Curse Psychobiology and the Underground Market in Human Body Parts
Two New Podcast Episodes
If you've been a fan of my audiobooks then there's a good chance that you'll also enjoy my new podcast Scott Carney Investigates (Spotify) (iTunes) (YouTube). This week I have two amazing episodes for you.
The first recounts how a fringe Tibetan Buddhist group was so nervous about my reporting that they resorted to black magic. At first I laughed it off the idea that they could hurt me with spells, but when strange things started happening in my life, I temporarily put my skepticism aside and hired a hundred monks in India to cast a counter-spell. It's not just magic, of course. Anthropologists have known for centuries about the psycho-biology of curses that can instigate deadly outcomes even if you don't believe in magic.
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Universal Yoga Nidra
Are you feeling a little burned out and looking for a way to recharge? Over the last few months I've been researching the science and practice of napping and have been blown away by the effectiveness of an ancient yogic tradition of conscious sleep called Yoga Nidra. At the most basic level Yoga Nidra practice involves listening to a guided meditation as you gently let yourself relax into sleep. But you won't actually fall asleep. Instead, so long as you can pay attention to the guided queues you will move through various sleep stages while remaining aware of what is happening around you. It will bring you to a very deep and relaxed state where you can allow your body to process whatever intention you want to set.
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What is happening with Twitter Blue?
This weekend I had the misfortune of having two tweets go viral. At first it was all good fun. In one I asked people to tell me that they were "in a cult without saying they were in a cult" and received many hilarious replies. But as the tweet picked up steam everything suddenly morphed into a string of conspiracy theories, racism, sexism and anger that I was a bit surprised by for what I thought would be just a funny, innocuous, tweet. Then I noticed a large number of newly "verified accounts" were posting the majority of the offensive content.
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Introducing the "Scott Carney Investigates" Podcast
Investigative journalist Scott Carney explores true crime, cult psychology, biohacking, fitness revolutions, climate change calamities, organ trafficking and whatever else seems interesting at the moment. The first episode, The Enlightenment Trap just came out this week. I don't have a publication schedule set up yet, but expect amazing exclusive content to show up here.
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How many people can live inside in a split brain?
Back in 1939 neuroscientists developed a technique to treat severe epileptic seizures by cutting the central connective tissue between the two hemispheres of the brain in two. This surprisingly simple technique effectively stopped the seizures, but that was hardly the most interesting thing about their findings. Researchers soon discovered that it was possible to design careful experiments that would allow them to communicate with each hemisphere of the brain independently. Neuroscience would never be the same again.
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How Ayahuasca Cured my Video Game Addiction
I was deep in the middle of the Amazon jungle out of my mind on a psychedelic ayahuasca brew and all I wanted to do was talk to God. Instead, I leaned over a dirty bucket and horked up a lifetime's worth of video game addiction. This is probably the most embarrassing story that I ended up telling in The Wedge--not because I'm particularly squeamish about brain chemistry, but because I had to admit to myself (and now you) that I have struggled with the addictive nature of video games since I was a kid. Well, that all stopped for me after I visited a shaman in Peru and spent three days trying to connect with the universal consciousness, only to be told by the spirit of the plant medicine that I had to deal with my own failings first.
This week's video is both intensely personal, and, I hope, thrilling for anyone who is interested in learning how psychedelic medicine can change a person's relationship with addictive habits and substances.
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The Seven Steps to Writing a Book
Almost everyone think's they've landed on a brilliant book idea at one point or another. Maybe you have this one story bouncing around their head that you are simply sure will make a bestselling novel. The only problem is that actually sitting down to write a book is, well, kinda daunting. After all, it's one thing to have an idea, and quite another to make it compelling enough to have thousands (or millions!) of readers hang on your every word. Even the prospect of putting together an 80,000 word manuscript is daunting enough to stop most people in their tracks before they ever even try.
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When Plants Attack (and a Wedge Workshop_
I witnessed a murder deep inside a Central American jungle last week. It's not likely that any authorities will ever get involved, but I tell you it was brutal. A fig vine was strangling a a 600 year old tree so it could steal its sunlight and I caught the whole thing on tape. A few hours later a different plant stabbed me with a hundred seed pods in an attempt to disperse its offspring through the forest. And finally, just minutes after that I came across a "walking tree" that has the ability to move up to one meter a year by selectively growing and killing off roots. The rain forest is a weird place.
In this week's video I dive into the strange and brutal world of plant homicide (herbacide?) and along the way get to interview Adrian Forsyth who just happens to have written nine books on tropical ecology.
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Frozen Out
A few days ago I put out a YouTube video titled "How Wim Hof Lost His Method" that started an important conversation about the business practices of all things Wim Hof. Within hours of the video going online, Wim Hof's son Enahm Hof started issuing copyright take down and privacy violation notices through YouTube's legal complaint system. Right now about half of my YouTube channel is offline, but the video has been mirrored in a few places including on my Instagram account and on the Internet Archive. Enahm is systematically attempting to remove my presence from the internet, has issued me threatening letters, is impersonating his father and (I think) his sister in online forums, and is generally not being a nice guy.
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How Wim Hof Lost his Method
In What Doesn't Kill Us I alluded to how Wim Hof's son, Enahm Hof, created and ran his father's business affairs, and that he was often more of an obstacle to spreading the message of the revolutionary breathing and ice bathing techniques. When I first writing about Wim Hof back in 2013 I had a feeling that I would eventually have to look past just the techniques and into the business practices of the organization itself. As Wim Hof grew into an international brand that generates millions of dollars a year, along with movie deals and celebrity appearances, it has become harder and harder to ignore Enahm's influence on Wim's message. A few weeks ago I began digging into corporate records and interviewing eyewitnesses to the inner workings of Innerfire. I was shocked by what I found.
This week's video is a full exploration of Enahm's Wim Hof empire where nothing is as it seems. Indeed, Wim Hof has no control over his social media presence, no ownership stake in the company itself and doesn't even own the trademark to his own name. By his own admission the man who does, doesn't even regularly practice the breathwork or cold exposure. Wim is little more than an employee of the business that literally owns his name.
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Does This Parasite Control the World?
A few years ago I learned a parasite called toxoplasma gondii had the ability to make mice lose their fear of cats in order to complete its lifecycle and reproduce in a cat's intestines. That was strange, but just the beginning of the story. Last week Nature came out with a study last month that showed that wolves in Yellowstone national park are 46 times more likely to be the leasers of their packs if they they have toxoplasmosis gondii infections. That's right, a parasite has a significant impact on the social life of an entire species. I had to know more so I've spent the last few days reading up on this strange protozoa and discovered that it also makes people much more likely to be entrepreneurs, to be more attractive to the opposite sex, and to take more risks in general. I started to wonder if maybe the parasite has had an even more outsized influence on the development of human civilization, too. Perhaps the reason I'm a cat person and tend to take a lot of risks is because I got infected when I was a kid.
Watch this week's video and then go tell your cat that I say "psss pssss psss psss".
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What 12 Years Doing the Wim Hof Method Taught Me
It's hard to believe that I began my journey with Wim Hof 12 years ago next month. I had no idea that my attempt to debunk an eccentric ice-guru in the mountains of Poland would so profoundly change my life. That week at his dilapidated training center ultimately spawned 2 books, stopped me from getting canker sores ever again and gave me tools to tackle depression and anxiety. More than that, it opened me up to a really great community of fellow ice seekers.
But after 12 years of (nearly) daily practice I also have a few thoughts about the overall direction of InnerFire and the official Wim Hof Brand as well as some observations about how some effects of the method seem to trail off after extended practice. So I put together an off-the-cuff video where I only drop a few bombshells.
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Time To Nap: An Essential Guide to Your Superpower
Come be part of my next project: a book that is a true call to NAPtion. A tome that will make you want to put your head down for fifteen minutes. A key to a superpower that we all have, but usually ignore.
It's time to get serious about napping.
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What happens after you die? Physics, consciousness and the afterlife.
The physics during the creation of the universe tell us a lot about what happens when we die. It's all connected. You are the universe.
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9 Lobsters Enter. One Lobster Leaves.
John F. Kennedy once let a turkey live on Thanksgiving, but the official presidential Turkey pardon didn't happen until the Regan administration. Nonetheless, I think letting a doomed animal survive a feast day is a pretty decent thing to do, overall. That's why at this year's annual Carney family lobster broil my sisters and I decided to let one of these crustaceans go so it could spread a word of warning to all of lobster-kind that maybe it would be a good idea to avoid the traps that humans put at the bottom of the sea.
So, yeah, this week's video is pretty different from our regularly scheduled programming. It's part heartwarming, and, if you think about it too much, a little horrifying. That said it's also your exclusive inside look into my very odd yankee family roots.
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Was Andrew Huberman Wrong on his Shiver Protocol?
Last year Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman put out a video where he suggested that ice bathers around the world were doing their ice bathing all wrong---at least when it came to fat loss. When I first heard his advice I worried that my entire career might have been in error and assumed that he'd dug deep into the literature and found the optimal protocol. But more than a year after his video came out--and after millions of views and listens--I decided to check in again and I was a little surprised that I couldn't find any testimonials or other video of people using his protocols and having their lives and bodies transformed. Maybe there was something wrong with his protocol?
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New Research in Nature demonstrates how cold exposure can cure cancer
Last month the most astounding research I've ever come across on cold exposure appeared in Nature, the world's most prestigious scientific journal. The study showed how regular cold exposure can slow the growth of cancerous tumors by activating brown fat (BAT) which denies the tumors the glucose that then need to sustain their uncontrolled growth. The article, titled "Brown Fat mediated tumor suppression by cold-altered global metabolism" is the first real peer-reviewed study making the link that the type of cold exposure that I wrote about in What Doesn't Kill Us and The Wedge had a significant anti-cancer effect. Indeed, the results were so promising that the researchers said that cold exposure "will provide a general approach for the effective treatment of various cancers." On the page, that sentence might not look like much, but it basically means that cold exposure could become a staple of any anti-cancer treatment as well as for anyone looking to prevent themselves from getting it.
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The Truth About Roswell
Roughly 75 years ago, the military issued a statement saying they'd captured the remains of a strange flying disc, which had crashed into the desert outside Roswell, New Mexico. But the very next day, they retracted that statement and said the debris had simply come from an ordinary weather balloon. For the most part, Americans shrugged it off and took the government at its word.
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In the Future Every Man Will Get a Reversible Vasectomy
The problem with vasectomies is is that they're really hard to undo. Doctors recommend that men should only go for the snip if they are completely sure that the never want to have any more children. So they're a pretty bad option for anyone who isn't sure, or just wants to have kids later in life. But what would happen if men could turn their fertility on and off with just a 15 minute, pretty much painless, procedure?
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On the Sex Life of Yahya Khan: a Rebuttal the Reviewers
The Vortex launched in India about a month ago to overwhelmingly positive reviews. However, just about every esteemed diplomat and counselor officer agreed that while they loved the way we wrote it, they just couldn't believe that a dictator who killed an estimated three million people might also have had out of control sexual appetites.
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