I hope you are all right comfortable and for some time we have been talking about organization of speech sounds in natural languages. And we saw that syllable is the highest unit of organization of speech sounds whether a speech sound occurs at the beginning of the word or in the middle of the word or syllable or in the at the end of the syllable and at the end of the word are all decided by principles are all decided by constraints that go to make a syllable. A syllable is the highest unit of organization of speech sounds of course after that you have words phrases next week we will be or even earlier this even later this week we will begin talking about how speech sounds make syllables and sorry we have been talking about how speech sound sounds make syllables we will be talking about how syllables make words and phrases and sentences. Today we will continue with how syllable helps us understand what is the use of the concept of syllable how does it help us understand organization of speech sounds better. Number one do you think any sound can occur anywhere and if you look at the data in natural languages any language look at telugu look at english look at hindi look at french look at any language you like you will find that this is not the case that any speech sound can occur anywhere there are constraints even single consonants even single vowels it is not that all speech sounds can occur anywhere in english no word begins with this speech sound what is this what is this phonetic representation which sound does it represent as in lung as in long as in king as in wrong you will find that no word begins with this sound no syllable begins with this sound it always comes at the end similarly there is no english word that ends in this sound what is this no words in this sound in english they write it in a spelling of course you see a you see o but they are not pronounced it is just a not a not o it is o a okay they are not pronounced no this does not occur at the end of the word okay there are other kinds of and this is true of all languages not just english not just Sanskrit look at look at the screen and look at what kind of consonants can come together in english if it is two consonants you can have par you can have can you have words with prayer such as prayer professor okay prize priest prove pray you have words with prayer can you give me words right can you give me words with prayer player please okay plight plumber okay can you give me can you give me words with prayer and pure okay can you give me words with burn la blog yeah blog blast bleed blood burn raw break break by India by that is by art but you can you give me words with current crush crash creak crepe can you give me words with car and la close click okay climb car and your cure car and walk they quiet quiet queen quest question can you give me words with girl and la blue glad yeah girl and la but do you imagine we can have an english word we have an english word which has per enter at the beginning can you can you take a minute take out your notebook and look at words that are possible in telugu what kind of words what kind of consonant sounds can begin a word you have words beginning with do you have a word beginning with in Telugu that is Angam but do you have a word beginning with this sound in Telugu think hard close your eyes it's it's look this is an exercise in thinking this is an exercise in brainstorming can you think of a word in Telugu in Tamil in Malayalam in any Indian language in Sanskrit in Persian in any other language can you think of can you find a word okay similarly do you find a Telugu word that begins with ba and ra you there are think you know think of onset clusters in Telugu what consonants can begin a word one or two or three give me some examples please not just Telugu you know Hindi Telugu Sanskrit Malayalam Tamil Kannada Marathi whatever you like lots of words like you say Brahmin okay Brihad they are talking of Brihad Andhra when Andhra is shrinking okay can you give me examples of words in Telugu beginning with Prah Prakriti Pran Prasadam Prasthanam Prasthanamu okay can you think of like this yes Pran but can you think of a word beginning with pa and ta pa and ta tathada okay but can you think of a word ending in pa and ta Gupta Gupta Lipth Tapth Hot okay can you think of a word in Telugu beginning with Kannada Kramam Krupa Krishi Krishnam okay in Hindi you know I am not necessarily Telugu you know if you know some other language this is your chance to test your knowledge of that language I am encouraging you to do that for a language other than English you know unfortunately or fortunately a good part of your life has been involved in learning English though you know a lot of other languages but we have never thought of them can you can you think of similar clusters in other language do you have a Telugu word beginning with ka wa ka ya in Hindi kya kyu ah that is ka ya khyati but ka ya okay do you have a Hindi word beginning with ba la how many people know Hindi here okay can you give me a word beginning with ba and la okay can you give me a word ending in ba and la ending in la and ba that is ba but yes you know how do you wait a minute how do you know bulb is not a Hindi word it has come from English but Hindi speakers use it if you if you leave words out like that then which words would you leave out of Hindi you know there will be a lot of lots of words so I will accept bulb okay that is you know that indicates it is possible in Hindi it may not be there but it is possible okay similarly look at word endings in English can you think of a word ending in rha and pa sharp harp okay carp warp ending in rha and ba rha and ba barb okay carp barb okay rha and ta card rha and ta card card rha and ta park la and ta okay similarly think of Hindi can you think of a word ending in rha and pa in Sanskrit in Hindi it is all possible okay rha and ba yeah rha and why you say garb but many people in my part of the country we don't pronounce what Bengal Vihar Odisha Assam Nepal Bangladesh Panaras area we pronounce it as garb so we don't have a ravindra we have ravindra okay so the point is you know you can if you like I will ask you to write a note at the end semester examination I am giving you the question for five marks please write what I it will be either of the two I don't know which write a short note on what consonant clusters are possible at the beginning of the word in your mother tongue or what consonant clusters are possible at the end of a word in your mother tongue by mother tongue I mean any language other than English so you know these are syllable based constraints you explain and understand them better if you think in terms of onset koda because you suddenly find some words you know you say rha and pa is not possible at the beginning of the word but you sometimes see them in the middle of the word coming before a vowel you have harp you have harper sharper now is this rha and pa it comes before a vowel look at this look at this cluster how would you explain it without the concept of syllable but with the concept of syllable you can say that it cuts this way they don't go together they are separated rha is the koda of the previous syllable and pa is the onset of the following syllable and this explanation is possible only if you assume that in natural languages there is a structure called syllable am I clear to you yes or no please I am also talking to people on the second bench last bench am I clear to you sure okay please interrupt me if you think I am rushing through I know it is a lot of new terms new concepts to you in such a short time okay what do you do when you have a single consonant between vowels is it koda of the following syllable onset of the preceding syllable what do you do look at a word like for instance American write on your notebook now what is the status of ma do you say am a or do you say am a rhe kan or do you say may re kan you know and these things are you know these things are empirical these decisions are you look at the data and you see what will give you better explanation so there are often questions asked say for example in a word like this transcribe it and by the way you have a question on transcription okay so please practice it transcribe it without looking at my transcription and then compare okay American okay now what is the status of this is it the onset of the following are we together please are you with me yes right understand the question is ma here the onset of the following syllable or is ma here the koda of the previous syllable what is your answer you know at this stage there is no please note this word in sciences you will find this Latin phrase used often what is it a priori priori beforehand you know beforehand there is no principle based on which you can say this is x or y is it onset or koda but looking at the data that is why you know it is an empirical decision please note this word by which I mean what will give you best value what will give you best value look at the data and you feel lot of red shirts come on Tuesday lot of white shirts come on Wednesday black shirts on Saturday so then you will say in India people prefer black shirt on Saturdays okay but you know these are these are these are database generalizations they may not be universally applied there may you may suddenly come across somebody on Saturday who is wearing white who is wearing red okay but a large number of people you go to a particular place and you find that they are wearing black okay as it happens so these are empirical decisions so empirically looking you find that though it can go either way but you get better results if you if you if you conclude that is the onset of the following syllable rather than the koda of the previous syllable and if you apply that principle then you get you know this is one syllable this is another this is another and this is another correct so you make a principle saying that a single consonant between two syllables usually becomes the onset of the second syllable rather than the koda of the first but if you have two how are two or more consonants treated in the middle of the word so for example you have as I have given you at this screen look at these words you have words like do you know the meaning of this word reproach this is the you know what is the meaning of the word reproach look up your dictionary today when you go back to the you see looking up prediction is an opportunity for learning if somebody dropped a five rupee coin in the hostel corridor as you pass would you pick it up or would you leave it do not answer that question please I know how many people will leave it it is almost gentle yeah gentle look up the dictionary I did not want them to I did not want to give the meaning publicly because I want people to look up their dictionary you know these are learning opportunities do not do not miss them it does not matter if you do not pick up a five rupee coin anyway you do not buy anything these days in with a five rupee coin but you can buy lot of things with the word okay so look at look up the meaning and the pronunciation of okay let us take let us compare reproach with extract X sorry X tract please transcribe it and then compare your transcription with mine but do not copy mine first do it on your notebook then then compare with mine so this is reproach and this is extract okay now the question arises when you have two consonants in the middle of the world and you have two consonants together here in the middle of the world you have two consonants of three consonants of actually you have four here can you see are we together please yes or no yes yes entire class please are you with me okay here we have two consonants in the middle of the world here we have one two three four do they make onset of the following syllable do they make the code of the previous syllable or do they make both what is your answer okay once again you know there cannot be any a priori answer there cannot be any a priori answer right there is nothing in linguistic theory there is nothing in linguistic theory that stops them from becoming the code of the previous onset of the following but you look at the data and that is where you know your databases come in entire language engineering you need to have rules you need to have a look at the units the data okay so if you look at the data you find that there are words that begin with this cluster okay in English which is where this word comes from you have words beginning with this cluster can you give me a word straight straight strike strike strong strength okay lots of words lots of words with this cluster but is there a word that begins with this can you think of a word that begins with cursor K s no not in Indo-Aryan languages not in okay Sanskrit has a cluster of consonants when you say Chetra but then it changes it no longer remains a plosive okay so you then conclude that those consonants please give me your total attention those consonants you know and there are other words you come across you routinely come across clusters of consonant transcribe it this is what is this inhibition you have two consonants here coming together you have words like corruption okay Pasha coming together do you have a word that begins with Pasha do you have a word that begins with Naha do you have a word that begins with Kasa so a golden principle is a golden principle is that when you have two consonants okay coming together in the middle of a word ask yourself if they make the if they ever occur at the beginning of a word if they do then they are the onset of the following word and if they do not then they go to the code of the previous level sorry if they occur together then you they can be the onset of the following syllable but if they do not then they can become the code of the previous syllable or they can be split in between look at examples like reproach so what will you say does it go to onset of code following this principle you will say this is the onset this is the onset and this is the nucleus of the this is the code in this syllable in this case and for this syllable this forms the onset look at this cluster can you draw a tree diagram for extract please on your notebook only extract only this and assign it to either you know onset code or onset as you feel draw a tree diagram to show the relationship in both these syllables okay do it and then compare with mine please compare your work with the derivation I have given on the board did you get it right how many people got it right not bad okay if you made any mistake please change it these are mechanical you know these can be predicted computers can do it you do not even need an intelligent application you just need some expert systems databases and they will apply across the board okay without any difficulty but a golden principle is which works largely 99% all right in languages of the world saying that if you have two consonants in the middle of a word then assign them to onset if they begin a word assign them to code if they end a word otherwise split them in between okay pretty simple you know can you do can you do another word a word like aptitude transcribe it and then do it a word like aptitude quickly please compare your work it has three syllables aptitude or you can say two onset here tude you can have both aptitude aptitude okay what we have done here is these two consonants come together in the middle of the word in continuous speech you know they follow each other but they may follow each other in a stream this is where the concept of syllable helps they do not belong to the same group can you see the point am I do I have your attention please yes or no yes sir right they do not belong to the same group whereas per makes the code of the power makes the code of the earlier syllable the preceding syllable term makes the onset of the following syllable okay and you can mechanically apply it to other words I will copy these slides to Mahesh and I will require I will expect you to look at these words and draw their T diagram syllable structure on your notebook at the end semester examination I may give you a word from Telugu okay I may give you a word from Tamil and I may ask you to or I may give you words from English okay and I may ask you to split them into different syllables showing which consonant goes where are we together is it okay do you understand all I am trying to do is to tell you how sounds speech sounds are organized together you see in a running speech as I am speaking now as you speak when you talk to your friends give a presentation we do not even bother about these little things but because mind the powerful instrument it has in the knowledge of language that it has comes into application and this is how we organize our speech sounds okay look at some other concepts we have been talking about syllable structure and organization reorganization you can work out you can work out these examples which goes to where do you split them for a syllable when you have a word like address do you say add and rest following this principle what do you do you have add and address and you have similarly what do you do for a plod and then plod aptitude target okay request the same way we do not say Rick and then West okay you do not get as good results there right how many different kinds of syllables can there be okay there is an old look at the look at this word and if you apply labels if you use a computer and say all consonants will be labeled C all vowels will be labeled V then you see this has no consonant you have V C what is this C or V C what is this V what is this C what is this C what is this C what is this C what is this C now you will see that some syllables are not some in some syllables V is not necessarily followed by a C in this case look at this syllable okay this syllable this box okay is V followed by a C no but look at this case a V is followed by C look at this case a V is followed by C can you look at can you take any other word you know from the previous take a word like address write C V C V okay I will also do it here take another word applaud do C V C V or take another word request and do C V C V okay you can compare with mine I have just done to address and request now look at the syllable structure here this syllable it does not end in C but the following syllable ends in a C okay in the first syllable here ends in a C the second syllable ends in a C so all syllables that end in a C please write are known as closed syllable but all syllables that end in a V in a vowel are therefore open syllable okay in modern linguistics where we do a lot of algorithmic you know computer generated circus computer generated generalizations etc you can say the same thing slightly differently in computer generated things you can say where rhyme is branching in this case look at the tree diagram for the syllable request okay I am getting abstract are you with me am I speaking too rapidly do you understand me sorry please pardon me I know I am talking about a lot of new things new abstract concepts not directly relevant to you for your immediate need but you know we are trying to understand how nature organizes itself and in this case the examples are from language basic principles are the same whether you study molecular physics biology or language okay try and understand please we can look at the same thing in a slightly different way and perhaps we can come up with better explanation rather than say what ends in V what ends in C we can draw a tree diagram of the syllable so for example this is one syllable it has an onset onset is it has a rhyme rhyme has a nucleus nucleus is E it does not have a coda there is nothing here compared with this look at the other syllable we have a syllable here please draw it and then compare with mine it has an onset it has a rhyme onset has two consonants onset has K and V rhyme has a nucleus which is A and a and coda which again have two consonants S and T. Did you draw it correctly everybody please did you draw it correctly did you sorry please I am forcing you to see yes I hate myself I am so sorry okay I wish we had more time you know I wish you were not forced to do this course okay I hope some of you have opted for it now look at the geometry of the tree okay in this case can I have your attention complete attention to if necessary close your eyes and then see you know see with closed eyes okay in this case there is no C following it correct in this case the rhyme does not branch rhyme is linear there is nothing here this is useless okay do you see the difference now compare it with this this syllable in this case a V is followed by a C you see V C sorry I wrote the other way round C V here C C V C C now look at the difference we said that a syllable that ends in V is an open syllable a syllable that ends in C is a closed syllable the same fact can be represented a lot better intuitively much more satisfyingly if you say that an open syllable not always but in this case here is a non-branching syllable the tree has no branch one line one line one node but in this case you see the rhyme branches they are both nuclear and Coda and again Coda branches okay therefore please write we have the concept of light and heavy syllable light and heavy syllable Sanskrit terms like you may have heard guru and lagu okay heavy syllable you know syllables with samyuk takshara samyuk takshara with clusters of consonant with long vowels make heavy syllable and others syllables without a consonant in the Coda without a long vowel make a light syllable I will copy these slides to you work out the syllable structure and you will very easily see that quite often an open syllable quite often not always there are you know other situations quite often an open syllable is also a light syllable quite often a closed syllable is often a heavy syllable but not always there are other things you know come to but basically see the pattern how speech sounds organize themselves into a variety of groups you can for instance do this exercise you can look at words like deny and draw a tree diagram do you think it branches do a tree diagram for deny so for onset here you have the rhyme there is nucleus e no Coda in the first syllable in deny d nigh in d there is no Coda but in the nigh let us see so you have the onset nigh and you have rhyme which has a nucleus but no Coda but nucleus is long you have a diphthong I deny so even when it does not end in a consonant it is a heavy syllable why is it a heavy syllable because the nucleus here the rhyme here branches it has more than one note and because it has more than one note it is heavy had it if it had only one note it would be light because it has two notes or more it is heavy you know much more satisfying you know geometry intuitively you can look at words like denote detest you if you draw the tree diagram you will find that they also answer this criterion eminently well you know you can say that some syllables are heavy syllables when they have a branching rhyme whether or not they have a Coda there may be branching nucleus or they may be branching because of a nucleus and Coda ok you can make syllable based generalizations if you want to ask yourself why is it that in some varieties of English in India in the world develop is pronounced at develop why is e lost the second e second vowel lost the answer is explanation is pretty simple it is quite often the case that a light syllable after a stressed syllable is deleted in this case look at the word d e v e l o p there is few in some varieties of India some varieties of English in India you have stressed the initial syllable and then the light syllable following it is deleted you know so syllable structure helps you understand some of these generalizations similarly you can ask yourself why is it that some people pronounce s p r a y as separate or some people pronounced f i l m as as film why do they do that and the answer again is very simple if you look at them in terms of syllables you can say in some of these languages you can say that in some of these varieties in some of these varieties you see here at the extra added e you see extra added a or extra added a in some of these varieties sir and per are not legitimate legal onsets and because they are not legitimate because they are not legal onsets so what happens is the speakers bring another vowel and turn the extra consonant into either an onset or a coda and get legitimate structure so it happens in film so it happens in agonist so it happens in a lot of other words it is better if you work out if it is better if you work out some of these examples on your own you will then understand this better why is it not moving when you look at some syllables together in a language say for example look at this imagine I do not give you the word I just wrote nitrate in phonetic transcription because you know in speech there is no pause now when you write nitrate as I have written on the screen what word does it make is it nitrate or is it a chemical called nitrate how do you know how do you know we do not the answer is we do not because syllable structure cannot take you beyond a certain point it has certain usage it has certain utility if you have a word like a name in a continuous speech now a name can mean anything it can be an aim or a name which of the two is it can be inferred can be deciphered can be learned only if you look at larger data what I am trying to tell you in other words is that syllable is a good stuff is a good enough concept for us to understand the organization of sounds but if you ask higher level questions like what words they make or what they do not then that is a higher level question which cannot be answered at this similarly you know you have a sentence called ice cream sorry an utterance called ice cream now is ice cream how do you split it is it ice and cream or is it eye and scream can you split this the next group of sounds let me see how many words you get out of them can you do it on your notebook can you take two minutes more okay what sentence do you get yeah yeah the sentence is we will take a dozen but this conclusion can be reached only when you know when only when you have the higher level knowledge you know sentence level knowledge word level knowledge speech sound level knowledge syllable level knowledge can only give you organization of speech sounds in syllables similar thing you know in Hindi can you tell me how many words are involved here those who know Hindi please can you split them into Hindi words or syllables this is an 18th century I took the first two lines of an 18th century poem perhaps from Hindi can anyone please try and tell me can you stick your neck out it is Narak okay good attempt this is the syllable division you know those cross double crosses indicate word boundaries can I have your attention please in the literature of linguistics this includes this indicates word boundary okay now see Narak Kaparan clothes ko darat hain you know when you go to the temple you do not like prostrate oh my clothes will get spoiled but you do not fear falling in hell Nar Kaparan men clothes fear Nar Kaparan ko darat hain Narak hell Paran falling nahi you know syllable structure can be identical now see the now see the you know beauty and problem of language the problem of language is the two parts of this line Nar Kaparan and Narak Paran do I have your attention please on the one hand you have Nar Kaparan men and clothes on the other hand you have Narak Paran hell and fall but their syllable structures are more or less alike now how do you know what is what you know because you have a higher level knowledge you can go beyond the speech sounds you can see which speech sounds are organized which way that is the kind of knowledge if the computer you know if the computer acquired that kind of knowledge then the computer will be able to so far computer can work jolly well you give it syllable structure and the computer will split it okay but if you wanted to process them into words break them into words what recognition then your computer will require higher level knowledge this kind of knowledge and it is true not just of Hindi not just of English I think I will stop here thank you very much have a good day.


If you find a seat, we're about to get underway here. And to each and every one of you, a very warm welcome. I think you've already met me earlier this morning, but it's always a special privilege to be the first to welcome you to our gala evening, where we celebrate outstanding achievements in learning technology on a national scale. If you haven't found a seat yet, you're not sure whom to sit with, please join the table. There are some free seats at the front here. But before we get to dinner, we have a lot of very special things to announce. For those of you who've been to the awards evenings before, you know that this is the only peer awarded national award for learning technology, and we're now on our 11th year. I'm very excited about the winners tonight. I'm really looking forward to you helping us celebrate and give accolades to those of us who've really had an outstanding and amazing year. Now the awards and the winners are supported by our main award sponsor. And this evening we have someone with us whose first experience of the ALT conference started this morning, and who's really done a lot of homework finding out about all the finalists and finding out how that relates to the work that they do. So I hope you can put your hands together and give a very warm welcome to James Silcott. He's the sponsor this year's Technologies of the Year Awards. We enjoy the opportunity in helping you celebrate your excellent practice and work in promoting the intelligent use of learning technology on a national and international scale. This year's conference theme was about beyond islands. And as this country faces an uncertain future with unknown challenges, certainly around our place in the world, it is refreshing that we have a global fraternity here, sharing a common aim to improve the learning experience for every global citizen. There are no rules and there are no borders. Every year we have attended this conference. We have seen it grow and develop at an ever faster pace. In the last year, I have seen some excellent examples of digital transformation in learning technology. And this year's finalists are testing me to that. The focus this year on beyond islands of innovation, the finalists have all shown how they have supported their institution's use of technology to enable greater learning outcomes. In all cases, these outcomes have had a positive, some cases life changing impact on students, local and international communities. As my colleague Dave Kenworthy mentioned at the opening of the conference, the Bloom team at Coast Sector University of London have been many things to many people over the years. But we know one thing for certain, we exist to help the best possible learning technology from your institution. It is your VLE, your learning technology, your contribution. We are here to support you, the professionals, by providing the best platform and support to take your innovations to your institution. Our role is very much of an enabler to use the learning technologist. That allows you to deliver the best learning experiences to your stakeholders, the students, academics and the support staff. Digital learning is now so essential to every institution whether that be higher education, further education schools or NGOs. It allows greater access to a global audience and we understand that for any institution to excel at its digital learning, this has to be driven by the learning technologists. You are at the very heart of the institution's student experience. And there are many ways that Coast Sector can help from hosting, administration, development advice and more. We have been around for just under 50 years. We plan to be around for another 50. However, I believe with an exceptional rate of digital transformation, the next 50 years are just gonna be exciting for more than the first 50 years. This year's finalists show that this conference is very much a global conference with submissions from Africa, Australia and Europe. Being able to share experience on a global scale can only help everyone to learn, innovate and try new ways of teaching by working together. The experience, desire and drive for improving people's lives and the overall student experience is clearly seen from all the finalists. Finally, I would like to congratulate all the finalists and the winners. Thank you. For the big reveal, I have a little announcement this year because our learning technologists of the year awards are growing and expanding. As you know, we have an individual award and we have a team award and for the last few years voted for by you, we've also had a community favorite award. But through the consultation that Altis had with its members and the launch of our new strategy, one item, one area of learning technology that we feel we need to do more for, that we read to recognize more is research. We know that research can help inform policy, at least in a hopeful world. We know that research informs our practice and we know that there is a lot more challenges for us to meet. So together with the researchers in our community, we're going to be launching and drawing up a framework for a new award category that we'll be awarding for the very first time next year and that is going to be celebrating outstanding research achievement and in particular, early career researchers. So I'm very proud to announce that we'll be launching a new award starting next year and for those of you in the audience who do research or maybe at the start of your careers, please look out for the detail and enter next year. So I'm very excited. Next year, there'll be a bigger celebration with an emphasis on research. And earlier today at the AGM, at which you were all the room was entirely full, we also celebrated another outstanding individual and the honorary life membership of Altis here was awarded to Josie Fraser and Josie over there if you could get up. I think technologists of the year award, may I just mention that? So a stratospheric career, we're proud to help celebrate. But now without any further announcements, we're coming to the serious business, the individual awards. And joined, James, Helen and Pete, our co-chairs will help me present the awards. So if I could ask Pete to come up and announce the first individual awards and if you have won an award and we call out your name, please do come up on stage to receive it. This is better than the Oscars this, isn't it? Seriously? Okay, so in third place then for the individual awards, from Ulster University, it's Richard Beggs. And the runner-up is Ashwin Mehta from the Medical Research Council. Oops, which one is it, this one? Bill Suspenser. Now for the winner and the winner for the individual award is Chrissie Naranzee from the Tune University. With Chrissie winning. Just save for a moment. Right, and now after very stellar individual awards, we come to the team awards. And again, we're gonna share that out. So to announce the highly commended award, Pete. Sliced technical hitch. And the highly commended award, unfortunately they're not able to be here, but it was for Tabastock and Portman Tell Unit. And then the runner-up in this award is the learning technology team from the University of Northampton. And just join the others on the side. We'll do a quick picture together. Okay, I'm ready. All right, big. And it is a great pleasure that I give this award to an organization that have traveled a long way, they've come all the way from Australia. So the winners of the Manish College Central E-Learning Team of Australia. Congratulations, you nearly gave that away.  And that is the Technology Enhanced Learning Team from the University of Sheffield. There's one more award, fast to award, the last one of the evening, the one that's standing between you and dinner. And the one I hope that you've all been voting for. We've received hundreds of tweets and emails. But I think the worthy winner has had a very good campaign plan. With the most votes this award has ever received, we're very, very excited that it goes to Ashwin Metta. Please, Ashwin, come up. For all of our winners to come back on stage all together, I think we're going to have one more. If you want to all come up, if we get them all back on stage, your last job for the evening is to give the loudest cheer of the conference yet to all of our 2017 winners and finalists. Here they are to award you, and we wish you a very pleasant evening. Enjoy your dinner and let the University of Liverpool staff look after you. Don't forget, 9.30 in the morning, we're in for a treat with Pete Goodyear. So I hope to see you all in the morning and have a very good evening. Thank you all.


Welcome to Skeptico where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I'm your host Alex Zekaris, and as you may recall, a couple of episodes back, I had an interview with Ohio State comparative religions professor Dr. Hugh Urban. And what I found particularly interesting in that interview is the rather strange way, in my opinion, that many academics deal with cults like Scientology, or as they sometimes like to refer to them, new religions like Scientology. And as I explained in that episode, and as we'll talk about today, I found that particularly strange in the case of Scientology, because as we explored in that interview, we have direct provable links between Scientology and occult practices number one, but also with CIA dabbling with extended consciousness with programs like MK Ultra, MK Often, and even Stargate, which we've talked about a lot on this show. So after the interview, one of the things I wanted to do was unpack both parts of that with someone who's actually experienced the reality of Scientology. And that led me to today's guest, Chris Shelton, someone who at a very young age was indoctrinated into Scientology through his parents.  So imagine, as a very young kid, you know, instead of going to Sunday school, you're going to Scientology.  This is your parents going there and saying, hey, maybe this is the way to go. So Chris has gone on to create a very successful YouTube channel and a podcast called Sensibly Speaking, where you regularly interviews experts on cults, mind control, and other related topics that are important to people who found themselves in this rather unfortunate situation. So Chris, welcome. Thank you very much for joining me. Welcome to Skeptico. Thank you. Thanks for having me on. So as I was pulling together that intro, I had in the back of my mind that, you know, there might be some places where you don't exactly agree with me and that's totally fine. You do kind of come from this critical thinker, the code word for atheistic kind of thing. Yeah, critical thinker. Yeah. Yeah, I kind of have a little thing about that. Well, I just say that because I've dealt with so many blockheaded, closed minded atheists who kind of weave this flag of critical thinking. Oh, gee, like everyone else is uncritical and you're critical. I mean, doesn't everyone claim to be a critical thinker? I think they do. I think there's people in Scientology, you know, they'll give you a real scientific explanation for what they did. But I don't want to get too kind of far afield here because I do want to serve that first purpose of you were nice enough to look at the Hugh Urban interview and you share it. Like I said, I could only get through about half of it, Alex, because it got pretty hard and I understand that. But I want to get to the big picture stuff of your bio and just back to, you know, what do you think when you hear an academic like that talking about these new religions like Scientology? Yeah, exactly. They specifically refer to them. There was this coined term new religious movement or NRMs. And this is something that has been circulating in academic circles or the academic world for at least a decade now. And this, I can't remember the name of the person whose brain child that was, but the problem with describing high control authoritarian groups, what people call cults or destructive cults specifically, and I have gone into great detail about that in my channel, is that it ignores the abusive aspect of these groups and the academics tend to shy away from in all the literature that I can find. And I've read pretty extensively of it. In fact, I even did an entire video series breaking down a book called Scientology, which was written entirely by academics who all come at it from the viewpoint of Scientology being a new religious movement that deserves religious freedom and recognition and analysis from at a professional level, but who then proceed to merely regurgitate Scientology's promotional materials in their academic studies and papers. And this is what I've taken them to task for because if you're going to objectively look at a new religious movement, call it a new religious movement, then you better be able to back that up with some evidence. Because we're talking studies now we're talking actual papers that are written by academics for academics in the world of academia. These are not popular works these are not printed for the public at large. So these are people who live in the world of having to publish or perish. Well, hold on because you kind of touch on a couple of different things that we need to pull apart. You know, one is the abuse, you know, and you're going to, we need to talk about that.  Of course, sorry I just launched right into that but yes I am a former Scientologist and years professionally like I worked for the organization for 25 of those years. I was raised in Scientology before that that was I count my Scientology time from the point that I was 15. But I was actually raised with it my parents got involved when I was four years old. So I don't have a living memory outside of Scientology. See, I mean, you know, I remember a couple of things from before I was four years old but for the most part, you know, Scientology is always been there. The concepts have always been there the terminology of which there is a great deal has always been there I was raised with these ideas so and it was really not a whole lot different my experience from I think being raised in any kind of what I would say is a strongly religious family. It's not Scientology is not a casual thing my parents worked for the organization they were deeply involved with it up until the late 80s they got out in the 90s. I was then all in. So then I was the Scientologist in the family and they were kind of they had kind of both got now, but they drifted away and I stayed in and by this point I was in my 20s. I worked for the organization in Santa Barbara and then I moved down to Los Angeles and I joined what's called the sea organ see organization. When I was 25 years old in 1995, and I moved down to Los Angeles and I worked for the sea organization for 17 years, finally got out in 2000 the end of 2012. And it was a year later, after getting full exposure to the internet uncensored, which in the world of Scientology and see or the internet is censored in the same way it's censored in China, it's filtered. You can you simply cannot access certain information. And so I there was a ton of information about Scientology that I never had access to. I was left in 2012. When I left the sea organization, I was still a believer in Scientology within a year of being exposed to all of the truth about Scientology and Elron Hubbard. I was out, and I was so out that I started speaking out publicly against it, because I was so outraged about what I had learned that the church labeled me an enemy. I am now declared a suppressive person by the Church of Scientology, which means I'm not to be talked to or connected to or or in any way corresponded with by Scientologists.  I lost friends. I lost people I've known for over 20 years overnight, because the church said I'm an enemy. You can't talk to me more and they all comply. Let me just interject there because one of the things that you said, that's a cult. So at the beginning, right, so it's just like kind of crazy. Like we're talking about Dr. Urban, who seems like a super nice guy and is an interesting guy and has a lot of interesting pursuits in terms of comparative religions that are important and our scholarly, but for him to kind of miss. It's a fricking cult. And unless we can talk about it as a cult, then we can't get to the basics to get to some of the kind of fundamental understandings of what that means, how it fits in. But the other thing I think that we miss out on is the opportunity to just slow down and have a little bit of respect for the victims. And I want to talk about that a little bit. I don't know if that's even a word that maybe you don't like or don't associate with, which I would totally respect. But the thing that I get that kind of annoys me is that I feel like, man, you don't have to fricking apologize, which is sometimes what I hear, like people go, oh, and you know, I stayed in.  That's all you knew your parents and, you know, it's like, and then people, because I know people will say, well, you're kind of partially responsible, Chris, because you stayed in. I'm sure you feel enough responsible as it is. If we don't understand it as a cult, if we can't identify it as a cult, then I don't think we can really respect fully what that was for you, what your experience was. And I'm kind of on a soapbox there, but tell me what your thoughts are on that. Well, I agree with you. Victim is not a word that I eschew. I definitely was victimized by Scientology. Anybody who gets involved in Scientology eventually will be. That's the nature of what it does. That's why we call it a destructive cult. There's very specific characteristics connected with that. I use that term very advisedly. But I understand that it's a loaded word. There was a lot of, you know, contention about the use of that word. I'm not, I don't shy away from it. I think you're right. I think we have to talk about these groups in proper terminology and destructive cult is a perfectly acceptable term to use when you have a very exact definition for it, which we do. This is not work I invented. I built my work on the work of people who came before me like Yanya Lalich, Steve Hassan, Robert J. Lifton, of course, going all the way back to the 50s and 60s. They're, you know, Margaret Singer. There are a lot of people in this line, right? I stand on the shoulder of giants in many ways with the things that I've talked about, including even former Scientologists who've come out and spent years studying this and figuring out what happened to them, men like John Atack, who's written books of, you know, academic quality about this work and who is in who are routinely ignored by the academics that we're talking about. They will not give any credibility or credence to our stories because they just assume that all of us have an axe to grind. We are in, we cannot be impartial or objective and therefore nothing we say matters. And if that's not the very definition of prejudicial academia, I don't know what is. Now, Chris, let me give you Dr. Urban's spin on that.  This is like one of the primary things I think we can accomplish in doing this is that. So you talk to those folks and I threw up a slide on the screen. Yeah, I see this. I love Jeff Kreipel. He's great. He's been on the show multiple times. He's got a lot of interesting things to say about a lot of these topics. But there is a certain kind of myoptic mindset when we get into these cults and they don't seem to be able to break out of it. And so what Dr. Urban says in, I don't know if you got to this part of the interview, but he said, look, you know, there was too much in the public discourse. There was too much just dialogue from people who were survivors kind of victims kind of thing.  And to me, I get that on one hand, but I always think of the kind of false equivalency thing, which I've dealt with on so many topics on this show, you know, where all the evidence really is on one side. So let's go out and find somebody on the other side who can prop it up and make it look like there's some kind of genuine discussion here. That must feel frustrating to you when academia does that in this case, because there really isn't any balance here, is there? No, there isn't. And that is why it's frustrating for me. That's what compelled me to make a whole series of videos, taking on every single one of these essays, one at a time showing where they get it wrong, talking exactly about what they missed, and taking them to task for it. You know, if you're going to publish an academic paper about Scientology, you better have something to say. And if what you have to say is simply regurgitated Scientology promotional materials, and I am intimately familiar with Scientology's promotional materials, I wrote them. So I understand how Scientology presents itself to the world, and I understand the curtain or veil behind which Scientology operates, and what they do when people aren't around, you know, when it's just Scientologists, when it's just how do they talk? What do they say? What do they think? I understand all of that at a very intimate level. I was all in, and I was at its highest levels for over a decade. So if there's somebody they want to talk to who's actually going to be able to give them information about what Scientology really is about, it's people like me. And it's not just me, there's so many former members who have come out and shared their experiences, and have talked about how what Scientology presents to the world is very different from what actually goes on in Scientology. They don't go any further. And that's where they lose, and that's why their objectivity is called into question. That's why their motives are called into question, because they don't academically rigorously pursue this topic. If they did, their work would look a lot different. That's, that's kind of my point there. I want to pull that back though, right on that point and say that I wonder if the problem isn't deeper in a way. So I think what they're doing, yeah, what they're doing in comparative religion, it's not that it's they don't seem to be able to deal with this cult issue.  To hell with that, I think we're way too careful about really trying to understand the cultish influences that are. There's another way to look at like some of the interviews you've done with some of the cult experts and I would actually pick some different cult experts even though we've interviewed some of the same people, because I think what cults are tapping into are some very basic human needs and human psychological weaknesses, strengths, you know, this need for community, this need for authority, this need for a core set of beliefs that provide a certainty to structuring life. I think those things pop up all over the place. And I think to pretend that we have some clear dividing line that we can very advisedly call this a cult and that not a cult. I think obscures it and that's what I hear so many times is the subtext of Hugh Urban, Jeff Kreipel, the rest of those guys is to say, Well, I mean, then we'd have to look at all religions as cults. And I'm like, Yes, that's what we should do. We should examine whether or not each and every religion is a cult or to what extent it's a cult. A little aside, you know, a lot of those stuff that I've done, especially early on was in near death experience, which many people know and are aware of, and it the near death experience stuff is very powerful for people from transformational kind of standpoint, you can maybe kind of see where this is going. So it starts playing some of those cult buttons, and some of these groups that get together and talk about near death experiences can start looking like or being infiltrated by cults. And I actually had a group that did that. And this is a group that had invited me to speak of a keynote speak, which speech, which I never did. And I got an email from a listener to skeptico, he said, Hey, I was at a meeting recently. And there's this woman up there and she's, she's in a cult, and she's kind of co opting the whole near death experience thing. And I'm worried about it. I went and interviewed one of the leaders of the very legitimate near death experience organization. And I said, What's up with this cult thing. And that was his claim, you know, Number one, he defended this. Well, it's a mildly dangerous call. Okay, a mildly dangerous call. But then number two, he was like, and this is I think links back, I know this is a long story, but I think it links back to the Q urban thing. He goes, Look, if we cut, if we cut these people off from full participation in our group, then what do we do about people who have a Christian experience as part of their near death experience or what do they do. What do we do with other religious people. So I think that a lot of times we feel hamstrung by this narrow to use your word again, very advisedly controlled definition of cults rather than more broadly looking at how these are very common psychological factors that we're all susceptible to. And in a way, I feel this is like right in your swing zone, isn't it Chris. Well, I get very much so this is all I've been looking at for the last seven years. The problem there of course is that these religious studies academics never go over to the psychology department and have a talk with them about it. That's not where they're that's not how they're coming at this. And I have been breaking down and deconstructing my experience of the 27 plus years over the last six or seven years by talking to all these people and breaking it down and looking at it from different angles you can look at all of these things from lots of levels there's lots of levels you can look at these from a psychological level. There's a whole world to explore of mechanisms and beliefs and systems and things that go on just here. Then there is the neurological level where you really drill down and do just what's going on in here. There's a sociological level sociologists have a field day with this stuff right as well they should it's fascinating study comparative religions is a fascinating from a sociological point of view. Why did this group do this when this group didn't you know this kind of thing right looking looking at that. I don't think it's really possible to dig into the kind of group from a sociological perspective without going over and having the psychology talk to. I think these two things are very very important to understanding the total experience of what goes on in these calls I think you have to look at them from both levels. What religious scholars are doing is a much shallower book. And I know that they're going to take exception to this but this is how I see it right they're looking at group characteristics they're looking at group beliefs that dogma. They're looking at ritual and practices they're fitting this thing called Scientology or any other group and they're they're checking boxes doesn't have rituals doesn't have religious dogma doesn't have beliefs how do those beliefs manifest. These are the things they're looking at they don't that what's not on that list of check boxes that they should be adding to and I think this is where they fall down is the abusive factor. You really shouldn't be ignoring that and looking at these groups but one for one for one. I have not found any religious scholar who will actually use the word abuse. And yet it is clearly what goes on in these high control groups way more than just you know Scientology sure but lots and lots of groups there are thousands of these groups out there. They're not even all religious. And I think that's one of the reasons also that these religious academic scholars kind of maybe don't want to go there because then they have to dive into. It's not about the religious aspect of this group it's about there's other characteristics other ways of looking at these groups and framing them that that the religion angle has nothing to do with it. They've decided in their collective wisdom this group of scholars and I don't know how big they are I don't know how much of academia this is. I only know that when you go to academia to talk about Scientology. These are the this is what's presented to you and Hugh urban is one of the few people who will even be a little critical about Scientology. I just want you guys give it a pass over and over and over again and when you talk about underlying problems to this I think that the biggest underlying problem is that many of these folks have come into this from from a point of view of feeling that they are on a mission to defend religious freedom. And now by presenting it, you know, sort of defense for these groups and calling them new religious movements when one there is nothing new about them. There's very little religious about them and they are not really movements. So all three of those words are basically lots. They're there. It's a misassignation to call them new religious movements. But that's where they decided to go and so in Apollo in in what I know what I refer to as apologetics because that's what it amounts to is academics. They begin to the abusive side of things because they have an agenda of some kind, whatever that agenda is for each individual person. I can't say I don't know them well enough, but I can say collectively that agenda seemed to be. They all get together and figure out how to give these groups a pass so that they don't suffer from persecution due to people's prejudices against new religious movements and while lovable. It is a miss.   And unfortunately, I think in the long run that is the hill they're going to die in because their work will be wholly invalidated because it's just regurgitating the promotional materials of these groups. And it's not just Scientology that they have done this with they've done this with TM they have done this with the brethren 12 tribes I mean others, they would have done it with nexium if nexium had been a religious group. You know, I mean they're just they just ignore all the bad stuff. I spent three years on the RPF, the rehabilitation project force, probably the single most abusive aspect of Scientology. Explain to people why you say that it's a yeah it's a physical endurance program you'd go there if you screw up in the sea or it's only for the sea or it's a disciplinary prison like system. And the, the purpose of it is reeducation. And I use and reeducation in the same way that Mao was re educating people in concentration camps in China, following the Chinese uprising and Revolution. That kind of reeducation right in other words indoctrination. And when you stray from the path in the sea organ you start creating trouble you get disaffected or you've really screwed up on something. According to Scientology's assessment of how you screw up on something which is a little different from how normal people would think you end up in this program it is a full time sequestered activity you're separated from the rest of the sea or members if you're married. Sorry, you know you don't get to see your wife or husband or whatever for the entire period of time that you're on this program you cannot be spoke you cannot speak to anybody outside the program. Unless you're spoken to first right there that the RPF tends to be kind of relegated to the basement and nobody really wants to see them or talk to them they're bad. You know they're they're they're bad guys they screwed up right but they're they're taking this one chance to redeem themselves. In the course of the RPF not only is there all this psychological reeducation and pressure to get you to conform and comply with Scientology's directives that there is intense intense physical demands made on you because you're working most of the day.  If you're caught slacking walking not working as hard as you possibly can. You're made to drop and do 20 push ups or run around the block and do a lap or this is right out of the cults right out of the cults makers handbook you know that's right. Oh yeah. Deprive him of sleep the private proper nutrition and then run the heck out of you're right I mean why this is if you and I know this and it's widely known why are we skating skirting this issue when we get to academia. Well exactly they want to compare it to a monastic existence for. You know they make false comparatives is one of the huge logical fallacies that these academics commit is they they they try to find something that this compares to that is legitimate rather than just looking at the RPF because all papers have been written about the RPF by academics and they miss again and again. I want to pick up on that word. I want to pick up on that word legitimate because I think I'm really open to what you said and I hadn't thought about it quite that way in terms of kind of a lefty politics inclusiveness. You know kind of die on that hill you know that and I get that without judging whether or not that's there there's certainly a place for that you know in terms of excluding people it's not. We have a pretty sorry history of excluding groups so we all understand the inclusiveness being in a lot of ways a good thing but here you're talking about kind of the evil side of it. You know which is there but the other thing I think that the hill they're going on is these atheism humanists and I know that's kind of in your camp but it's like this. What always blows me away is this way that they process the consciousness aspect of it because that's been a big part of my thing and in the interview that I did you know I shared with. The audience this little quote which I think really revealing about Elron Hubbard and it's about Hubbard and Jack Parsons who became very very close close friends and are engaged in a series of occult rituals through the direction of Alistair Crowley who's in England but has kind of chosen Jack Parsons to be the guy and Jack Parsons says oh I met this tremendous guy. Elron Hubbard and they're out in the desert of California and they're doing this whore of Babylon ritual in order to conceive and bring into this world the anti Christ so I don't care how someone processes that. You have to throw that into the mix you have to understand that to some level and in the only response because academia has locked itself into this very narrow understanding of consciousness extended consciousness the existence of any other forces outside of. Our materialistic world because they've written all that off they just turn the page on this and it's like but that's one thing I kind of pushed to her man it's like. Doesn't this deserve some at least exploration in terms of what this would mean, and in particular and that's another kind of thing that's in my bailiwick and that's the fact that you know we have some kind of provable links to. The cult conspiracy if you will into inside the United States government, the MK ultra program that a lot of people have heard about is directly connectable to the Jack Parsons thing. It's also directly connectable to something called project stargate and the men who stare at goats thing that a lot of people have heard about. People don't know is this whole stargate thing which was a CIA program and there's tens of thousands of documents reliefs that kind of show that these guys are way past this. Oh there can't be any extended consciousness they're playing with extended consciousness they're experimenting with it they're reporting back to Jimmy Carter and he's announcing and on the news that wow these guys are psychic and they can spy all over the world kind of thing they found this down playing. Well the guys who are the original founders researchers the go to guys in under the MK ultra program that is project stargate, two of them are very early. I guess members of Scientology so how put off is no swan is and then to not explore that I mean again so that's the other hill that I think academia is dying on that just this kind of complete blindness to even consider. What's going on in this extended realm and how that might be a reality number one for all these religions because that's the wind that the head fake wink thing is that well we don't really have to deal with that because it couldn't possibly be true. So you will talk about Christianity all day long because we don't believe that any of it could possibly be real. Same with Satanism will talk about it all day long because there's no way any of it could be true. I'm not a religious guy Chris, but I look at the evidence I just follow the evidence and clearly there's something going on in this extended consciousness realm that we need to consider as part of this discussion, or it all just becomes godly good. Well I'll tell you how I think about that as a skeptic and and I think about that in terms of if you want to talk about the legitimacy of extended consciousness psychic powers ESP telepathy a supernatural paranormal activities this sort of thing. I'm going to have to show me evidence and and so far it's been coming up pretty short across the boards, however, I agree with what you're saying because point is that if you're going to be a religious scholar and you're going to dive into this. You're talking to people you're talking about people who do believe this stuff and they believe it with all their heart I did I used to right when I was a Scientologist I believed in the OT phenomena. I believed in the power we operating fate and the upper level stuff right that you could rehabilitate yourself spiritually to a state where telekinesis was possible, you know clairvoyance this kind of things. I believed all that never experienced it once. But supposedly Hubbard had and other people had and Hubbard talked about it at length so it must be true there must be some validity to it. And even my own parents were OTs and sometimes they would like to play little mind games with me when I was a kid so I thought there was some legitimacy to all of this. And that's the important thing is that you have to you have to know that's not who you're talking that's one of the important things but the first important thing is. Is there a reality to it or not so I don't want to push this and make this dominate the conversation. But again, I'm talking about when I'm talking about Stargate and MK ultra. I mean there's 10s of thousands I just interviewed this guy you can see him up on the screen Lance Mongia who just did this movie Third Eye Spies. And as part of the movie, he went with Russell Targ, and they got 10s of thousands of previously classified CIA documents released that it's close it's case closed in terms of Stargate being real being effective so if you don't want to go there. Hold on a second now. Now hang on. Did it happen. Yes. Was it effective. Okay now that's a whole different question. I will absolutely agree with you that it happened. No, no, did they actually prove remote viewing. Oh, yeah. They've not only proved it as part of the Stargate program but there's been peer reviewed, many peer reviewed studies that have been done that shows its efficacy. So I don't want to get into the whole skeptical debate. I mean we can do that, but there's just no basis for this kind of did it ever happen James Randy kind of maybe there was a camera fake kind of thing. All that stuff has been just thoroughly debunked but put it to the point of Stargate 10s of thousands of released documents that show its efficacy over and over again and peer reviewed studies that show its efficacy. So there really shouldn't be any doubt at this point but we can't cover all that that evidence here and I don't know maybe it's not relevant then because we can't really go there. No, I'd have to see that I have yet to see a single piece of compelling evidence. You haven't you just haven't looked for it but that's okay dude do not say that to me. You don't know a thing about what I haven't haven't looked at. Do not make assumptions about what I haven't haven't looked at I spent my entire childhood studying is don't tell me what I know and don't know. I'm saying categorically I'm saying categorically if you don't understand that Stargate has been proven and that remote viewing has been proven. Again, I just show me just show me evidence that's all I'm saying send me some papers show me this peer reviewed stuff because So I'll show you the peer reviewed stuff I'll show you the peer reviewed stuff and then it'll be then it'll send it to me. And then it'll be okay and then you'll and then you'll look at what you send me and I will look at it and then I will make my decisions based on what I read. But I have not yet seen any compelling evidence for remote viewing being a thing I have seen many many many failed experiments and attempts at it. So I'm open to looking at whatever you want to send me I'm just saying don't assume that you know what I know because I have studied this at length. I've done the deep dives and clearly I can't know what you know. No, of course not. You get what I'm saying and that, you know, it's like, I mean, just for just for fun since we're in the middle of this conversation we've kind of really handled the first part of it. You know, I'd go like near death experience I suppose you don't think that consciousness survives bodily death. I don't know if it does or not. So go read go read the handbook of near death experiences by Dr. Janice Holden and Bruce Grayson from the University of Virginia, and Jan Holden from North Texas 200 peer reviewed papers. I've interviewed all the leading experts in the world. Every expert tells you consciousness rise death, but that just doesn't penetrate to a certain group of people. It's really just like talking to a fundamentalist Christian. It's the same thing. It's, we'll talk till it's blue in the face and it's like, nope, nope, nope, show me the evidence. That's not enough. You haven't convinced me like that's the standard is like convincing an individual is the standard. Not that all the experts in the field have come to this conclusion based on data that they can publish in peer review papers. That's not enough kind of thing. Right. Well, peer reviewed science is the best system that we have, but it is not an infallible system. Correct. So we need to always, always be skeptical and critical of what we read and that's really my only approach. I'm not a dedicated non believer or unbeliever. However, let's be clear. I spent 27 years in a movement quote unquote, that was a destructive cult thinking I was saving the world. So you can understand why I might be more than a little skeptical of claims of a similar nature being made when in the big wide world I see no evidence that any of this stuff is real. So that's why I say, look, I'll look at anything you want to send me and I'm more than happy to contemplate it. And that my position is simply, I don't know, which I believe is a better position than, no, that's not true when it can't be true and there's no way I will ever believe that. That's not my position. Fair, fair enough, in two respects. One is that I do honor your experience because I think it's important and that's why I called you up and. It's important and you make a strong case for your experience and I also totally get that where you're coming from seems completely reasonable to me. I hear you saying, hey, I understand how easy it is to get roped into a set of narrow beliefs that take somebody down a path. Alex, I've seen it with other people, you seem like a very intelligent guy, well spoken guy. And I think that's the thing that gets people like, wait, how could that guy have, you know, that's the question everyone's mind. And I think you're kind of answering that by saying, look, I know how easy it is.  They're not impenetrable, but I have them up at full force. And I do respect that. Thank you. I appreciate you saying that. It's important to be skeptical in a world where Gwyneth Paltrow is making more money than you and I are ever going to see in our entire lives.  That's the world we live in. So it is with, you know, good, it's a good thing to be skeptical in this world. I hear you point well taken. Let's talk about this topic from a practical standpoint. It's critical for people to know that there is a way out. Maybe you can start by sharing your journey out. I mean, you already have a little bit, but what else can, can people most profit from and in particular, you know, you're talking to an audience that they're not Scientologists for the most part. But maybe they know someone who could recognize some of these. They recognize some of the same features, symptoms. You get the idea. How do you get out? Totally. It's, you know, I just did a two hour podcast with a man who has been doing this for almost 50 years now. And it's an extensive topic getting people out of these groups, but I will summarize it by saying care, compassion, tolerance and understanding. They will never, ever swear at somebody and tag and knives them out of a belief system or destructive cult or any kind of situation really. If you want to change hearts and minds, you're going to have to do it by talking to people at their level, not yours. And that involves usually a lot more listening than it does talking. And getting to why it is that this person has gotten involved in this group in the first place, what they're getting out of it, what it does for them, what they think it does for them, maybe versus what it's really doing to them. They don't see what you see. They see what they see. And they can't see what you see. They can only see what they see. And when you've bought into a group like this, where you've, you've slowly, it's a slow series of agreements. It's not nobody's getting Z new on day one. Nobody's getting Z new on day two. Nobody's getting Z new on day 50. It's a very slow progress before you're getting into this really weird deep space opera stuff and the space alien and all that stuff. That's that's really upper level stuff that the street level Scientologist isn't going to hear anything about that unless they go specifically for certain books. In the library of Scientology that they can find that are there that are public publicly accessible books like history of man, you know where Hubbard goes all out on data traps and spiritual stuff and all this other nonsense. So you can get into that if you want to but your normal Scientology experience isn't going to include any of that. So if you go talk into a Scientologist and say Z new and space aliens and exorcisms and all this, they're going to look at you like you have no idea what you're talking about because as far as they're concerned, you don't. And trying to argue dogma is usually a losing battle. I can understand that take the other side of that. If you are talking to someone who maybe is recently within the last few years been indoctrinated into specifically Scientology kind of elaborate on that. What is the approach what has probably sucked them in what is the kind of listening that you can effectively do. Yeah, of course, the, the, the things that the way Scientology reels people in that I sort of compare it to a fish line right is they hook you on a very, very personal level. When you first go into a Scientology organization you're usually brought in by a friend or family member that's that's the number one way that Scientologists are made. We talked that you mentioned at the beginning second gens like me second generation cult member I was raised in it. There are third fourth even fifth generation members at this point because Scientology has been around since 1953. So, it's been around for a while. And so family and so family of course are just raised with it like me, but even I had to have my epiphany moment, and that was when I was 15 and I went into a Scientology organization on my own at my dad's suggestion, and I did their personality test and that's generally how they want to get you in is they want to do that personality test. It's 200 questions that ends up with a graph of personality characteristics and that and the, the whole thrust of that is to get you to sit down with the test evaluator and start talking and tell them about yourself. And what they're looking for is the thing that they think is what they call their your ruin. What they're looking for the thing that you think is the number one problem in your life that you have to resolve right now because it's ruining your life, whether it's that you can't talk to your kids. You have problems at work use marriage problems family problems whatever it is there's about 2021 different buttons that they push that they that they can get at you at, and those were surveyed for one of the biggest problems people are aware of in their life that they want to do something about right, and they have courses that they've designed to deal with each of those problems so if you walk in there and you take this personality test and you start talking about how you know you and your kid are so estranged and you can't talk anymore and it seems like he's just rebelling every time you talk to him and, and it's just a mess and you don't know what to do, and you feel like you're losing them and and you want this relationship and it's just, it's just tearing you apart. Great, we got a course for that it's called the communications course and then we've got this other course about dealing with kids and, and if you take these two classes and they're only 50 bucks each. We will handle that ruin utterly and you will never have that problem again. And that's the hook. That's how they get you in is it's something very personal that you go, really, that you have something that can help me with that. It's very practical. It's extremely practical. And they market Scientology as a toolbox for you for life. Scientology has these tools that you can use. It's not about beliefs. It's not about space aliens.  It's about tools for making your life a better thing. And who could possibly object to that. It's basically positive psychology cognitive psychology for folks who can't afford it. It kind of makes sense. I really, I kind of knew it but when you break it down, it makes a lot of sense.  It's very tempting. Exactly. And, and what's what's so objectionable about any of that. I mean, this is very worked out. Yes, they've been they've been doing this for like, what, 70, almost, you know, 70 years now. They've really worked out all the kinks in this line. Right. The thing Scientology can't deal with right now is all of us. All of us X members who are going, Hey, man, that looks and sounds great. But guess what that has nothing to do with what Scientology is really all about. And that's what we're trying to warn you about. Right. Is it's like, yeah, that sounds real good. And at the public level, some of the tools they give you actually do work. Because they have to because why would you sign up for more if it didn't, you know, so it's all common sense stuff. But it's but it's but it's all presented to you and framed in a way that you know who could possibly object to this what what, you know, anybody who's telling you bad things about Scientology clearly doesn't want you to get better. Well, you know, and we didn't get into this and we're going to we're going to wrap it up. But I would maintain that that Christianity does exactly the same thing. Anyone who's right, you get it.  And didn't Jesus die for your sins. And they're like, wait a minute, how did you slip. It's the same thing. And that's one of the things that I just think sometimes we're a little bit soft on on Christianity and in particular right now, it should be so starkly obvious with the whole pedo pulp thing. And still, people don't get it. And you know, they still go there and give their money morally, ethically, how can you give your money to an organization that that is provably that linked to this kind of systematic exploitation of children and all these sex crimes, how there's I don't know how one justifies that. Really. I mean, it's pretty easy, because they just look at that horrible behavior is something different or an aberration I should say maybe it's a it's a it's a it's a fringe extremist criminal element but that's only a little tiny part and the pope is dealing with that and the Catholic, you know, they're dealing with that. Right. Just, just listen to what they say they've called councils and they've done meetings and they've done that.  This is the thing that I've learned that has been the most difficult thing for me in dealing with people is that is it's no mystery we all know that this happens it's just difficult to accept is that when somebody wants to believe something when they have a when they're when they're engaging and what's called motivated reasoning, where they have a an emotional investment of some kind in the topic at hand. They only need one semi legitimate reason, and they can they can write off all kinds of abuses they can they can just go No, it's all you know just one little incline of something it's called confirmation bias and we all do it. And that's, that's the answer to why people do that because because they want to because they want to believe. And if you want to get to the motivations of that. Then we talked about mortality and social pressures and all the other stuff that comes in. So Chris, tell folks about some of the other work you're doing critical you are the critical thinker at large. I try to tell folks what's coming up on your channel and in your podcast. Yeah, we're doing where I'm actually putting together a series on MLMs multi level marketing cons because those are totally related to destructive cults. And actually speaking of the occult stuff I'm in I'm in touch with somebody right now who was, or is a member was a member of the OTO the order of tempi orientus, which was Hubbard's, which was the church or sort of formal organization connected with Alistair Crowley and Hubbard and Parsons and all of that so I'm looking forward to exploring some of that in the near future on my channel as well. Nice. Well, it's great important work. I like that you definitely are open to the science and have a lot of good experts on your channel. So it's been a good discussion anything else we need to cover. Well, I guess not but thank you very much for having me on and you know I'm sorry if I got a little rough pushing back on you a little bit there I I just don't like assumptions and I'm trying really really hard this year to not assume things and I just you know no problem. No problem on the pushback at all. I mean I think you handled it extremely politely I can push buttons even when I don't know I'm pushing buttons, but I will follow up with you and make notes in the the afternotes of the show because again, it's pretty you know I don't know how you're going to step over the peer reviewed research and the release documents, maybe you will just have a little slight shift in your worldview, but my most people Well, let me tell you that let me say this. I would like nothing more than to believe that life doesn't stop when our bodies die. I say that who cares. I don't care what what you would like that has nothing to do with the issue it really doesn't. It comes down to a science issue. It's like, what is the nature of consciousness. Again, when does it end what's necessary and sufficient to cause consciousness. One of the things that like we can't really have this discussion, but it's like, that's the problem with underlying what Hugh Urban is talking about is they bought into this kind of ridiculous notion of materialism of consciousness is an epiphenomenon of the brain, which has been disproven. I mean, I have some of the, some of the world's leading physicists who will tell you consciousness is fundamental. We've proven it all over and over again. The CERN lab over there where they're crashing together atoms and producing a terabyte of data all come to the same conclusion. Consciousness is fundamental. All the best quantum physicists from 100 years ago came to the same conclusion. Yet, everyone is operating under this. Let's just do this thing where, you know, consciousness isn't real. We're just biological robots in a meaningless universe. And let's go down that path because it's comfortable. That has been completely falsified. And the reason I have to tip toe around that that is the world that you're living in because that is the skeptical, the skeptics quote unquote pseudo skeptics have kind of completely bought into that without a careful examination of it. So we can talk about remote viewing as being one tiny way to show that that's falsified, but it's falsified in all these other ways. And the consequences of it are, I think this kind of very narrow in some ways, atheistic materialistic kind of mindset. And again, I'm not a religious person. So I'm not coming at it from that angle. Right. I totally get it, man. And like I said, I'll look at anything you want to send me. You know, I have a pretty high standard. My bar is pretty high on my threshold of of acceptable evidence. So I'm very, very curious what you will send me and I will look at it. Can't do any more can't ask any more than that or best again has been Chris Shelton. Make sure you check him out on YouTube and check out his podcast. Thanks for the great stuff, Chris. I think it added a lot to rounding out this discussion with Q urban. So I appreciate it. Absolutely. Thank you very much for having me on and give me the opportunity to talk. Thanks again to Chris Shelton for joining me stand skeptical since I really did invite him primarily to talk about Scientology. I'm not going to bash him too hard on the pseudo skeptic critical thinking thing which in my opinion is just, I don't know, you know, jump from one narrow belief system to another maybe. But I did want to let you know that I did follow up with Chris, send him some really radical studies like Jessica. That's his statistical analysis of side research Dean Raiden six Sigma result. What else just standard stuff and he was very unconvinced and I forget what his other word was but just anyways, that's how it goes but interesting about the Scientology stuff and the academic angle on it which is just really looks more and more bizarre I mean how can you not deal with people like Chris who've been in it for 20 years how can you not approach that offer some kind of explanation for the abuse, like he says the abuse that they've been through and yeah, I don't want to come down too hard on Dr urban because he's an environment obviously that kind of pulls for that but hey, so it goes. So I'd love to talk more with you about this show if you'd like to join me hop on over to the skeptico forum where me and other people will be talking about this show be sure to check out the skeptico.com website where you can download this and all these other previous shows just get the MP3 files and do what you will got a bunch of them up there. I have some interesting shows coming up a couple of interesting projects as well. I appreciate everyone out there who stays with me through some of these tough discussions until next time take care and bye for now.


Welcome to Mac Geek Gab. Clive has our opening quick tip for us. He said he was setting up his new iPhone 14 Pro Max and noticed the transfer of apps and data was going very slowly. It was forecasting hours and hours. So he thought to do something that amazes me. He double-clicked the right side button and voila, a menu came up offering him several actions. The most interesting one was change Wi-Fi network or something similar. He selected that and discovered he was connected to the wrong Wi-Fi network connecting to the right one, fixed it. An amazing quick tip. Double-click the right side button on the phone during the setup process. I don't know how he thought to think of that, but I'm glad he did and I'm especially glad you shared it with us Clive.


Aloha and Happy New Year. I'm Kayleigh E. Akeena, President of the Grassley Institute. I don't know about you, but I'm ready for a fresh start. I'm far from the first to observe that 2020 was a difficult year full of profound challenges. Over the past 12 months, we've learned a lot about the state of our state's finances, the limits of liberty, the way our leaders respond to an emergency, and much more than we ever expected to know about epidemiology. Learning can sometimes be painful, and 2020 was no exception. Now it's time for us to put those lessons to use. In many ways, we've fallen about as far as it's possible to fall. The state's economy is on life support. Tourism is a shadow of its former self and is expected to take at least five years to recover. Our state's budget is so unbalanced that it resembles a jenga tower constructed by a five-year-old. Locals are fleeing the state in even bigger numbers than it was expected. It may seem grim, but I see it's still relining in all of this. After all, once you hit rock bottom, there's nowhere to go but up. It's worth remembering that many of the problems we're facing were present before the pandemic hit. The lockdowns only exacerbated the state's issues with unfunded liabilities, its high cost of living, and lack of economic opportunity. It's clear that more of the same won't fix our economy, so it's time to try something new. If I could be so bold as to make a few New Year's resolutions for our state policy makers, I would resolve to seek out different solutions to make 2021 a great year for Hawaii. No more borrowing to balance the budget or big spending projects. No raising taxes or fees on Hawaii businesses or residents for a couple of years. And most especially, no soft peddling the idea of a billion dollar tax to hike to make up a budget deficit. Instead, I would resolve to help Hawaii's finances by increasing economic freedom throughout our state. Rather than turning to higher taxes to raise state revenues, I would embrace policies to help businesses and entrepreneurs prosper. When they do well, our state coffers will fill up even at lower tax rates. I would clear away licensing requirements and regulations of small businesses and reduce red tape for both the state and county levels. And I would help our housing crisis by reforming land use laws and zoning restrictions to increase the amount of land available for residential use. In short, I would recognize that we have a chance for a new start in 2021. So long as we let go of the tax and spend and regulate philosophy of the past and embrace a fresh way of thinking. On the first of the year, everything seems possible. Even a revolutionary new approach to economic policy in our state. Let me be among the first to wish you a very happy new year as we work together to help Hawaii prosper again. Ehana Kako, let's work together. I'm Kele Eva Keena, president of the Grassley Institute. Aloha.


Since basically the middle of November, we went to high gear with preparation for the training academy project, the Nationally Bola Training Academy, which is situated on two distinct training sites, one being the National Stadium, the other one being the Faculty of Nursing College of Medicine. We offered two basic courses. One is the three-day IPC course offered to anyone. And basically it's a basic IPC, cleaners, hygienists, doctors, nurses. We also offer what is called the three plus two. It's a five-day clinical course, three days didactic, and two days simulated patient care. The patient's idea is with the confirmant of Ebola. He's lost lots of fluids from his body through diarrhea and vomiting, and he's getting confused. Blood is dripping over the place. The participants are supposed to identify him as somebody who could be dangerous to restrain him and sedate him so that he stops wandering around and also replace the IV line, give him medication and also document what they have done. We are here to make sure at least we simulate some cases. We make the training to become practical.  I manifest the signs, then you can see how best you can tragedy, and you classify whether we suspect a confirmed case or a probable case. My school where I work, that is McKay University School of Public Health, asked me whether I was interested to come and train health workers here. We've been training health workers in Uganda to prepare for Ebola hemorrhagic severs and mabak would move to districts and train. So I thought I would come and share my experience, but also learn from what is happening around. The child has symptoms that are consistent with Ebola, but the mother is asymptomatic and you want to isolate the child. Do you think that is going to be a simple task for you? We came in as WHO in partnership with IOM and IOM provided the technical assistance, the training materials, the curriculum, and together hand in hand with IOM, we've been able to express this to the participants, different participants, and keep adjusting it as the training needs keep changing. When I was born, I was positive, I felt bad, and the whole family started crying because it's general, this is the first time we have got this disease in our country, so medical people are dying, seductors are dying, so the entire family also was crying. I also was thinking that maybe I will not make it up, by the grace of God, now I'm here. Well, I had a tugging in my heart, I mean, I would watch CNN documentaries and other coverage by the media on the things that were happening here. I couldn't sleep at night, I said, I'm a serolonian, I'm a healthcare professional, and I know how to train, and I know there's some place for me to function over here. That was the overriding factor that brought me here. We definitely provide IOM with the facility, we have the training taking place right now, and we also provide them with staff, who are also part of the instructing team, or instructors on the training program, where periodically we talk to the staff to ensure that at least they are actually comfortable with the work they are doing. They have daily evaluation forms at the field, and giving their own comments on the training. Most of the comments are, this training must continue, you should take the training to the provinces, you should train more healthcare workers, thank you very much for the training, we say thanks to IOM, WHO and the ALSLAV, those are amongst the comments that they've been making over the period. The trainings help a lot in reducing the rate of transmission in the country, because initially people were not having adequate knowledge about the Ebola, the infection prevention and control measures. The skills and trainings you've been doing here, when you try to implement it, you will see the difference. So I'm advising everyone that is out there, that have not come here yet for this training, to rush up and come, so that they can improve the health status of the country as a whole. Working here in this academy, be it with IOM, WHO or other partners, we are working as a team. So our goal and purpose is one and the same. It's a big impact. It's a big impact.  There is no tape to measure that.


Ukrainian Army starts formation operations for counter-offensive. Ukrainian troops have begun formation operations ahead of a long-awaited counter-offensive against Russian forces. This was reported by CNN, citing a high-ranking American military official and other Western officials. Formation includes strikes on targets such as ammunition storage points, command posts, armoured vehicles and artillery systems to prepare the battlefield for the offensive forces. This is a standard tactic used before major joint operations. When Ukraine launched its counter-offensive last summer in the southern and north-eastern parts of the country, it was similarly preceded by airstrikes to prepare the battlefield for further offensive actions. According to a senior U.S. military official, these operations of forming the battlefield could last for many days before the central part of any planned Ukrainian offensive. The formation operations may also be aimed at confusing the Russians. Before this, President Volodymyr Zelensky has stated that Ukraine needs more time to launch a counter-offensive against Russia, as the military still needs pledged Western aid. The President has also expressed his belief in Ukraine's victory before the U.S. elections in November 2024.


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