, it's not that she goes back and reads it and she goes, well, yeah, I can see how you can interpret that. There's really no other way to interpret it. That's what science is saying. There is no free will. There's no ghost inside the machine as they say it. There is nothing really sitting back. They're deciding what to think and what to do and what to observe. It's all a biological robot. This is an insane idea but it's where science is stuck because it has some certain advantages in terms of making things work out. You know, part of the good part of not trusting your experience is does Meryl take her entire experience and say that's it. I heard these voices. They sounded demonic. Therefore, I got to go with that. Or does she say, well, gee, what other experiences are other people having? How do I compare, contrast, fit in? Are there any science studies that have been done? Does this ever happen to anyone else? So this process of both trusting the experience and at the same time not trusting the experience is kind of something that I play off on and I guess I was picking on you again. No, really? Yeah, really. I think you've got a thing. You've got a thing with me, I guess. Because I think with that, with that, do you trust your experiences? Well, now I don't want to. Maybe you're open to...  But I don't feel that way, honestly. I am feeling like a constant evolution of new ideas and as you sit here and talk I'm like, well, yeah, of course. I'm with you. I'm with you on a lot of what you're saying.  Like, truly. And so I do think I do a lot of thinking by myself and... He's by himself a lot. Nobody wants to hang out with me. No, but in that time I'm not, I personally don't feel like I just go throughout my day not challenging ideas. I try to be an open minded person and that's not me saying like, look at me and open minded but maybe that's for someone else to even say about me. But I do feel like what you're saying right now is kind of messing with me a bit. So the idea that I have no free will I don't believe and I kind of do believe so I'm conflicted I am conflicted because I can't explain why why anything is happening I can't truly explain other than I think, oh I have the choice to do this but like so I think I am at a point right now where I'm on the edge of of learning that next place whether it's levels or something I don't know. So I'm open to your ideas even though they sound fucked to me and I'm willing to sit here through your ridicule you fucks and let's keep going and how I think is maybe some of like his feelings are due to if we had like Mountain Dew yesterday the chemicals in that and then he ate a pig and the pig was screaming for his death as it like it didn't want to die and then now he has like the pig's cortisol in him so I think that there's a lot at play I also happen to be like I love animals I love animal welfare so I always think about where people come from but I also think that there's a lot of like I don't think I trust my experience in the way that the way that our food is contaminated now and the way that our air is contaminated and like I trust my experience as like a soul person from the beginning but now I feel like there's so much just messed up about what's going on in our like lifetime that I feel like I'm way off from the experience that like I feel like the me that was born like what I thought it was going to be when I came into this planet now it seems like way messed up to me like I almost feel like I didn't ask for all this on a certain level like to be on this at a time when like things are so kind of contaminated whether it's food or air or just beliefs or fear jealousy you know like I almost feel like I'm too sensitive to be on the planet at this moment I don't think you're seem to be doing okay on the planet thank you planet loves you the planet accepts you thank you I do love that planet too but that's a lot that like I was speaking for the planet that was a planet that just called like it's like it's his cousin and I don't know, no, Gary likes you everybody likes you the planet loves you the planet's coming over someday at one so we'll buy some chicken thighs but yeah that's the thing I think about too is just the hypocrisy and I'm completely hypocritical too of like having beliefs thinking that there's stuff out there but to me like consuming beings or you know animals that didn't want to die is a big thing I think about I'm not vegan or vegetarian but it's something that like wait a minute I know you would I was with you right up until that one and it's something too that it's a big giant like disparity in how I feel and think and sometimes we'll be even on the way here we ate a chicken sandwich and in my mind why did you eat the chicken sandwich you didn't have to eat the chicken I don't know I'm in a weird zone where like I haven't oh you just ate the chicken sandwich you're not in any weird zone you just decided to eat the chicken sandwich now I have the chickens soul a little part of the chicken soul in me that was a starbucks sandwich it wasn't even real chicken probably honestly it was like it was probably like Haitian kids we ate a taco bell actually we could not get enough of the buluminati so buluminati what if I go through the drive-thru and ask for like I'm just like can we get the triangle meal but yeah so that's a big thing I think about too and I think ever since I had my experience I'm way more open to like I think about the way cows feel and their fear as they like walk to get killed and everything and that makes me want to like fall to the floor and crumble but I still don't choose to eat vegetarian or vegan which I in a certain level everything that I feel is like bullshit do I can't be holier than that with any of my beliefs because I feel like I'm one big walking hypocrite in that realm particularly this is why I'm so skeptical of everything she said are you vegetarian or vegan no no I am you know my personal philosophy is you know I'm about 90% vegetarian and I think in my way of thinking that's good I mean that's a move in the right direction yeah yeah less meat is good it's good in kind of all these different environmental ways it's probably also good for your soul in the way that you're talking about but I don't get to hung up on it you know in terms of that part of it because you can't in my understanding you can't really follow that through to any logical conclusion in terms of what that means in terms of all these different souls and you know that's kind of I'm not at a level where I could pretend to kind of understand that and I think that's also where some of this stuff takes you back to maybe kind of where Beau was at I mean if you really kind of process this you realize that there are no answers because it is at a different level you know that's a little bit abstract if science is wrong about the biological robot meaningless universe then what they're really wrong about is this idea of consciousness and consciousness is that voice inside your head not the crazy voice inside your head but the calm voice inside your head when you just sit back and say okay I'm going to say hello and who heard that hello well there's someone always something some part of me that is always present so that's a real consciousness and that's the consciousness that does seem to survive bodily death so these near death experiences these people have cardiac arrest they're dead their brain is no longer functioning and yet they come back and can tell you how they were resuscitated you know I just had on a researcher Dr. Penny Sartori who that was her research is to go and talk to people who had a cardiac arrest were dead for a couple minutes and then she says how are you resuscitated and most people are like what do you mean I was dead I don't know how I was resuscitated but some people and then she goes okay well just tell me what you think well they probably came in this and well they did it all wrong and then there's another group of people these people have these near death experiences and they come in and they go I was kind of surprised because there wasn't the paddles they just came over and started pumping my heart in fact there's one nurse going to do it very well so she called this other guy over and then they started doing it there is no way that people should be able to recall after a minute or two after they're dead how they were resuscitated so clearly not clearly but apparently consciousness survives bodily death so the point then about consciousness is if there really is this consciousness if it really does exist then it is probably fundamental it is probably what everything is built on top of so you me the microphone all that is probably in some way we can't understand or articulate part of consciousness just like we're part of consciousness rather than we're here and everything is out there that's really abstract philosophical stuff but if you process it it's the only conclusion that makes any kind of sense if consciousness is real and that's why science lies so much about consciousness and says no no no let's just call it biological what's meaningless universe a lot simpler than getting into all that other stuff of how many angels fit on the head of a pen let's not go there I hope I come back as a snail I feel like my consciousness will get imported and I'm just going to be a snail slithering across the pavement that someone steps on or something but I was going to say I actually grew up my dad is a scientist and he's a botanist so I grew up with a big science background which I think helps in some way like the way we classify kingdoms and the way we have Latin name for plants and I like that view of science where it helps us classify the tangible things in life but I definitely have the wide open view of other things happening in the realm but I love science in a way where now if someone's leg is bleeding science has helped us develop it I don't think it would do much good just to be like my leg is bleeding but the consciousness of the blood is the same as the stretcher that I'm laying on or something like that I love the way that we've developed antibiotics and stuff like that but I don't know I think both I'm respectful of science but I'm also open to other realms within consciousness hey so you guys tell me where are you going with campfire shit show now that you've been blown away by the UFO reality well now I'm probably going to change the whole direction I'm totally screwed I don't even want to do the shit show I'm actually going to come on your show from now on even though your viewers are going to hate it I'm going to come and just be here every week and I'm planning an intergalactic tour for us so Elon Musk if you're listening we're ready to no we have a mix this is why we love talking to you we love talking to anyone with strong beliefs whether they're comedians you know people like you any what you're saying is you're not funny at all comedians or people like you actors we have some really interesting guests and a lot of it is about getting down to not what we do but who we are and a lot of people want to talk about the job that they have or maybe even the belief system that they have but we want to talk about the joining forces of what a story or an experience can bring people and a lot of times that comes out very cleanly in front of a campfire you know as a kid sitting around a campfire people start telling stories and it's just nice to hear that we all are kind of in the same place regardless of our beliefs and we've all had that embarrassing story or that thing that has shaped us in some way over and over and over again and so we try to get to that and in a comedic way in a fun and comfortable way yeah and I think it's all just like a cosmic joke anyway so good and bad and we just look at it from a like a what are some of your favorite shows so far that we've done so we just had a comedian on who is a fantastic impressionist so I loved hearing about her realm she had a hit go viral her name is Lauren O'Brien and a few years ago she had a viral video on youtube that got up to like 16 million views it was talked about on Good Morning America she had the Ellen show calling so I really enjoyed that episode because she talked about what it was like to go kind of internet famous within a night you know she was on a flight from here to New York and by the time she landed in New York she was famous on the internet and it was really weird to hear her view of how she kind of made it in Hollywood for a few weeks and then before you know it the news cycle was over and she was dropped her agency dropped her and just how she recovered from then so I feel like people that are interested in the entertainment industry will really love it because it's an inside look at how exciting it can be and everyone's kissing your ass and then all of a sudden you're dropped like a cold potato and you know so I like that episode a lot and Jack suppose that with the last episode which was I was curious that maybe my girlfriend was cheating on me and so the universe happened and put me in a situation where I actually got to catch her cheating on me with a guy and it was just I just lay the whole story out and it's very vulnerable and awful and wonderful and I feel electric because of it but it wasn't a great thing to go through that was the latest episode of course both try to tell me as a friend and I'm like wait wait we have to podcast about this I know you're hardly broken but this is really good podcast material so he told me this story genuinely for the first time that's I mean I don't know I mean it's horrible to go through that but what do you make of that that part of podcasting I think that's absolutely awesome I think that's awesome that you did that and you share that and I'm sure a lot of people you know benefited from it and at the same time I relate to the exhilaration part you know it is exhilarating to share and be that open in that way do you guys have any thoughts on that I've made I think we've both made a pact with each other and the podcast to be as real and honest as we can and to put on any airs so I love that beauty of podcasting just because we're not beholden to any sponsors the way that radio is and yeah I'm hearing a lot of feedback but I'm sorry I was getting too close oh that's okay okay now I can hear so yeah let me start over I was just going to say I love the beauty of podcasting because we're not beholden to sponsors the way that radio is and so we can come with our own opinions and if the listener doesn't agree they can keep listening or they can switch off but you know our sake of the podcast no matter how big the listenership is or if it gets smaller bigger it's like we're going to stay true and then integral to ourselves the way that you have with yours I'm doing nobody a favor by making up a story I'd rather just be completely honest so but shit man that's do you realize there's never been anything like that that we know of in history I mean that is kind of mind blowing but think about it bow even five ten years ago there was no one broadcasting to everybody their girlfriend cheating on them I mean what do you think that what do you think that what do you think about that what do you think that means for our culture I think it's it could be a great thing but as we were talking about with the neighbors thing you know you're not telling it to your neighbor you're going to tell it to the world I mean that's good maybe that's really cool no I think we have that we have that place to do it now where we didn't have it and it is safe for me to tell a story to Meryl in front of two microphones and not sit in front of a huge crowd of people and go I have to challenge the fact that my girlfriend cheated on me and then I have to ask the question why I mean ultimately I come to the decision that if someone's going to cheat on somebody it's not your fault it's their fault it's on them they get to live with that junk but it is very vulnerable and I think in many ways it's therapy it's absolutely therapy instead of holding things in and letting it destroy you and letting it grow bigger than you put it out there say fuck it I'm going to expose this for what it is exactly what you're doing you're kind of putting some exposure out there putting your honest to God feelings or honest to goodness feelings and out there honestly and letting people you know that's why you have viewers because they go yeah I feel that way too and I've had people already write me and say man I'm so glad you share that story you know hardly ever do people get caught they just get away with it and you find out later or something but like I was in the trenches like I see you I'm going to get you you know and so they really enjoyed that and so that tells you a lot about what society really wants they are craving for that like honesty or that vulnerability you know and I guess part of the place I was going with that is that I think the knee jerk reaction especially from people from the outside looking in it is to kind of disparage that or kind of say you know how screwed up you know our culture is that you won't share it with your neighbor you won't go bowling but I feel like you do I feel the opposite I feel like no this is what we've all been craving is a community of our own making a community that is voluntarily put together it's not the Thanksgiving table that you're forced to sit around and forced to kind of play you know these are your people and you can talk to them about the stuff that you really care about and you can connect with them in a way that you never could before I think it's absolutely fantastic and a number of levels and I'm sure it's therapeutic but what happened with the girlfriend well she's a piece of shit I mean yeah the end of the story is she's a piece of shit if you listen I'm like yeah I was not very excited I'm taking self-defense just for when I run into her but I was going to say I'm very involved in podcasting in general I work for a podcast company it really touches me when people for the first time take to the mic and even if they don't know quite how to express themselves I really love that we live in a time where yes some of it done in like the I or the me or the ego but I think a lot of times it's done just to like have a way to express ourselves and we've kind of we don't need traditional radio or traditional television channels anymore we can blaze our own path and I think for people like you like us who are just naturally want to create content I love that there's really no boundaries anymore you know we have friends that pretty much make like full-length movies with their iPhones they're putting out content and you don't have to wait for anyone you can do it on a smaller budget or no budget at all so I love that it's taken away the like oh I want to express myself but I can't because X Y and Z we just have kind of reached path that so I'm not of the mindset I know a lot of people think oh everyone has a podcast everyone has a YouTube channel but to me it's like awesome if human beings are expressing themselves they're happier they're more at peace and good luck to everyone I think that's how I feel right on to that well this has been awesome it really has and it's so fun it is so fun will you come on our podcast oh of course oh my god oh yes revenge is mine I would love to have you on okay and I will be humble I'll be quiet and I'll take my beating as I deserve it I'll do some kundalini yoga but first I'll be like shaking and tremoring and stuff for you and I'll have a party tray filled with tea I'll feel the couch pain dying before I eat it so we're going to have a link to the campfire show because you're going to want to check it out you're going to want to check out those two episodes I'm going to run over you know because I listened to some of the previous ones but I haven't listened to those too so hey put them right up there to the top of the list that is so cool if we titled it steak out and pandemonium so that's the if you see the one that's titled steak out know that that's steak out where he catches a cheater oh god that's so cool so my guests again have been maryland bow from campfire shit show from right here in san diego they're doing a great show and they're doing a lot of other cool things you can catch up check out some of their other videos on youtube y'all thank you so much for doing this let's go if you got time let's go grab some lunch yeah I'm hungry yep thanks again to maryland bow for joining me today on skeptico the one question I guess I have to tee up from this interview is I keep pitching this idea that conspiracies are central to this consciousness exploration deep spirituality thing that we're trying to get at with this show and I want to know if you agree I think what I laid out here is this idea that conspiracies are somehow the bridge between what we want out of science in terms of scientific method in terms of some way of organizing and understanding and measuring experience and the craziness that science has become and the absurdity of biological robots that mean this universe then a premise that's completely false and filled with conspiracy and that in some way understanding conspiracies in general give us a leg up on sorting that all out. That's my position anyway but I want to turn that into a question and see what you think so let me hear from you either right here on the comment section wherever that may be that you're hearing this or through the skeptical form we'll drop an email like so many of you have which is so terrific and I will try my best to respond to everything I hear. Number of interesting shows coming up. Number of interesting projects coming up. Do stay with me. There's some fun stuff coming up on Skeptico. Until next time take care and bye for now. So thanks for watching this video and if it wasn't really a video but just an audio, start as a video I apologize but there's more videos out there as well but please check out the Skeptico website you can see it here we cover a lot of different stuff you might be interested in relating to controversial science and spirituality. A lot of shows up there over 350 of them are so all free all available for download so do check it out.