TRANSCRIPT Ross and Carrie Become Conscious Part 6

Transcript

music
									
“Oh No, Ross and Carrie! Theme Song” by Brian Keith Dalton. A jaunty, upbeat instrumental.
carrie poppy
									
Hello! Welcome to Oh No, Ross and Carrie!, the show where we don’t just report on [says “fringe science” with the audio played backwards], spirituality, and claims of the paranormal, but take part ourselves.
ross blocher
									
Yep! When they make the claims [says “we show up so you don’t have to” with the audio played backwards]. I’m Ross Blocher.
carrie
									
And I’m Carrie Poppy. We are back at the Conscious Life Expo—
ross
									
[With some amusement] Huh, right.
carrie
									
—our favorite place.
ross
									
[Carrie makes a couple affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] And it’s Sunday. We were there two days: Saturday and Sunday. You were there pretty much all day Sunday. I was editing an episode of this show.
carrie
									
Thank you.
ross
									
You’re welcome. And so, in the evening, I raced down to the LAX area and particularly wanted to go to a lecture that you had said, “Ross, you gotta go to this one.” It’s David John Oates.
carrie
									
Yes.
ross
									
Also known as David Oates. He was going to be giving a talk called, “Reverse Speech: Seeing Truth Within.”
carrie
									
Now, this sounded good to me. I met him on the exhibitor floor.
ross
									
Yes.
carrie
									
Just walking by his table. And he did not have a very happening table. It was just him, some books, and people were just kinda walking on by. You know those tables where the person just looks like, “Talk to me,” and you don’t want to make eye contact with them?
ross
									
Right. Especially after you’ve made eye contact with other people.
carrie
									
[Quietly, with some vocal fry] Yeaahhh.
ross
									
Accidentally bought their books. [Carrie laughs.] You start to put a little bit of a wall.
carrie
									
And they don’t have anything…they don’t have anything at the table to sort of interact with, without having to interact with them.
ross
									
Mm-hmm.
carrie
									
And so it’s a real, like, “Ooh, once this door is open, I’m locked in,” situation.
ross
									
[Chuckles] Yeah, exactly.
carrie
									
That was him. But he made eye contact with me. I came over, and I saw the title of his book. So, he had a few books for sale there. The one that caught my eye was called Reverse Speech: Hidden Messages in Human Communication. So I held that up in my pretty little hands and I said, “Okay, interesting. So this says to me—let me see if I can guess what your philosophy is here.”
ross
									
Mm-hmm.
carrie
									
“Is it that when we talk, you can record it and play it backwards and there are sort of hidden messages in it?” And he said, [imitates a surprised, higher-pitched voice] “Oh! Yes! That’s it!
ross
									
[Chuckles] “You got it."
carrie
									
And I went, “Oh! Thank you [chuckles].”
ross
									
“Bye-bye!”
carrie
									
[Laughs] Yeah! “That doesn’t sound likely. Goodbye.” Noo. I said, “Oh, wow, fascinating. And you’ve been able to verify this?” And he said, “Oh, yes, yes. Very verified.” [Ross chuckles affirmatively.] “Uh, lots of science behind it.” And I said, “Cool, cool. Are you giving a talk?” And he said, “Yeah, I’m giving a talk tomorrow.” And I said, “Oh, shoot. I don’t think I’m going to be here in the evening tomorrow. My friend is. So, I’ll encourage him to go. And, um, if he likes it, maybe we’ll buy the book.” And I thought, “That’ll kind of get me out of it.”
ross
									
There you go. Yeah. Well-deferred.
carrie
									
And it did.
carrie
									
Yeah. So, he’s like, “Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Oh, it’s really good. This is one you don’t want to miss.” And I said, “Ah, I really don’t. I really don’t want to miss it, but—“
ross
									
[Chuckles] Correct.
carrie
									
“—I think I—“
ross
									
I will.
carrie
									
[Chuckles] Right.
ross
									
But I won’t want to.
carrie
									
[Chuckles] “But I think my friend will like it, too.” He’s like, “Okay.” And I made good on that.
ross
									
Yeah.
carrie
									
‘Cause you were the friend.
ross
									
You sent me as your delegate.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
He has other books. Uh, Unveiling the Truth: The Secrets of Reverse Speech.
carrie
									
Oo-oo-oh.
ross
									
I'm sure that’s much different than the other book. [Carrie chuckles very quietly.] It’s Only a Metaphor: The Story of Reverse Speech.
carrie
									
Hmm!
ross
									
He—I sense a theme here. A New Theory About Language. And, as you were mentioning, Reverse Speech: Voices from the Unconscious. There might be others as well, but those come up for me. Yeah, I had—I had also seen his booth and I kept the same kind of distance. [Carrie chuckles empathetically.] I—I—I took photos, at least, so I could kind of look in more detail later without someone expectantly looking at me. Is that him in my photo?
carrie
									
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
ross
									
[Carrie makes a couple of affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] Okay. Couldn’t be sure if that was him or some other—uh, gentleman in his sixties with kind of thinning, white hair. Yeah, he’s from Australia; we’ll talk a little about that. Yeah, there—there’s a big blue banner for reverse speech. “Voices From the Unconscious.” And a sign advertising that you can hear the voice of your spirit for, uh $50 for—
carrie
									
Oooh!
ross
									
—a three-minute recording.
carrie
									
Oh, wow. I kind of wish I’d done that.
ross
									
Uh, there’s also—uh, he has some services. You can sign up for eight private sessions with him, to have your voice analyzed.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
Uh, and also you can sign up to be a practitioner. You can learn his method—
carrie
									
Oh, yeah.
ross
									
—and put up a shingle.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
You know, start advertising your abilities as a reverse speech analyst. And, uh, today’s price: a mere $3,495 for that.
carrie
									
Oh! A steal. A steal on someone’s part.
ross
									
I had—I had looked this up elsewhere. To get the personal, eight-session, private, uh, meeting with him—or—or even over the phone—it was $1,997.
carrie
									
Ooh! Gosh.
ross
									
Which—interesting—for less than double that, you yourself can become a practitioner.
carrie
									
Oh, true.
ross
									
Also, that just seems like a highly specific amount. $1,997?
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
And I wonder if there’s any relation to the year—
carrie
									
1997?
ross
									
—which will come up a little later.
carrie
									
Oh, that’s—yeah. Good thinking.
ross
									
Something just to pin in your mind.
carrie
									
Interesting. That is interesting.
ross
									
So, we knew he was there at the Conscious Life Expo. And, yeah. Seems like people were pretty excited about this. He doesn’t come to the US too often. And the description of his talk was, “This will be a detailed study of reverse speech. Examining some of the common patterns by listening to the speak reversals of famous people and examining some unsolved political mysteries.”
carrie
									
[Quietly] Oo-oo-oh.
ross
									
“We will then explore the deeper into the workings of the unconscious mind, examining the structures of personality and behavior. Then, of most significance, we will look at what reverse speech teaches us about the human soul, and how it may well provide tangible proof of the spiritual realms within.”
carrie
									
Wow.
ross
									
“David John Oates is the founder of reverse speech, a field—“
carrie
									
Now, is he the discoverer?
ross
									
[Chuckles briefly] According to his personal website, davidoates.com, which is not currently active—but if you look at old versions of it—he is the discoverer and founder—
carrie
									
Ah!
ross
									
—of reverse speech.
carrie
									
You can’t be one without the other.
ross
									
Ah. We love—we love a combo.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
Discoverer and founder.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
It’s terrible when they split it up. Like, one person discovers it and then someone else founds it.
carrie
									
Oh. Definitely.
ross
									
[Makes a mock disgusted sound.] The quick, uh, byline here, “David John Oates is the founder of reverse speech: a field he had actively pursued for 35 years now.” I—I’m not fixing their grammar. “He has written seven books on reverse speech and maintains an active lecture and media schedule. He works as therapist in Adelaide, Australia, using reverse speech techniques. Visit David Oates in booth 404—“ not just an internet error code—uh, ”in the International Ballroom.” So, yeah. Going back to his biography, here, uh, he was born in Australia—rural Australia, 1955. Son of a Methodist minister.
carrie
									
Oh, interesting. Okay.
ross
									
So, it seems like he had kind of spent his early life sort of working with the church, doing youth work. [Carrie makes an interested sound.] And he had a severe speech stutter, he said.
carrie
									
Oh, okay. Not noticeable now.
ross
									
Right. So, aparently this method, and the work he’s done, he claims has helped him—
carrie
									
Ah, okay.
ross
									
—remove the stutt—and, from having listened to him for well over an hour, I never would have guessed that he had a stutter.
carrie
									
Interesting.
ross
									
So, I guess, back in the eighties, he was in his mid-20’s. He was working with a halfway house. He heard people talking about back masking.
carrie
									
Yeaahh.
ross
									
Which was such a big topic at the time.
carrie
									
What year did you say this was?
ross
									
’84.
carrie
									
84. Okay, yeah. So, we still had records, which is an integral part of the back-masking phenomenon.
ross
									
Right! A technology where it was much easier just to say, “Let’s play this the other direction.”
carrie
									
Yep.
ross
									
You know, “Let’s hear the, you know, ‘Paul is dead.’ “
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
Or, Led Zeppelin, famously. Many other albums were known for having these not-so-hidden messages. Or, very oftentimes, messages that maybe the Christian Right had maybe latched onto and said, “Oh, look, they’re singing about Satan!”
carrie
									
Right. “Surely this teaches us something about the psychology of the singer and not the psychology of the listener!”
ross
									
[Laughs.] Uh, so, at first he thought that was all kind of bunk. But he started listening to it and got more obsessed with it and thought, “Oh, there’s really something here!”
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
And the way he tells the story is that one day he just kind of woke up. He’d had sort of this vivid dream and he had the words, “reverse speech” in his mind.
carrie
									
Oh, cool.
ross
									
And this was 1987.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
So, yeah. So, much like Doc Brown slipping and hitting his head on the toilet—
carrie
									
Mmm.
ross
									
—and then having the image of the flux capacitor—
carrie
									
Two years later.
ross
									
David John Oates had this—[chuckles] uh, right—with reverse speech. So he made it his life’s work ever since then. And it remains today. And, uh, so he developed this whole theory. And I love that his website says that, uh, “David has been compared to Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and Nikola Tesla—“
carrie
									
[Mocking astonishment] Oh, my God! By whom?!
ross
									
[Chuckles] It doesn’t say.
carre
									
[Flatly, disappointed.] Oh.
ross
									
“And his work described as being of Nobel caliber.”
carrie
									
[Mocking astonishment again] Oh, my God! By whom?!
ross
									
Probably him.
carrie
									
[Flat again] Oh.
ross
									
“With far-reaching ramifications in such fields as law enforcement— [Carrie gasps.] —business, and psychology.”
carrie
									
[Mocking astonishment again] Oh, my God! By whom?!
ross
									
Is a very good question.
carrie
									
Hm.
ross
									
You know, I'm sure there's plenty people ready and willing to sing his praises.
carrie
									
Sure.
ross
									
Uh, so, I wandered in to the—the ballroom up on the second floor. This was a free lecture.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm. Niiice.
ross
									
So, I didn’t have to pay 40 bucks for this one, or 110. And it was one of the smaller rooms I’d been in. There were maybe 50 chairs. And, at first, there were—I don’t know—maybe like 15 people.
carrie
									
Oh, wow. Teeny.
ross
									
Yeah, it was—it was a little empty. And it was Sunday, later in the day— [Carrie makes a knowing sound.] —other people were already packing up, putting away their UFO paintings— [Carrie laughs.] —and all of their gems and boxes. It felt like this whole thing as winding down. But, here we were in the—
carrie
									
[Chuckles] I’m picturing you walking in backwards [chuckles some more].
ross
									
[Bursts out laughing, heartily] Why did I think of that?! That would have been amazing! [Sighs] Oh, man. Uh, I got in there and—and over time, more people did drift in. So, I’d say by the end of the talk, there were…maybe, like, around 30 people in the room. And I think you’ll love this, Carrie—one of the people in the front row was a gentleman with a bright green parrot on his neck.
carrie
									
Whoa!
ross
									
So, the whole talk—
carrie
									
You’re not wrong. You’re showing me a photo and— [Ross laughs] —that parrot is there.
ross
									
Yep.
carrie
									
Wow. Huh.
ross
									
And walking around on his neck, nibbling on his ear.
carrie
									
Alright.
ross
									
Yep.
carrie
									
Pooping on his shoulder.
ross
									
No one ever asked, no one questioned it.
carrie
									
Huh!
ross
									
He was very engaged with the whole talk.
carrie
									
The parrot?
ross
									
The man, but—
carrie
									
Oh, okay.
ross
									
You know what? I won’t rule out the parrot.
carrie
									
Hm. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. We should get that parrot on tape, play it backwards, see what he’s saying.
ross
									
[Carrie makes a couple affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] I’m all for it. Yeah, it was a interesting, mixed crowd. I’d say mostly women. Mostly people—I’d say fifties or older. He was, uh, wearing white pants and sneakers. Had a leather jacket over just—you know, like a regular kind of polo-shirt-type shirt.
carrie
									
Black leather or brown leather?
ross
									
Black leather.
carrie
									
Black leather.
ross
									
But immediately he started getting into playing some sample audio.
carrie
									
Yeeahhh, buddy.
ross
									
And that’s—that’s why we’re there, right?
carrie
									
Yes, please.
ross
									
And so, the very first person that he profiled was Joe Biden.
carrie
									
Oh, wow! Presidential candidate Joe Biden.
ross
									
Yeah, presumptive nominee. At the time, uh, February—
carrie
									
February.
ross
									
—February 9th. So, it wasn’t a done deal at that time.
carrie
									
Far from it.
ross
									
But, uh, he had, uh, a quote from Joe Biden talking about a friend’s neighbor’s daughter, I think it was? It—
carrie
									
[Uncertain] Okay.
ross
									
Some—some young woman that he probably didn’t even know personally.
carrie
									
Okay.
clip
									
Joe Biden (Recording from David John Oates’s talk at the Conscious Life Expo): All of the sudden, found out when they had a talented daughter—who was a good athlete—how ferociously supportive they became of Title IX. Not a joke.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
So, he—he says that—
carrie
									
Cool.
ross
									
—but David—
carrie
									
Oh.
ross
									
—has taken this quote, and he’s played it backwards—
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
—and he’s found a little segment where Joe says, “The lust that I handle.”
clip
									
[Reversed recording of Joe Biden played at David John Oates’s talk. It is repeated twice, slowed and so pitch also lowered each time.]
carrie
									
_[Distressed and tired_] Oh, God. Okay.
ross
									
See? He’s known for being touchy-feely, Joe Biden.
carrie
									
Oh, is that what David said?
ross
									
Yeah, that’s—David introduced it that way—
carrie
									
Oh, cool.
ross
									
—and then he paid that off. Everyone said, “Ah, see, see? Joe Biden, he’s known for being a little touchy-feely. And—“
carrie
									
Oh, wow.
ross
									
“—he’s talk—he’s talking about some young girl he probably doesn’t even know. But he had to handle lust.”
carrie
									
Yikes. That is an accusation about—around Joe Biden. It’s interesting, though, because—I know we’ll talk about this later—but David John has a little bit of a history of bringing up this particular accusation against people as well.
ross
									
Mm-hmm. Yes, this will come up a few times. We’ll—we’ll talk more about how he does this and kind of his approach. But—but essentially, he’ll listen to a whole phrase—listen to it backwards—and he’ll find within that just this little snippet.
carrie
									
Tiny bit of audio.
ross
									
And maybe it’s a whole word. Maybe it’s two words. Maybe it’s half of one word and then continued on through another word and then half of a third word. You know, something like that.
carrie
									
Right.
ross
									
So, it’s very much just like, “Wherever I could grab it.” And so one important thing I was thinking of is like, “Okay, which part of the audio are you grabbing?” ‘Cause he played a much longer phrase from Joe Biden.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
So, what Joe Biden was saying was:
clip
									
Joe Biden (Recording from David John Oates’s talk): When they had a talen—
ross
									
"When they had a talen—“ Short for, “When they had a talented,” but I first heard it as, “Well, they had to tell ‘em.”
carrie
									
Mmm.
ross
									
But it works about just the same. ”They had to tell ‘em.”
clip
									
Ross: [Backwards] They had to tell ‘em.
ross
									
So—
carrie
									
Mmm! So that’s you?
ross
									
That’s me saying—
carrie
									
Saying, “The lust that I handled—“
ross
									
[Chuckling] Right.
carrie
									
And then you reversed it. And it said, “I had to tell them.”
ross
									
Right. Well, I tried to do it the other way around. “Uh, I had to tell ‘em.” And then play it around, in my best Joe Biden.
clip
									
Ross: [Imitating Joe Biden] “Uh, I had to tell ‘em.” Ross: [Backwards] “Uh, I had to tell ‘em.”
carrie
									
That was you?!
ross
									
Yeah. Ready?
carrie
									
That was really good Joe Bi—wait, was that really?
ross
									
Yeah, that was me.
carrie
									
No way!
ross
									
That was me trying to do a better version of the first one. Ready?
carrie
									
That—
clip
									
Ross: [Imitating Joe Biden] “Uh, I had to tell ‘em.” Ross: [Backwards] “Uh, I had to tell ‘em.”
carrie
									
That—I thought that really was Joe Biden!
ross
									
Hey! Okay. Alright, my Joe Biden’s getting better.
carrie
									
Do it—do it again.
ross
									
Okay, alright. So it’ll be me forwards and then backwards, sounding a little more like, “The lust that I handled.”
clip
									
Ross: [Imitating Joe Biden] “Uh, I had to tell ‘em.” Ross: [Backwards] “Uh, I had to tell ‘em.”
carrie
									
That’s you?!
ross
									
That’s me!
carrie
									
You could just be playing me Joe Biden right now [chuckles]!
ross
									
Okay. Alright. Well, thanks.
carrie
									
What the fuck is happening?!
ross
									
This will come up. You know, is that something that you can do?
carrie
									
Oh, good point. ‘Cause, yeah, are there any other times in this universe that people say the phrase, “I had to tell ‘em.”
ross
									
Right.
carrie
									
Perhaps.
ross
									
[Chuckles] Perhaps. [Carrie laughs, smothered.] So, uh, we’ll get into this theory in just a bit. Uh, but then he played the next one—also from Joe Biden—where he was talking to a military group, and he was telling them:
clip
									
Joe Biden (Recording from David John Oates’s talk): You’re the most capable warriors in the history of the world. There has never, never, never, never been a fighting force as capable as you are.
carrie
									
Uh-huh.
ross
									
So then he had listened to it backwards, and he had heard Joe Biden tell this fine, fighting military force, “You’re a chicken!”
carrie
									
Oo-oh-hh.
clip
									
[Reversed recording of Joe Biden played at David John Oates’s talk. It is repeated twice, slowed and so pitch also lowered each time.]
ross
									
Okay, so, again I had to go in and look and figure out, “Okay, which part did he grab.” It was Joe Biden saying, “In the history.”
clip
									
Joe Biden (Recording from David John Oates’s talk): In the history.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
So, the implication is, “Sure, he’s telling all these fine military folks that they’re great and honored, but he’s actually calling them chickens.”
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
“That’s wh—that’s what’s really in his head.”
carrie
									
I believe it.
ross
									
And here’s me saying the same thing:
clip
									
Ross: [Imitating Joe Biden] In the history. Ross: [Audio played backwards] In the history.
ross
									
“You’re a chicken.” You know.
carrie
									
Oh, I didn’t hear—okay, can I hear it backwards again?
clip
									
Ross: [Audio played backwards] In the history.
carrie
									
[Dubiously] Hmm.
ross
									
The sounds are there. It doesn’t sound like “You’re a chicken,“ but—
carrie
									
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
ross
									
You know, the—the basic pho—
carrie
									
The bones are there. Mm-hmm.
ross
									
—phonemes are there—right—that would form those sounds. So that was his, uh, leading example.
carrie
									
I don't know if our listeners are having the same experience that I am. But I’m trying to think about David Oates’s claims right now and just thinking about what a—[breaks into laughter]—good Joe Biden you can do.
ross
									
Why, thank you. [Carrie makes a sound of deep affirmation.] Okay. Alright. I’ll have to develop that.
carrie
									
It could be—
ross
									
It may become very relevant.
carrie
									
[Ross makes a couple of affirming sounds as Carrie speaks.] Yeah, if he becomes president and then he has a heart attack while in office because he’s sleeping with his mistress, and then the goes into a coma, and they need to pull someone to pretend to be Joe Biden to pretend to be a replacement until they get him back into consciousness. And then they pull you because you’re such a good impressionist. And then—impressionist?
ross
									
Impersonator?
carrie
									
Im—impersonator, and then—but you might be a good impressionist painter, as well. And then, you and his wife, Sigourney Weaver, fall in love, you could implement a policy in the United States that would be the greatest jobs program since FDR.
ross
									
How did Sigourney Weaver get pulled into this?
crosstalk
									
Carrie: It’s—it's the plot of a movie called, “_Dav_e.” Ross: The movie Dave? I love that movie! That’s a great movie! Carrie: [Laughing] It’s so good! 1993! Ross: Yeah, that is. Aw. Alri— Carrie: What’s happening right now?
ross
									
Hey—hey, I’m, uh, I’m all for that plan. If the government needs to use me in that capacity, I am available. [Carrie laughs.] This podcast may not be released as often if that happens.
carrie
									
Yeah, if it just becomes me all the time, you should suspect that Ross has replaced Joe Biden.
clip
									
[Reversed recording of Ross speaking a short phrase.]
carrie
									
Or whoever the president is.
ross
									
[Carrie makes a couple of affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] So, it gives us a little window here where he says he listens to the whole thing in context. Context is important, and most of it will be gibberish. But little phrases will jump out. And they'll just sound like real, natural English language. So, he will lis—
carrie
									
If—if English is the language you know.
ross
									
Right. And that will come up later. But he says that, you know, it feels very much different. And that on average, he sees one of these phrases jumping out every 15 to 20 seconds.
carrie
									
Ooohh. I'm gonna check that against my notes, ‘cause I just recently did this with a bit of audio.
ross
									
Ahh. Oh, interesting! Oh, okay.
carrie
									
Uh, let's see. It's looks like…ooh, I—it looks like I was a little more frequent than that. [Ross makes a curious, interested sound.] Hm. Okay, so, let's see. 12 seconds, 42 seconds—
ross
									
Okay.
carrie
									
—then 30, then about a minute, then 10 seconds. I mean, real spotty, I guess
ross
									
Okay. It sounds like it's averaging out. Yeah, and now that I've listened to many interviews with him, I've heard him say a range. Like, 10 years ago, he was saying every 30 seconds—
carrie
									
Mm.
ross
									
—but he says, like, in certain types of conversation, like people who have a lot of rapport, who know each other well?
carrie
									
Mm. Mm-hmm.
ross
									
It’s closer to, like, every five seconds.
carrie
									
Oh, w-ow. Hm.
ross
									
Yeah, and we’ll talk about other ways that, uh, you might be able to increase that hit rate. But, I guess that’s his, kind of, just normal speech. Every 15 seconds or so—15, 20 seconds—you should expect to hear something jump out.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
So, then he plays, uh, another clip of audio for us—
clip
									
[Reversed audio of a baritone voice speaks an unintelligible phrase, repeated twice and slowed down each time.]
ross
									
—and says, “Hey, did you all get that?” And we all say, “[Makes uncertain mumbling sounds] I don’t know.” [Chuckles] I said, “I love you, Satan?” [Ross chuckles and Carrie laughs briefly.] Which is appropriate, since Satan is my overlord and constant companion—
carrie
									
Yes. That’s correct.
ross
									
—as we’ve established on the show. And he said, “No, no. Close. It’s, ‘I love each day [chuckles].’ ”
carrie
									
[Laughs loudly] That is close.
ross
									
He says, “Well, it takes some time to develop your ear.” ‘Cause the audience wasn’t getting it. The one time he didn’t prime us—
carrie
									
[Amused] Uh-huh.
ross
									
—as he had with those previous ones—
carrie
									
Oh, right.
ross
									
—we didn’t—[breaks off, laughing]—hear what he was playing for us.
carrie
									
You—you got close, though. Can we hear that one?
ross
									
Okay, so, now that I’ve spoiled it, here. Let me play it for you.
clip
									
[Reversed audio of a baritone voice speaks an unintelligible phrase, repeated twice and slowed down each time.]
carrie
									
It sounds like, “God is gay.”
ross
									
Okay.
carrie
									
What did—what’s it supposed to be?
ross
									
“I love each day.”
carrie
									
“[Disbelieving] I love each day?”
ross
									
Which, you could make a bunch of different things—
carrie
									
No, that was very clearly, “God is gay.”
ross
									
And this wasn’t Joe Biden. This was some other speaker.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
Here he had thought he’d found this really powerful reversal.
carrie
									
III just think that we learned that God is gay. And I say, “Good for God!”
ross
									
[Carrie makes a few affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] And as you may have noticed, he plays it at three different speeds. So, he’ll play it at 100% speed, which is usually harder to distinguish. But then he’ll [imitates slowed audio] slow it down. [Resumes regular tone] And then he’ll [imitates a more dramatic slowed tone] slow it down. ‘Cause then you can really hear, you know,—
carrie
									
And you can really imbue meaning in something that’s not there.
ross
									
“[Dramatically slow and low-pitched] I love Satan.”
carrie
									
Yes.
ross
									
Yeah, it makes it very easy then to enunciate those phonemes and exaggerate them. Already you’re—you’re getting a glimpse of how subjective this is.
carrie
									
Yeah. And how random. Like, that sounds to me like the middle of someone’s sentence where they said—
ross
									
Yup.
carrie
									
“It’s no wonder that [makes babbling sounds].” You know, when it was a totally irrelevant part of their talk.
ross
									
And David John Oates admits that. He says, “One of the criticisms I’ve gotten is that this is subjective or that I’m priming people. But if this was all imagination, how could multiple people hear the same thing?”
carrie
									
[Exhales with a plosive] Well, eas—
ross
									
Yeah, it’s—
carrie
									
—quite easily?
ross
									
So, yeah, what he’s alluding to hear is that he’s played these many times before without telling people, and they’ve heard the same thing. Or people he’s trained or what have you. And he thinks that there’s enough congruity there that he can say, “Oh, look, you know, we’ve gotten independent confirmation. That this isn't just me coming up with this phrase.”
carrie
									
Yeah. I mean, bless his soul. I see why he thinks that. But that’s exactly what teaching someone a language is. We say, “Hey, look for these sounds.”
ross
									
Yes. And—
carrie
									
That’s it. That’s the whole idea.
ross
									
Right! And—and we’re really good, too, at taking things that sound pretty jumbled—and even slurred speech or muted speech or muffled speech or all kinds of things that can happen to make something indistinct—and our brains to a really good job of converting that into English for you and I.
carrie
									
Right.
ross
									
Or whatever language you’ve learned, for another language speaker.
carrie
									
Finding signal in that noise.
ross
									
Yeah.
carrie
									
The most extreme example of that, of course, is the electronic voice phenomenon.
ross
									
Mm-hmm.
carrie
									
Which we’ve run into with ghost hunting and stuff of that nature, where they’ll set up a tape recorder in a quiet room, ask the quote-unquote “ghost” a question, maybe say, “What’s your favorite holiday?” [speaks softly] and then be very quiet. [Ross chuckles softly.] [Resumes regular tone.] And then later you replay it, and just the tape recorder will pick up tiny sounds in the room. Maybe it’s someone kicking their foot against the floor. Something you didn’t even notice in the moment—
ross
									
Right.
carrie
									
—tape recorder picks it up. If you’re looking for a human voice, that sound becomes a human voice saying words.
ross
									
And they’ll even reverse that audio, sometimes—
carrie
									
[Interested] Mmm, cool.
ross
									
—in EVP analysis. And they’ll—they’ll boost the heck out of it.
carrie
									
Right.
ross
									
So something that was really faint, they’ll make it super loud. So that gurgling sound from your stomach—which was [imitates a stomach gurgle]—they’ll make it louder, change the speed on it, reverse it. And all of the sudden, you know, that sound is saying, like, [imitates a shaky ghost voice] “Get out!”
carrie
									
Right. [Ross chuckles briefly.] Or, “Christmas.”
ross
									
So, he introduces us to these major categories of reversals. One is the congruent reversal. Uh, and that’s when the same message is communicated both forward and backward.
carrie
									
Okay. I guess that would signal you’re not having any sort of internal conflict.
ross
									
Right.
carrie
									
Your subconscious is in agreement with your conscious.
ross
									
Exactly.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
Whereas an incongruent reversal is when you're saying something forward, but then when you play it backwards you get that contradicting message—
carrie
									
Mmm.
ross
									
—[takes on a mock accusing tone] that gives lie to your false words
carrie
									
Okay. So, here you might be lying or you might be sort of in denial—
ross
									
Mm-hmm.
carrie
									
—or having some sort of [whispers] battle within thyself.
ross
									
Exactly. And then he introduced us to another concept, which is the lead reversal. So that’s when you’re having a conversation with someone, and some of their back-masked audio reveals a truth that will become more relevant later on in the conversation.
carrie
									
Oh, God. Okay.
ross
									
[Chuckles] Yeah. You—you see the, uh, potential problem here.
carrie
									
I guess. I don’t even know if I could articulate it. I guess the problem is that makes no sense [laughs]?
ross
									
[Chuckles] Right. Yes. Yeah, there—there’s an arrow of causality problem here.
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
But somehow that early on you just happen to find a good, reversed, little snippet of audio that then becomes more relevant later on. And, “Shoot, I wish it was said in that context, but it wasn’t, so we’re—“
carrie
									
“But it—so I’ve decided it doesn’t matter.”
ross
									
So, we’re gonna say that subconsciously, they knew where this conversation was going and revealed their—
carrie
									
Wow.
ross
									
—their inner mindset.
carrie
									
I guess you could make that argument if it were, say, audio tape of someone’s confession or someone’s—you know, if—if you had audio tape of OJ talking about Nicole Brown Simpson and, you know, you’re thinking, “Oh, well this whole time he’s probably thinking, like, ‘Shit, this is a lie—‘“
ross
									
[Quietly] Oh, yeah.
carrie
									
“‘—I have to organize this as I speak! I need to make it sound like the truth.’” Then, maybe.
ross
									
Yeah. Uh, so his example of that was—he played audio of an Australian Aboriginal saying, “I have an older sister.” That was—
carrie
									
[Confused] Okay.
ross
									
That was the reversed speech. And—
carrie
									
[Laughing] That was a pretty banal thing to announce, but okay.
ross
									
Again, David Oates is from Australia. So, I had a hard time understanding his accent—
carrie
									
Oh, sure.
ross
									
—which made all of this more difficult.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
Yeah, so I guess the nature of this particular interview was that later on, the man mentioned that he learned that he had a sister he didn't know of before.
carrie
									
Ahhhh.
ross
									
So, there we go. He was already thinking about his sister, but before he’d brought it up in the conversation and made that reveal—
carrie
									
Oh, wow.
ross
									
—that he had another sister—
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
—he’d already said in reverse.
carrie
									
Amazing.
ross
									
Which no one would have ever been able to detect until the age of recording and playing things backwards.
carrie
									
And he found out during that conversation that he had a sister?
ross
									
No. He hadn’t revealed it to the interviewer yet.
carrie
									
Oh, I see.
ross
									
So, this was just, uh, showing that his mind was already there before—
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
—they’d gotten to that point in the conversation.
carrie
									
Okay. Alright.
ross
									
There’s many other applications you could use this for. For example, let’s say you’re doing business and you’re thinking of making a deal with somebody. Maybe you should check out their audio. So he said, “Here was someone that I was going to do business with in Australia, and I listened to the audio backwards, and the guy said, ‘I am so full of shit.’”
carrie
									
Oh, my God. That guy dodged such a bullet [laughs].
ross
									
[Laughing] Seriously! Yeah, the bullet was dodged not in the direction John Oates was thinking.
carrie
									
Oh, my God. Like, what a nightmare it would be to work with someone who’s just constantly pulling this stuff.
ross
									
Can you imagine?!
carrie
									
Oh, my God. But, okay, sorry. What did he say backwards? “I’m full of shit?”
ross
									
“I am so full of shit.”
carrie
									
Alright.
ross
									
So, he didn’t do business with that man.
carrie
									
And that man? Donald Trump [chuckles].
ross
									
[Laughs] Funny, ‘cause, uh, the forward version of the audio sounded like a super-nice, competent person.
carrie
									
Awww.
ross
									
Yep.
carrie
									
Poor guy.
ross
									
But, uh, he probably should be glad it went the way it did.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
So again, we’ve got every 15 to 20 seconds, you’re gonna hear something. And he was surprised that it had taken everybody so long, you know, to come up with this.
carrie
									
Sure.
ross
									
“And it just took someone like me,—“
carrie
									
Aww.
ross
									
—he very humbly said, uh, “to come along.” He said at the time he woke up with that reverse speech phrase in his head and he went to his computer—which was a Commodore 64 at the time—
carrie
									
Wow.
ross
									
—and he wrote his theorem. And his the—
carrie
									
Oh, it’s like a download.
ross
									
Yeah! You’re right. You’re describing exactly what people describe as kind of alien downloads.The revelation was that language is by level. And forward, we construct it as a conscious method, but at the same time, our subconscious is creating that backwards message.
carrie
									
Mm-kay.
ross
									
The reverse speech comes from the right brain.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
And the normal language processing happens in the left brain.
carrie
									
This is true or this is what David John Oates says?
ross
									
The latter.
carrie
									
Okay. Got it. [Ross chuckles.] ‘Cause my understanding of the whole left-brain, right-brain things is that it’s not nearly as clean as people make that out to be.
ross
									
[Carrie makes a couple of affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] Right. And, yeah, you can point to certain functions that do predominantly take place in one hemisphere or one area of the brain. You do have like that Broca region of the brain, you know, that handles a lot of the heavy lifting on language processing. Uh, but, yeah, I think in this—at this point he’d just gone to the simple kind of left-brain, right-brain dichotomy.  Uh—
carrie
									
Right. The right-brain people love to draw; the left-brain people hate art. Whatever.
ross
									
Right, yeah. That kind of—
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
—generalization is…mm, nonsense.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm. Right.
ross
									
As far as I’ve heard.
carrie
									
Uh, yeah, I mean all you have to do is look at people who have brain damage and see if this ads up and, ta-da.
ross
									
Yeah. Right, exactly. Yeah.
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
[Carrie makes a couple affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] And I—I don’t want to over-generalize any of that about the brain. That the important point was just that things are not located in little neat, clean regions. They—there are networks that stretch across the brain, and they’re slightly different for everybody. And they’re highly complex. So, I—
carrie
									
And every part needs every other part. [In a nasally voice] It’s like a familyyy.
ross
									
We’re all the body of Chriiist. [Carrie chuckles.] Uh, shortly after he came up with this theory, he got a new research opportunity—
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
—in the form of twin daughters.
carrie
									
Oohhh! Oh, my God. This guy thinks like us. I would be delighted if I had identical twins.
ross
									
Yeah, they’re fraternal twins.
carrie
									
Think of all the stuff—oh!
ross
									
But at least now he—
carrie
									
Fudge.
ross
									
—he had some language-learners in the house—
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
—uh, that he could record all the time [chuckles softly] and—
carrie
									
[Makes a disgusted noise] I'm so disappointed in him, for not having identical twins while he was having twins.
ross
									
Yeah, shame on you, David Oates.
carrie
									
Yeah! Think it through.
ross
									
So, uh, he had a very early recording of one of his daughters at four months of age squirming and making, you know, little grunting noises. But he played it backwards and he heard a, “Hello.”
carrie
									
[Chuckling] Oh, my God, her first word [laughs]!
ross
									
[Laughing] Oh-ho! That is, uh, so backwards from how most people experience their first word.
carrie
									
Oh, man. Yeah, imagine growing up and your parent being like, “You know what your first word was? It was, ‘Hello.’ Well actually it was, ‘Gaga googoo, but I taped it, played it backwards.” [Ross laughs.] I think I’d feel like that moment had been stolen from me.
ross
									
[Laughs heartily] 100%! [Carrie chuckles.] “But what was my real first word?” “Oh, I don’t know.”
carrie
									
“Uh, it didn’t matter at that point.” [Both laugh.] “I think it was something, like, ostentatious. I don’t know.”
ross
									
So, then he had another recording and this was of, uh, either the same daughter or the other one, uh, a bit older. But she was struggling with a cup. And making noises like [groans]. She was frustrated.
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
And when he played it backwards, she was saying, “Help meeeeD-avid.”
carrie
									
Oh, wow!
ross
									
Yeah, calling him by his first name, no less.
carrie
									
And did he? Or was he like, “I’m busy recording you.”
ross
									
[Chuckles] “Yeah, uh, hold on. Let me put down this, uh, recorder.” Yeah, that part of the story he didn’t tell. But someone in the audience was saying, like, “I’m sorry, wait. I didn’t hear the ‘me’ part.” [Carrie makes an interested sound.] And he said, “Oh, well it was, ‘Help meeeeDavid!’” [Both snicker.] Like, alright. We got a lot of wiggle room here—
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
—in terms of duration and where you cut it. Oh, goodness. But, there we go. She was talking to him.
carrie
									
And she knows your name’s David. Amazing.
ross
									
Pretty impressive. The subconscious. Never underestimate it, Carrie.
carrie
									
I won’t. Never overestimate it, David.
ross
									
As a result of this observation, he adjusted his theory to show that backwards speech develops before forwards speech.
carrie
									
Ahhh, sure? Sure?
ross
									
That’s one way to resolve that observation.
carrie
									
Okay…[chuckles].
ross
									
Alright, well, not sensing any problems with that.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
Let’s move along. And he said, “Well, that’s not out of line with a number of other developmental theories about, kind of, you know, what’s going on in the brain— [Carrie groans softly.] —before conscious speech, uh, arrives.”
carrie
									
[Groans more loudly] Ugh. That’s not wrong. [Ross chuckles.] But therein lies the problem. I don’t know how to disentangle this for you.
ross
									
Yeah. Yeah, indeed. Uh, there was another audio clip of, uh, one of his daughters in the bathtub saying something about ducks when she was a little older, maybe playing with some ducks. Uh, but he had heard the reverse speech, “Love to be your friend.”
carre
									
Wo-o-ow.
ross
									
[Makes a high-pitched, noncommittal sound.] Okay.
carrie
									
[Matches Ross’s tone.] Okay.
ross
									
Yeah, this is all very exciting.
carrie
									
Was she saying that to the ducks or him?
ross
									
That, we don’t know.
carrie
									
Mmm.
ross
									
That, we don’t know.
carrie
									
If you are one of David John Oates’s daughters, and you’re listening to this, I would love to talk to you.
ross
									
Oh, yes.
carrie
									
Please contact us.
ross
									
Okay, so here’s where we get into a whole different area of application. You probably might have sensed that this was coming.
carrie
									
Your eyes have become heavy. Your soul has become dark. Your left brain is lighting up with sadness. What’s up?
ross
									
[Chuckles briefly] Alright, so we had a very poignant example.
carrie
									
Oh, no.
ross
									
He said that a woman had contacted him ten years ago, and that she had a handicapped child—
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
—who wasn’t able to speak to her.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
But was able to make sounds.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
And so he recorded some of those sounds and he played back one of them for her where—
carrie
									
[Quietly] Ohhh.
ross
									
—the child was saying, “Mommyyy looove you.”
carrie
									
[Still quiet, sadly] Aw. Okay.
ross
									
And it made her cry.
carrie
									
Aww. Well, that’s nice, I guess. Yeah. So this is a lot like facilitated communication.
ross
									
[In a low, serious tone.] Exactly.
carrie
									
[Ross makes some affirming sounds as Carrie speaks.] So, facilitated communication is this pseudoscience concept where a person without verbal ability speaks though a handler, basically. So, someone with advanced autism—something like that—has a companion who sort of interprets that person with a disability for their family.
ross
									
And many different ways this can happen. So, maybe the person with the speech inability taps on something in a certain cadence. Or they look a certain way. Or they kind of put their hand on the facilitator’s hand somehow.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
And there’s—the motion or the feedback is being guided by—it’s going through the facilitator.
carrie
									
Whenever this is blinded, it does not hold water at all. Uh, it turns out, you know, probably most of these facilitators are well-intentioned.
ross
									
Mm-hmm.
carrie
									
Um, I’m sure not all, but probably most. But—yeah, we get this feedback loop where we’re convincing ourselves that what we’re saying is true. And, uh, so, really you're just getting what that facilitator thinks that person is saying.
ross
									
Right. Very often it seems to be what that facilitator seems to think that family member wants to hear.
carrie
									
Wants to hear, sure. Or there was that one case of the facilitator falling in love with her charge, and then saying that the—
ross
									
[Makes a sound of recognition, then whispers] Oh, right.
carrie
									
—that he was in love with her. Which—who knows—may have been true. But we have no evidence for that being true.
ross
									
Aye-yae-yae.
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
Oh, life is complicated.
carrie
									
Ugh. Phew, boy.
ross
									
So, here we go. Already an example of it being used for that kind of application.
carrie
									
I hope he didn’t charge that person $1500.
ross
									
[In a strained voice] Oh, me too.
carrie
									
Now, you mentioned he said something along the lines of, “It took someone like me to come along to discover this.”
ross
									
Mm-hmm.
carrie
									
What is a “someone like him?” Does he have any background that would make you think he’s an expert on this sort of thing?
ross
									
Uh, up to the point that he started this, I would say, “No.” He wa—just worked in youth ministry—
carrie
									
Oh, right.
ross
									
—as far as I could tell. Now, he’s—
carrie
									
Though, obviously he’d had speech language therapy himself.
ross
									
Mm-hmm.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm. Okay.
ross
									
That’s true. I’m not sure to what extent. ‘Cause I think he still had the stutter at the time.
carrie
									
Okay,
ross
									
Uh, now he’s a certified hypnotherapist and trainer—
carrie
									
O-kay.
ross
									
—for whatever that would be worth. I mean, I don’t doubt it [chuckles].
carrie
									
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
ross
									
I—I don’t doubt that he has hypnotherapy, uh, training certification.
carrie
									
Yeah, that’s it’s own ball of wax. Um, okay.
ross
									
But, yeah. I think that’s about the—the level of—I—I you know, I think when he said that, he just meant that, you know, “Hey I just happened to think about this at the right time, at the right place and be a—“
carrie
									
Right. “A maverick like me.”
ross
									
“—be able to use technology and look at all of these different inputs and synthesize—“
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
—you know, a new idea from them.”
carrie
									
The—which is not saying that that doesn't happen.
ross
									
Mm-hmm.
carrie
									
That happens. But the next step is actually subjecting yourself to testing and seeing if you’re right.
ross
									
That would be good.
carrie
									
Yeah, has he done that?
ross
									
Not in the way we would imagine that testing should look like.
carrie
									
Oka—oooh, I’m interested to hear.
ross
									
Yeah, so I—I would say he would point to the testing of just years of years of continuing this practice.
carrie
									
Ah.
ross
									
And his own evaulation of how successful it is.
carrie
									
Ah, right.
ross
									
Which has gotten increasingly complex as, uh, you shall see.
carrie
									
The Rythmia standard of, “This many people say it’s good, so how can it not be good?”
ross
									
There you go.
carrie
									
Mmkay. Got it.
ross
									
So he mentioned another criticism that has been thrown at him, that his is all just a coincidence of sound.
carrie
									
[Interested] Mm.
ross
									
[Carrie makes several affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] Which seems like legitimate criticism because, yeah. Sounds are sounds, and if you play them backwards, they’re slightly different sounds. And our language is made out of a lot of different sounds that sound similar, and some of them reverse. Some of them are little mini palindromes. You know, “mom,” [chuckles] plays the same backwards and forwards and the—and some turn into recognizable things when you turn them backwards. But he said, “The trouble with that criticism is that we find it more than just now and then. Every 10 or 15 seconds is a lot.”
carrie
									
No, it’s not.
ross
									
And, depends. How attuned are you to finding things—
carrie
									
Sure.
ross
									
And wha—what are your criteria for what constitutes an actual hit? Or, like, an actual piece of speech?
carrie
									
And every 15 seconds, if each clip is like 2 seconds long—‘cause these all—these have all been really short phrases.
ross
									
Mm-hmm.
carrie
									
So, that would be like 8 seconds for every 60? That’s not that much.
ross
									
[Carrie makes a couple of affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] That’s interesting. Yeah. It’s not a constant dialogue. So, you can’t just play the audio back and just hear sentences spoken that are completely at odds with what's being heard forwards. So, it says something about the subconscious that it speaks in these weird, little squeaked-out phrases. Which—as we hear more examples—will become increasingly tortured.
carrie
									
Oh, okay. Cool.
ross
									
So, next he plays some audio from George Bush. He jumps to the other side of the aisle for us.
carrie
									
Ooh. Which of the fine George Bush’s—
ross
									
Oh, yes.
carrie
									
—in our history are we talking about?
ross
									
G. W.
carrie
									
Ah-ha.
ross
									
Okay. Let me play this little section for you real quick.
clip
									
George W. Bush (Recording from David John Oates’s lecture): I’ll answer a couple of questions.
carrie
									
“I’ll answer a couple questions.”
ross
									
Good. That’s the forward audio.
carrie
									
Kay.
ross
									
Okay?
clip
									
George W. Bush (Reversed recording from David John Oates’s lecture): I’ll answer a couple of questions. George W. Bush: [Reversed audio is slowed and lowered] I’ll answer a couple of questions. George W. Bush: [Reversed audio is slowed and lowered further] I’ll answer a couple of questions.
carrie
									
“The fucker’s handled?” That’s what I hear.
ross
									
So, the way that, uh, David Oates had interpreted this, Bush was saying, “Choke the fuckers now.”
carrie
									
Oh, wow! Okay. Alright. I’m getting the hang of this! Alright!
ross
									
You got the “fuckers” part, yeah. Good job.
carrie
									
[Chuckles briefly] So, why would he be saying that instead of, “I’ll take a couple questions?”
ross
									
Oh, yeah [chuckles]. Bush was saying, “I look forward to working with the members of congress. I’ll take a few questions.”
carrie
									
[Laughs loudly] Oh, that’s fun.
ross
									
And just that little section gets grabbed and reversed. [Through clenched teeth] “Choke the fuckers now.”
carrie
									
Great.
clip
									
George W. Bush (Recording from David John Oates’s lecture): I look forward to working with the members of Congress to get it done. I’ll answer a couple of questions starting with [inaudible] the AP. Speaker 1: Thank you, [inaudible].
ross
									
Uh, so here’s me:
clip
									
Ross: [Imitating George W. Bush] I’ll answer a couple ques— Ross: [Audio reversed] I’ll answer a couple ques—
carrie
									
Oh, yeah. I—I—
ross
									
Yeah?
carrie
									
“Choke—“can I hear it again?
clip
									
Ross: [Imitating George W. Bush] I’ll answer a couple ques— Ross: [Audio reversed] I’ll answer a couple ques—
carrie
									
“Shuck…the fucker’s nail.”
ross
									
[Laughs] Yes, and he said—
carrie
									
Okay, yeah.
ross
									
—the—the basic sounds are there.
carrie
									
Yeah, definitely.
ross
									
They’re—the K’s, the N’s—
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
—you know, the—they're in the right area.
carrie
									
Yeah. For sure.
ross
									
I just—I don’t have the same cadence. And—
carrie
									
Yeah! For sure, yes.
ross
									
—it—there’s so many little subtleties to speech. But, yeah, it’s there. And I think the fact that I can kind of reproduce it—
carrie
									
Yep. Says something.
ross
									
—says a lot.
carrie
									
Yeah. It makes me want to do a runner of, “I’ll take a couple questions.” People have to say that all the time.
ross
									
Yeah. So, presumably if we heard Barack Obama or—
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
—Hillary Clinton saying the exact same thing, it would sound similar in reverse.
carrie
									
Yeah. Or David Oates, after one of his talks.
ross
									
Right! That would be interesting to listen to in reverse, wouldn’t it?
carrie
									
Yeah, yeah.
ross
									
Next he played a quote from Bob Dole as he was retiring from the Senate
clip
									
Bob Dole (Recording from David John Oates’s talk): He’s not laying claim to the office he holds. It lays claim to you. Your obligation is to bring to it the gifts you can of labor and honesty. And then to depart with grace.
ross
									
He played it backwards, and the quote was:
clip
									
[Reversed audio of a Bob Dole speaking an unintelligible phrase, repeated once and slowed down the second time.
ross
									
“It’s an honor.”
carrie
									
Oh, wow.
ross
									
So [chuckles] alright. There we go.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
He's just—he was being sincere in that moment.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
This is reminding me also very much of our lie detection.
carrie
									
Mmm. Mm-hmm.
ross
									
We did that kind of audio-based lie detection analysis—
carrie
									
With my good friend John Ronson.
ross
									
Yeah, and it was a very much the same thing, where he would take the responses and he would listen for certain peaks and those would show that, uh, I was nervous. And if I was nervous, I was lying. And that’s how we found out that Satan is my overlord and constant companion.
carrie
									
[Chuckles] Mm-hmm. Still true.
ross
									
Uh, well, constant, right?
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
So, yeah, uh, definitely a—a similar practice to that, as well. And I’ve gotta say, just like with EVP’s, they’ll have, like, the class one, two and three—
carrie
									
Ah, right. Mm-hmm.
ross
									
I’d say very much the same for these. Some of them, you’re like, “Oh, yeah. I hear it.”
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
And other ones, you’re like, “Wait. Oh, now that you say—okay. Okay. Play it again? Okay. Yeah, I hear it.”
carrie
									
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
ross
									
And then other ones, you're like, “Alright.”
carrie
									
“We’re stretching.”
ross
									
“Yeah, we’re totally stretching.”
carrie
									
And an A, of course, should be that it took no priming, or any context. I—I keep thinking with all of these, it would be really important to not know who the speaker is, if you wanted to get a pure analysis.
ross
									
Yeah.
carrie
									
Just knowing that it’s Bob Dole in this particular context, where he’s saying goodbye, that’s gonna make me think in terms of things like, [imitates Bob Dole’s voice] “It’s been an honor—“
ross
									
Right.
carrie
									
“—I love you all.” Or, “I hated you all. I want you all to die.”
ross
									
[Carrie makes a few affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] Exactly, yeah. And that would add an—an element of blinding to the process because I think right now you also have an additional layer of, “I’m David John Oates. This is Bob Dole. What do I think of Bob Dole? I think he’s an honorable person. What am I listening for now in this audio? Oh, look, he said:”
clip
									
[Reversed audio of Bob Dole speaking an unintelligible phrase]
carrie
									
Right.
ross
									
“[Amused] Hm, what do you know? What a good guy.”
carrie
									
Though I did see on David John Oates’s website that he claims when he first listened to the moon landing audio that he was attempting to prove the moon landing was real—
ross
									
Okay.
carrie
									
—but then listened to so many of them—they all had these , uh, messages of fakery—that he become won over to the position that we did not actually go to the moon.
ross
									
[Surprised] Oh, Really?
carrie
									
That’s what he says.
ross
									
I didn’t know it lead there. So, the moon quote was a good example of a congruent reversal—
carrie
									
Mm, okay.
ross
									
—I would say. Because he took the famous audio of Neil Armstrong saying…
carrie
									
“Small step for man.”
ross
									
“One small step for man.”
carrie
									
“One…great leap for mankind.” Something like that.
ross
									
“One giant leap for mankind.”
carrie
									
Giant.
clip
									
Neil Armstrong (Lunar landing recording): That’s one small step for man. One [beat] giant leap for mankind.
ross
									
So David Oates reversed this:
clip
									
Neil Armstrong (Recording played at David John Oates’s talk): Small step for man.
ross
									
And heard this:
clip
									
Neil Armstrong (Reversed recording played at David John Oates’s talk): Small step for man.
ross
									
“Man will spacewalk.” Whoa. Boring. And there’s a lot of controversy over whether he actually said, “One small step for a man—“
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
—which would make more sense.
carrie
									
Hmm.
ross
									
“One giant leap for mankind.”
carrie
									
Oh, I see what you’re saying. Uh-huh.
ross
									
Cause if you're saying, “One small step for man, that’s just one of those—“
carrie
									
That’s the same as mankind.
ross
									
Exactly.
carrie
									
Got it.
ross
									
[Carrie makes a couple of affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] And so I—I think the consideration on that little debate is that he just forgot to say, “a man.” And at first he admitted to that. And I think later on, he tried to say, [High-pitched voice] “Oh, no I said it. I was just—“ [Returns to regular tone] You know, “‘One small step for a man.’”
carrie
									
I admit it sounds prettier without the “A.”
ross
									
[Carrie makes a couple of affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] Yeah, that’s true. Kind of poetic.  But, it’s one of those things where you stop and think about it for a bit, and you’re like, “Wait a second. You forgot an important part of the sentence there.” So, it’s just one of those normal human mistakes. Oops. Anyways. That’s—that’s neither here nor there.
carrie
									
That reminds me of the poem, “What Happens to a Dream Deferred?”
ross
									
Oh, yeah. Langston Hughes?
carrie
									
Yeah, so in high school, during one of our drama reviews, someone was supposed to say that poem. And the very first line is, "What happens to a dream deferred?” And very near the end, she says, “it shrivels up like a raisin in the sun.” [Chuckling] She got onstage and she said, “What happens to a raisin in the sun?”
ross
									
[Laughing sympathetically] Oh, no!
carrie
									
And you just saw her face—
ross
									
Yep. Mm—aww [laughing]!
carrie
									
—just shrink. Just, “What do I do [laughs heartily]?”
ross
									
[Still laughing] And then you saw in her face exactly what happens to a raisin in the sun!
carrie
									
Pretty much! [Both sigh with laughter.] Poor thing.
ross
									
Oh, no.
carrie
									
And she heard it. So then she kept going, and at some point—she was trying to still make it work. She didn’t start over. And when she got to the part—
ross
									
Oh, no!
carrie
									
—about a raisin in the sun, she said, “Does it shrivel up, like [exaggerated emphasis] a raisin in the sun?”
ross
									
[Laughs] Aw.
carrie
									
“[Laughing] Like that?”
ross
									
Hey, alright. I like that.
carrie
									
Trying so hard to play it off.
ross
									
[Sighs with laughter] Oh.
carrie
									
Bless her.
ross
									
I know I’ve done things like that.
carrie
									
Oh, for sure.
ross
									
Brains are funny things.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm. During The Vagina Monologues, I said, “penis,” instead of vagina” one time.
ross
									
[Excited] Oh, yeah?
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
Nice. [Both chuckle.] Well, that’s relevant to this next one. He played audio from a woman that he had interviewed, and she’s talking about her love life. “Oh, I still want him. Oh, I get pulled to the bad guy.” And he played that audio backwards, and she said, “I want men.”
carrie
									
[Laughs loudly.] Okay.
ross
									
Alright. I guess that’s congruent.
carrie
									
Fine.
ross
									
That doesn’t tell me too much. In the interview, uh, we’ll—we’ll talk more about this later, but George Kappas from the Hypnosis Motivation institute— [Carrie makes an interested, affirming sound.] —who you may remember if you listen to our mental bank ledger epsidodes—
carrie
									
Or our hypnotherapy episodes.
ross
									
[Carrie makes a few affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] Yeah, but we specifically got a class from him for the mental bank ledger. But I—a fun and interesting character. He’s really taken with Davide John Oates. And this whole idea, this system, he thinks it’s great. So, he had him a few times on their HMI TV, where they talk to different people about various aspects of hypnotherapy. And George Kappas had an example of when he went and tried to do this, after he got so excited by David Oates’s, uh, thesis here. He grabbed a random take when he was talking to someone and trying to convince them of this. And they played back one of their instructors leading a class. And he said that she came in in the morning and just said, “Hi everybody. So great to have you here on a Saturday. Thanks for coming in.” But they played that back and one of the phrases said, “I want penis.”
crarie
									
[Laughing] Oh-ho-ho no-oh-oh! This is, uh, not something you want your male employer— [Ross bursts out laughing.] —fixating on.
ross
									
Right. Right*
carrie
									
Uh…did he tell her that?
ross
									
No. Well, she—
carrie
									
Goood.
ross
									
He said that she already wasn’t working there anymore.
carrie
									
[Dubious and amused] O…kay.
ross
									
He didn’t describe what the situation was.
carrie
									
Sure.
ross
									
You know, but he said, uh, “Oh, my goodness, this is just so funny.”
carrie
									
If you are David Oates’s daughters or John Kappas’s former employees, get in touch. Tell us what’s up.
ross
									
[Stuttering] Sometime before 2010, when that interview happened. Oh, goodness. And then—to be fair—I think David Oates had just played a quote from Barack Obama. Or maybe he was just about to. But Barack Obama was talking about something completely different, uh, but then when he reversed him, instead of talking about the Middle East situation, he was saying, “I’m gonna need sex soon.” Or something like that.
carrie
									
[Making scoffing sounds, then, under her breath] God.
ross
									
[As Ross speaks, Carrie makes a couple of affirming sounds.] And—and it was funny, ‘cause you could tell that David Oates was a little down on Barack Obama, and George Kappas was very much, “Don’t tell me anything negative about Obama—”
carrie
									
Oh, interesting.
ross
									
“—I love him.” And then after that reveal of Obama thinking about sex in his subconscious, George said, “Oh! Well, I’ve seen Michelle. I can imagine why.”
carrie
									
Oh! Sure.
ross
									
Yeah.
carrie
									
Sure.
ross
									
[Ross chuckles] Anyways. So going back to, uh, the talk here at the Conscious Life Expo, now it’s time to look at Hillary, of course.
carrie
									
Of course. Uh, Hillary who?
ross
									
Clinton.
carrie
									
Oh! Hillary Clinton.
ross
									
Yes.
carrie
									
Okay. Mm-hmm.
ross
									
Okay, so he had a clip of her on the campaign trail talking about Donald Trump, saying:
clip
									
Hillary Clinton (Recording from David John Oates’s talk):And you know what? It also matters when he makes fun of people with disabilities. [Scattered boos from the crowd.] Calls women pigs.
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
Okay.
carrie
									
I don’t need any, um, underlying message there. That’s a good overlying message.
ross
									
So, again, he didn’t tell us in the moment, but I had to figure out that this little section is pulled from when she says, “When he makes fun o—“ and then the “of” is cut off in the middle—
carrie
									
Oh, okay.
ross
									
“But when he makes fun o—“ So, here, I’ll play it for you.
clip
									
Hillary Clinton (Recording from David John Oates’s talk): When he makes fun o—
ross
									
Mkay, so that’s forward. [Carrie makes an affirming sound.] And it’s gonna be followed by the reverse.
clip
									
Hillary Clinton (Recording from David John Oates’s talk): When he makes fun o— Hillary Clinton: [Audio reversed] When he makes fun o— Hillary Clinton: [Reversed audio is slowed and lowered] When he makes fun o— Hillary Clinton: [Reversed audio is slowed and lowered further] When he makes fun o—
carrie
									
“And I’ll scam you.”
ross
									
You got it.
carrie
									
[Sarcastically] Oh, yeah. Good one.
ross
									
Alright, here’s me—Yeah, and then I would say, “Yeah, that’s—I guess that qualifies as an A—”
carrie
									
Okay, yeah. Mm-hmm.
ross
									
“—‘cause you got it.” So here’s me saying a similar thing.
clip
									
Ross**: [Imitating Hillary Clinton] When he makes fun o— Ross:** [Audio reversed] When he makes fun o—
carrie
									
[High-pitched, considering] Yeah. Okay.
ross
									
Alright, yeah? The—again, the sounds are there—
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
I just don’t have exactly Hillary Clinton’s speech patterns.
carrie
									
That sounded like, “Enough skin on you.”
ross
									
Oh, interesting.
carrie
									
Or—yeah.
ross
									
Hmm. Okay. Uh, I think we’ve already established that Carrie is much better at this than I am.
carrie
									
[Chuckles] It—well. I don’t know if this is a point of pride, but yes.
ross
									
At—at least at mak—At least making that leap to say, “Okay. What are the sounds that I’m hearing here and how could they form an English sentence?”
carrie
									
Right.
ross
									
Whereas my brain will just be like, “Nah. That’s not a thing.”
carrie
									
Sure. Your brain is actually correcting toward the truth?
ross
									
Well, I—I wish I could do what you’re doing right now.
carrie
									
[Quietly, humble] Oh, well, thanks. [Back to regular tone] This is kind of like when people tell us that they get sleep paralysis and we’re both like, [in a strained voice] “Oh! I really wish I could do—“ [Ross makes an unintelligible noise of frustrated desire, matching Carrie’s tone.] And they’re like, “No. It’s terrible. You don’t want—“ “Yeah, no, no, no! But it b—[intentionally stutters, then breaks off, laughing].
ross
									
Yeah! But I wish I could choose to do it! [Chuckles] Yeah, exactly.” Not all the time, just on control, under my schedule.
carrie
									
Right. “Cool, but this is terrible for me. It—“ “Oohh, I’m sorry.”
ross
									
[Chuckles briefly] Yeah, so this when I first raised my hand and said, “So have you done this with Trump himself?”
carrie
									
Oh, yeah! Mm-hmm.
ross
									
And he said, “You know what? I was just about to play Trump.”
carrie
									
Alright!
ross
									
“[Inaudible] Just making sure.” “I—you know I go for both sides of the aisle here.”
carrie
									
Good, good, good.
ross
									
“Every—everybody’s fair game.” Uh, and he said, “Ah, Trump’s an interesting character.” [Amused] So, as he’s saying this, his phone starts ringing with the doorbell sound, “[imitating a two-tone doorbell] doo-doo.” [Carrie laughs briefly.] “Doo-doo.” He looks at it, and he says, “Oh, someone’s at my front door.” Presumably in Australia.
carrie
									
Whoa. [Dubiously] Okay.
ross
									
Yeah. And his phone is notifying him that they’re pressing the button.
carrie
									
Okay. Wait, what time was this talk?
ross
									
This was 6:00 PM on a Sunday.
carrie
									
How f—they’re like 10 hours ahead? 11 hours ahead?
ross
									
Well, let’s do this. Okay, so let’s see. We’ll add two hours to whatever comes up, so—
carrie
									
An early morning visit.
ross
									
Oh! That would be close to, uh, 10:00 AM.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
Okay.
carrie
									
A little early, but okay.
ross
									
This person was so persistent. So, at first he can’t figure out how to, like, make it stop. [Carrie snorts with laughter.] So the next few examples, like, for a minute—[chuckling] the phone is just in the background, going, “[imitates the notification sound] Doo-doo. Doo-doo. Do-do, do-do, do-do, do-do, do-do, do-do.” [Both laughing.] And he can’t stop it. And he doesn’t throw his phone away or anything. It’s just—
carrie
									
Oh, man.
ross
									
It’s just kind of funny.
carrie
									
Delight. Yeah, like, turn it off. Turn it on silent.
ross
									
[Chuckles] Yeah. Um, I guess—you know, you’re off giving a presentation. All of your shortcuts on your phone are out of your brain.
carrie
									
Sure.
ross
									
You know, it’s like a dream deferred [snorts with laughter].
carrie
									
It’s exactly like that, yeah.
ross
									
So he plays a quote from Trump, “[Imitates Donald Trump] And once you get jobs back—instead of them going to India and Mexico—“
clip
									
Donald Trump (Recording from David John Oates’s Talk): And once you get jobs back—instead of having them going to India and having them go—I mean, Mexico—
ross
									
He plays this backwards—the Mexico section. And let’s see if you can hear this.
clip
									
[Reversed audio from Donald Trump, as played in the recording at David John Oates’s talk. The phrase is unintelligible. It is repeated once, slowed down and lowered in pitch.]
carrie
									
“I’ll discount you?”
clip
									
[Reversed audio at regular speed, from Donald Trump, as played in the recording at David John Oates’s talk. The phrase is unintelligible.]
carrie
									
“I love to scam you?”
ross
									
[Carrie makes a couple of affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] Yeah. I think you’re right. He was just trying to provide a corollary to the Hillary talk where Trump now is saying, “I’ll scam you.” But I think, actually, you’re, “I’ll discount you,” is a better use of that sound. And now that you say that, I can hear—
cilp
									
[Reversed audio at regular speed, from Donald Trump, as played in the recording at David John Oates’s talk. The phrase is unintelligible.]
ross
									
“I’ll discount you.” Yep.
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
Again, priming: pretty powerful.
carrie
									
Also, “I’ll discount you,” could mean, “I will write you off,” or, “I will give you a discount.” One’s positive and one’s negative.
ross
									
Mmm. Oh, maybe—
carrie
									
Now what do we do?
ross
									
—Mexico should pay for the wall—
carrie
									
[Laughing quietly] Oh, right.
ross
									
—but he’ll give them a discount.
carrie
									
[Laughing] It’s like a rebate situation.
ross
									
“I’ll discount you.” Alright.
carrie
									
[Sighs deeply] Ughh I hate him.
ross
									
Me, too. Yeah, I—here—here’s me again.
clip
									
Ross: [Imitating Donald Trump] Mexico [Carrie laughs] Ross: [Audio reversed] Mexico. Mexico.
carrie
									
[Chuckles, then imitates Ross’s reversed speech.]
ross
									
[Chuckles, then imitates his own reversed speech a couple times.] You gotta watch out for those [made-up word from his reversed speech]. [Carrie laughs.] “Waffle scam?”
carrie
									
Yeah, “waffle scam.” Okay.
ross
									
Maybe that’s it. Like, stay away from any waffle restaurants.
carrie
									
Makes sense.
ross
									
Uh, then he plays another one from Trump, saying that Trump’s actually really good at this. “You know, like, he knows how to use this to his advantage.”
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
Where—and—and this is an interesting question that comes up in various interviews with David John Oates, which is just, “How much can you actually control this?”
carrie
									
Oh, right. Yeah.
ross
									
Presumably, not at all.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
This is just a window to your subconscious, and you can be trying to lay on the flattery or say whatever you want, but your subconscious is going to say whatever your real truth and present understanding is.
carrie
									
What if someone else wrote the words you’re saying? What if you have a speech writer, or you’re reading a play? What happens then?
ross
									
This would be good to clarify with him. My thought its that even then, you should have your own internal subconscious encoded—
carrie
									
Right.
ross
									
[Carrie makes affirming sounds a few times as Ross speaks.] —backwards. And this is weird, too. You know, ‘cause you have just the recording medium of either a tape, back in the day, or now a digital audio recording. And we know pretty well what it’s doing to sample the vibrations that are hitting the recorder itself and making digital impressions at a certain sample rate, at a certain frequency range. But somehow it seems like there is a little bit of a dualism here, where there’s some extra piece of information that’s going in the backwards playback that’s somehow not present in the forward playback. Which I reject out of hand, because scientifically, I don’t think that makes any sense, either for our hearing or for a digital recording method. So, somehow he seems to think that Trump knows how to use this to his advantage? I’m not sure what the implication of that is.
carrie
									
Yeah, ‘cause if there’s something that’s just added by your delivery, your spirit, whatever, then it should be there no matter what words you’re saying. Which, then would mean that your recordings of you saying the same thing should not sound the same.
ross
									
Correct.
carrie
									
So, you kinda—it has to be either or.
ross
									
Right. Yeah. So that would be—I think—one way to kind of falsify this, is to take other instances of that same politician saying the same thing.
carrie
									
Yeah. Mmm. Mm-hm.
ross
									
[Carrie makes a couple of affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] Does it sound different? Was Barack Obama not thinking about sex in this other time that he said the same thing about the Middle East?
carrie
									
Right. Right, right, right.
ross
									
Yeah. It’s a good question.
carrie
									
Or other people saying the same thing, too. Yeah.
ross
									
And—and there’s some other attendant claims here. Like, that when you say these things, people presumably aren’t recording them and playing them backwards. And yet, somehow, they are aware of that intent coming through the words. They can hear this subconscious intent—
carrie
									
Right.
ross
									
—and it’s affecting their voting choices, even.
carrie
									
Oohhh. Oh, okay. I didn’t realize that. Okay.
ross
									
Because the thing that he said that Trump was so good at doing—so, maybe Trump just had the right thoughts in his subconscious, but he was often using the word, “America.” And he was the only candidate to do that, to have “America” show up. Uh, so there was one—
carrie
									
Backwards.
ross
									
Ex—right. Yes.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
Uh, so there was one quote he had of Donald Trump saying, “[imitates Donald Trump] Thank you. Thank you very much.” [Carrie chuckles softly.] And when he played it backwards, Trump was saying, “America, wake up.”
clip
									
[Reversed recording from David John Oates’s talk of Donald Trump. The phrase is unintelligible. The phrase is repeated once, slowed down and lowered in pitch.]
carrie
									
[Sarcastically] Oh, wow.
ross
									
[Sarcastically] Wow.
carrie
									
And then we did.
ross
									
_[Chuckling] “_And so,” David John Oates said, “this is why he won. His reversals were very pro-America.”
carrie
									
[Mock realization] Ahhh. Okay.
ross
									
So then there was another quote from Trump saying, “Hillary,” and then he said something, something “e-mail.” It was about her e-mails.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm. [Deadpan] Oh, was there something with her e-mails? I don’t think I heard about that.
ross
									
Ahh…oh, shit. I can’t remember.
carrie
									
Yeah, okay. Hmm.
ross
									
Yeah. Whatever it was, it must have been inconsequential.
carrie
									
Yeah, it sounds like it.
clip
									
[Reversed recording from David John Oates’s talk of Donald Trump. The phrase is unintelligible. The phrase is repeated once, slowed down and lowered in pitch.]
carrie
									
“Hillary something e-mail.”
ross
									
Yeah. “Hillary, let’s see this e-mail.”
carrie
									
Okay. Ohh, “Let’s see this e-mail.”
ross
									
Yeah.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
Where—are you impressed?
carrie
									
No.
ross
									
That’s a B minus—
carrie
									
At best.
ross
									
—C plus, more likely.
carrie
									
Yeah. Ugh.
ross
									
And—[chuckles]—again, uh, I think this is telling us far more about David Oates—
carrie
									
The listener, yeah.
ross
									
—than it is about any of these people.
carrie
									
[Ross makes a couple of emphatic affirming sounds as Carrie speaks.] Absolutely. And if David Oates spoke a second language, he’d be picking up words in that language. Uh, we hard-wire our brains to look for certain sounds, and we call them, “languages.”
ross
									
Yeah, so that’s a question that I did ask him a little while later. I said, “Does this map onto other languages?” And he said, “Well, I only speak one language, but yeah, I’ve had people that I’ve trained do this with French, Spanish, and German, and they’ve been found in all those languages—“
carrie
									
When the speaker was originally speaking those languages? Or when the listener speaks both and—
ross
									
When the speaker was originally speaking that language and the listener happened to also speak that language.
carrie
									
Oh, okay. But I’m curious—like, if a Spanish speaker listened to Clinton on reverse, if they would hear things in Spanish. I would think so.
ross
									
I would imagine so, as well.
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
I’m pretty sure this crosses language boundaries. Uh, very often, you know, when we listened to something being said in another language, we can say, “Oh, it sounds like they’re saying this!”
carrie
									
Totally, yeah.
ross
									
“Oh, it sounds like they’re saying this kind of phrase that wouldn’t make sense in English, but—“
carrie
									
‘Cause by and large we all use the same sounds. There are a few that languages will lean on more than others—
ross
									
Mm-hmm.
carrie
									
—but mostly we’ve got a few sounds that the human mouth can do.
ross
									
So then he asserts after the Hillary example, “Ah, I think it’s weirder to say that there’s nothing here than to say that there is something here.”
carrie
									
[Mock interest] Oh, wooowww.
ross
									
Yeah, so he’s kind of really saying, “Oh, I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist.”
carrie
									
Right. Right.
ross
									
You know, it’s kind of that same thing.
carrie
									
I don't think there’s nothing there. I think there’s something very fascinating about the human brain going on here.
ross
									
And he’s got 35 years of research behind him.
carrie
									
[Mock impressed] Oh my goodness.
ross
									
And so this reminds me of that phrase, “practice makes perfect.”
carrie
									
Mm. Mm-hmm.
ross
									
And I remember one teacher telling me, “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes permanent.” [Carrie makes an intrigued sound.] “And if you just keep doing the same thing over and over again, you’ll just keep doing that.”
carrie
									
Oh, wow.
ross
									
[Carrie makes several affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] “Maybe you’ll do it efficiently or well. But it needs to be practice plus some kind of correction, some effort to actively be improving.” It kind of related to that whole 10,000 hour idea that, yeah, you need to try at something for years on end to achieve mastery, but it can’t just be repeating the same thing you know. You have to constantly be evaluating and improving and testing new things and trying them out and subsi—“What if I do this instead?” So, sure, 35 years of research would be really good if it were that type of research, where you’re getting the feedback of others and looking for the flaws. He estimated that he’s done hundreds of thousands of these analyses.
carrie
									
Oh, wow. Okay.
ross
									
And says, “Ah, probably have like a million reversals just here on my computer.”
carrie
									
Wow.
ross
									
Yeah. He collects ‘em.
carrie
									
How could you have a lot of something without it being real? You couldn’t. QED.
ross
									
Exactly. You get it. You get it, Carrie.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
ross
									
Uh, someone in the audience said, “Well, what about, uh, the State of the Union?” ‘Cause that had just happened. “What about the obvious lies there? Have you listened to that one?” [Carrie makes a curious sound. She makes a few affirming sounds as Ross continues.] And, uh, David John Oates said, “[Imitating David John Oates’s deeper voice] Oh, I haven’t, uh, had a chance to listen to that yet.” [Resumes regular tone] Another woman asked, “Do some words always sound the same?” And th—that was a good question. He said, “Yeah, there’s like 50 or so, and I call them ‘constant reversals.’”
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
So—
carrie
									
Mom. Kayak.
ross
									
—for example, like, every time someone says—[Ross laughs and Carrie joins in.] Yeah, all those palindromes, like, “Go hang a salami on the lasagna hog.” [Both laugh heartily.] “Draw, oh Cesar. Erase a coward.” So, he said that the word relationship always comes back as, “This is shallow.”
carrie
									
Oh, wo-owww.
ross
									
Interesting.
carrie
									
Well, that tells you something! Not every relationship can be shallow, so what does that mean to you, David John?
ross
									
Similarly, “motion,” means “show me.”
carrie
									
[Quietly, dubiously] Okay.
ross
									
 “A president,” comes back as, “We deserve this.”
carrie
									
Okay! What do you make of this, Dave?!
ross
									
But—well, kind of to his credit—
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
For those examples, he said, “Yeah, for those 50-whatever examples, uh, I tell my students to ignore those, move past those. Because, yeah, they are constant.”
carrie
									
Kayy. Okayyy. But why doesn’t that teach you some larger principle?
ross
									
[Sighs] Right. In your 35 years, in one of those years or months or days, you should have said, “Oh, wait a second. Yeah, what does that say about other parts of language?”
carrie
									
Yeahh.
ross
									
“Just that the way they’re enunciated can affect our ability to hear certain phrases, either said or not said.”
carrie
									
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
ross
									
"And sometimes—yeah. They—they’ll appear for everybody and sometimes just for one person and sometimes every time that person speaks and sometimes only once.” Let’s analyse that a little more.
carrie
									
Uh-huh, uh-huh.
ross
									
Just a little more.
carrie
									
Yeah, I would think those 50 words are the ones that just don’t differentiate that much between the different dialects of spoken English.
ross
									
[Carrie makes a few affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] You know what? And I bet there’s a cool study that could be made from that. Just looking at, how do consonants play forwards and backwards, and vowel sounds? And, you know, what do we do with that? I’m—I’m not sure why that wouldn’t really justify someone’s effort in looking into that. But—
carrie
									
But I think it would be interesting, though. Like, I am thinking about, you know, obviously, “kayak” backwards is not, “kayak.” Uh, yeah, I don’t know. I’d be kind of interested to see that study. Linguists, I can’t wait for your e-mails.
ross
									
[Carrie makes several affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] Yeah, it’s funny. ‘Cause as you’re saying all of this, like, I want to play back what you just said backwards and I’ll be able to do that later when I’m monkeying with this file in Audition. But I think—and this will come up more—I think this is a big saving grace here. Is that this kind of analysis is hard to do. You can’t do it in real time. And—and it takes time to reverse it and play it. And in that interview with George Kappas, George was asking good questions. And one of them was, “How long does it take to do this analysis?” And it seemed like it was roughly, like, a four-to-one ratio, where he would take a half hour of audio, and it would take him two hours to analyze. And I’m kind of glad it takes so long to do that, because otherwise I think you’d have a lot of people, like, harassing their—their girlfriend, boyfriend, fiancé, saying, “Okay. You said you weren’t out anywhere last night, but I recorded you—“
carrie
									
“[Chuckles briefly] And played it backward.”
ross
									
“—And you said, ‘The girl; I have her.’”
carrie
									
Yeah—[breaks off, laughing heartily]. There would be so much of that. [Ross laughs.] Uh, yeah. It  almost feels like there’s an implicit dare in here. Like, “I dare you to put as much time to this as I have.” And you know who took that dare? Ross and Carrie. [Ross laughs loudly.]
ross
									
[Catching his breath] Ah, yeah—exactly.
carrie
									
“No problem, sir. We’ve done it.”
ross
									
You said, “I know Philip.” Who’s Philp? Tell me. Who is Philip?
carrie
									
Yeah. “I don’t know.” “Well, your subconscious does.” [Ross guffaws.] I’ll tell you what, listeners. After this episode is up, for mmm…two days. I am going to reverse it and put the entire, uh— [Ross laughs.] —the entire file as a reverse video on Youtube.
ross
									
Ooh, I like it.
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
That’s fun.
carrie
									
And then you can all try to pull little things we said that are secret statements.
ross
									
But, by all means, do not tell your significant other about the iReverseSpeech app.
carrie
									
[Yelling] Oh nooo—[breaks off, laughing]! Oh, Ross has pulled something up on his phone. Oh, shit. That’s me.
ross
									
That’s—that’s what you just said, backwards.
clip
									
[Reversed audio of Carrie speaking; phrase is unintelligible.]
carrie
									
Was that, “He’s opening it on his phone?”
ross
									
Wait, we can slow down the speed. Okay.
carrie
									
Can you play it forwards? See what it was?
clip
									
Carrie (recording on Ross’s phone): Pulled something up on his phone. [Ross giggles.]
carrie
									
“Pulled something up on his phone.”
ross
									
Okay, now we’re gonna play it backwards.
clip
									
Carrie (recording on Ross’s phone): [Audio reversed and slowed, so the pitch is lowered] Pulled something up on his phone.
carrie
									
It sounds like I’m singing. [Sings unintelligible syllables.]
ross
									
Alright, uh—
carrie
									
[Singing] The city, pretty. [Speaking] I don’t know.
ross
									
Okay. We will discard that recording. I—
carrie
									
III gotta get this app. How much is it?
ross
									
Uh, it’s actually—it’s free.
carrie
									
Alright!
ross
									
With in-app purchases. But, so far it’s—it’s worked—
carrie
									
Uh, what's it called?
ross
									
iReverseSpeech.
carrie
									
Well, I’m gonna use this forever.
ross
									
Okay, Carrie. Say, “Kayak.”
carrie
									
[Loudly, distinctly.] Kayak.
clip
									
Carrie (Recording on iReverseSpeech on Ross’s phone): [Audio reversed and slowed, so lowered in pitch] Kayak. [Ross chuckles.]
carrie
									
Okay.
clip
									
Carrie (Recording on iReverseSpeech on Ross’s phone): [Audio reversed, original speed] Kayak.
carrie
									
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Very close.
ross
									
Oh, yeah. Alright. Alright, wait. Let’s try it. Now, I’m having fun. [Loudly, distinctly] Mom.
clip
									
Ross (Recording on iReverseSpeech on Ross's phone): [Audio reversed, original speed] Mom.
ross
									
Hey!
carrie
									
Okay, how about—
ross
									
Yeah, that one’s—oh, oh I see. If I want to save, I’ve got to, um, upgrade for $5. Okay.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
So, new recording.
carrie
									
So in Oregon, there’s a town called Yreka —
ross
									
Yeah.
carrie
									
—which is “bakery” backwards. And so there was a bakery there called, “Yreka Bakery.” So, I’m gonna say that.
ross
									
Oh, I love it. Okay.
carrie
									
Mkay. [Loudly, distinctly] Yreka Bakery.
clip
									
Carrie (Recording on iReverseSpeech on Ross’s phone): [Audio reversed, original speed] Yreka Bakery.
carrie
									
Ooh, no. Okay, that, ah—that one doesn’t work.
clip
									
Carrie (Recording on iReverseSpeech on Ross’s phone): [Audio reversed, slowed so that pitch is lowered] Yreka Bakery.
ross
									
Your payback eerie owl.
carrie
									
[Chuckles] Oh, an owl!
ross
									
[Chuckles] I’ll do this for, um—my grandparents lived in Ukiah, which is “haiku” backwards.
carrie
									
Nice.
ross
									
[Distinctly] Ukiah, haiku.
clip
									
Ross (Recording on iReverseSpeech on Ross's phone): [Audio reversed, original speed] Ukiah, haiku.
ross
									
[Chuckles] Nope.
carrie
									
Wow.
ross
									
[Ross imitates the reversed recording of him saying “Ukiah, haiku.”] Alright, well that was fun. So—[laughs].
carrie
									
Yeah, I'm gonna keep doing them. [Distinctly] I am married to Cara Blocher.
ross
									
That’s a lie, and I hope your reversed speech reveals the lie to be a lie.
clip
									
Carrie (Recording on iReverseSpeech on Ross’s phone): [Audio reversed, original speed] I am married to Cara Blocher.
carrie
									
Nothing.
ross
									
I heard “Barack” in there.
carrie
									
Oh!
ross
									
Carrie (Recording on iReverseSpeech on Ross’s phone): [Audio reversed, original speed] I am married to Cara Blocher.
carrie
									
Oh, yeah. Not like, “Barack Obama,” but like, [attempts to mimic the audio with a Yiddish pronunciation] “Barach.”
ross
									
[Imitates Carrie’s pronunciation] Barach.
carrie
									
Like the, uh—
ross
									
[Imitates another reversed phrase.]
carrie
									
[Uncertainly] Yeah.
ross
									
I don't know if we’ll be able to make this show anymore, now, because we’ll be too busy recording—[breaks off, laughing] playing audio back.
carrie
									
[Chuckling] On this app.
ross
									
On this app. You know what, it’s actually pretty fine. I highly recommend this app. Five stars.
carie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
[Chuckling] So—
carrie
									
Is this David’s app?
ross
									
Yes.
carrie
									
Oh, good for him.
ross
									
Yeah. So, uh, all those in-app purchases go to him.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
So he played a few more Trump clips. Uh, Trump was talking about Obama. The reverse speech said [in a lower voice], “And he’s a fucking asshole.”
carrie
									
Whoa. Rude.
ross
									
Yeah. And then Trump was talking about the wall. And, uh, then, backwards, it said, “Will not deal with us.” So, there you go.
carrie
									
Mm. Okay.
ross
									
Yeah.
carrie
									
So he knew ahead of time that his little, “Mexico will pay for this” ruse was a ruse?
ross
									
They won’t deal with us. Exactly, yeah.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
So, someone asked for him to clarify, “Are you aware of this, as you’re forming these sentences?” David said, “Nope. It’s subconscious. Uh, though, you’re aware of the sentiment, if you’re tuned into your own emotions.”
carrie
									
Sure. Okay.
ross
									
I asked if there’s any difference in analyzing audio from hypnosis— [Carrie makes an interested sound.] --because presumably, you're already speaking from the subconscious then.
carrie
									
Right.
ross
									
And, ooh, he lit up. “Oh, that’s such a great question. Yes. So, uh, it’s very clear in hypnosis, because it’s coming from the right brain.” [Carrie makes a drawn out understanding sound.] Um, so, yeah. So, he says the hit rate will be a little higher, and usually it’s, like, higher quality matches, essentially.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
He said also in casual conversation. People who know each other well; it’s more frequent there also. This was kind of fun. He played a TV evangelist—he didn’t have the name of the evangelist. Would have like to have known that.
clip
									
[Reversed audio recording of unidentified TV evangelist speaking, from David John Oates’s talk. Phrase is unintelligible. The recording is repeated once, slowed down so pitch is lowered.]
ross
									
“My advice is rancid.”
carrie
									
[Laughs loudly] That’s pretty good.
ross
									
Yeah, the audience like that one, too. And then I asked him if he’d ever listened to any great spiritual leaders, like Martin Luther King, Jr. or Ghandi.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah.
ross
									
Uh, ‘cause I thought, “Well, that would be interesting. Do they say things that are—re—revealing some deep, seedy thing?” Uh, he was able to pull up one of MLK pretty quickly where, uh, he was saying, “When all of God’s children—“ and then he reversed that and it said, “The Lord, he does believe.” And David took that to mean that Martin Luther King, Jr. was thinking that God believes in all of us. So it was a very nice, positive message.
carrie
									
Mkay. Sure.
ross
									
Again, we have yet another layer of subjectivity. Taking those words that he hears—
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
—and then interpreting what they were actually meaning from MLK’s subconscious.
carrie
									
Right, right. I think MLK—I mean, he was a wonderful writer, so I assume he wrote his own speeches—
ross
									
Mm-hmm.
carrie
									
—but again, he was a person surrounded by a movement, and could have very well written this in advance and—
ross
									
Yeah.
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
Yeah. Exact—but I guess the message there is, even if you’re reading a phone book—
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
—somehow your subconscious is gonna come across.
carrie
									
Right. I doubt that.
ross
									
Me, too. Uh, but, yeah. He said, “Oh, yeah. Martin Luther King, Jr., uh, has some really beautiful reversals.” So he said, uh, that he uses this in his own personal therapy that he does with people—
carrie
									
[Dryly] Cool.
ross
									
Um, but—but also with law enforcement.
carrie
									
Oh, boy.
ross
									
Here we go again!
carrie
									
Okay. This is one of our favourite things.
ross
									
[Chuckling] Uh-huh.
carrie
									
[Ross makes a few affirming sounds as Carrie speaks.] So, here’s what done happens, you guys. Someone who has a paranormal claim—like psychic powers, for example—will say, “I work with law enforcement all the time. I help them on missing children cases. I help them solve crimes.” And it turns out you call in your little…hunches into the police station, and the person on the other end of the line says to themselves, “Well, I’m supposed to write down every single thing that comes in—“ [Ross chuckles.] “—Alright.” And they write it down, and they go, “Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Thank you so much.” And then, uh, person A regards that as having been deeply involved in said investigation. That seems to be the story, usually.
ross
									
And not only is that the usual story, that is exactly the narrative that David John Oates has played into.
carrie
									
[Mock happy] Oh, good!
ross
									
[Matching Carrie’s tone] Yeah, so—
carrie
									
Let's hear about it.
ross
									
So he tells us that he—
carrie
									
But backwards [chuckles]. [Ross imitates backwards speech.] Whoa, really?
ross
									
Yeah [chuckles]. That would be fun, to kind of memorize certain phrases in reverse
carrie
									
Totally. I've been thinking about that.
ross
									
Yeah, we should do that just so we can create—
carrie
									
That quote’s not from Barack Obama. That quote’s from [attempt to pronounce Barack Obama’s name backwards.] [Ross chuckles.] I’m not good at this, apparently. Kcarab.
ross
									
Alright, let’s try this.
carrie
									
Amabo ckarab.
ross
									
[Distinctly] It’s nice to meet you.
clip
									
Ross (Reversed recording from the iReverseSpeech app on Ross’s phone): It’s nice to meet you.
ross
									
Aw, that’s hard to say. [Makes a soft, disgruntled sound.]
carrie
									
Yeah. You gotta pick something shorter.
ross
									
And you have to get possessed by a devil.
carrie
									
Uh…[chuckles briefly]. Okay. How about—
ross
									
Hello.
carrie
									
[Enunciating carefully] Hello. [Regular tone and diction.] I don’t know why I sounded that much like a robot in that.
ross
									
[Laughing] You totalyl did.
carrie
									
[Laughs] I should be one of those, like, driving directions people. Okay.
clip
									
Carrie (Reversed recording from the iReverseSpeech app on Ross’s phone):: Hello.
carrie
									
[Imitates her reversed speech from the clip.] “Well-ah.”
ross
									
[Imitates Carrie’s reversed speech from the clip.] “Well-ah.”
carrie
									
[Imitates her reversed speech from the clip.] “Well-ah.”
ross
									
Okay, so let's try this now, where I record that—me saying—
carrie
									
“Well-ah?”
ross
									
Your—your—yeah, “Well-ah.”
carrie
									
I like it.
ross
									
[Loudly, clearly, in a focused monotone] Well-ah.
clip
									
Ross (Reversed recording from the iReverseSpeech app on Ross’s phone): Well-ah.
ross
									
Hey [chuckles]! Alright!
carrie
									
Okay! Okay, but I was a little different. So, I’m going to now say what you said. So, s—do it again?
clip
									
Ross (Reversed recording from the iReverseSpeech app on Ross’s phone): Well-ah.
ross
									
Should I play the forward version?
carrie
									
No, I think I should keep trying t—
ross
									
You—you're gonna play the reverse version?
carrie
									
Yeah, I'm trying to—
clip
									
Ross (Reversed recording from the iReverseSpeech app on Ross’s phone): Well-ah.
carrie
									
—build levels of nonsense here.
ross
									
This is like getting a translation off of Google translate and then feeding back into Google translate.
carrie
									
Exactly. That's exactly what I’m trying to do.
ross
									
Okay.
carrie
									
Okay, wait. How do I—how do you clear it?
ross
									
Oh, just say “record new.” And then it will have you discard.
carrie
									
Got it.
ross
									
Or it’ll try to upsell you if you save—
carrie
									
Got it. [In a sharp, nasal imitation of the most recent reversed recording from Ross.]
clip
									
[Reversed recording of Carrie speaking from the iReverseSpeech app on Ross’s phone. The phrase is unintelligible.]
carrie
									
Kay. Now you do that.
ross
									
[Ross imitates the reversed recording Carrie has just played.]
clip
									
[Reversed recording of what Ross has just said from the iReverseSpeech app on Ross’s phone. The phrase is unintelligible.]
ross
									
[Laughing] That was pretty—
carrie
									
[Laughing] That was just a great game.
ross
									
—That was pretty good.
carrie
									
[Exaggerated, mimicking the last recording played] Hello.
clip
									
[Reversed recording of Ross speaking from the iReverseSpeech app on Ross’s phone. The phrase is unintelligible.]
carrie
									
[As Ross laughs] Okay, so now you do this one.
ross
									
I like this one.
clip
									
[Reversed recording of Ross speaking from the iReverseSpeech app on Ross’s phone. The phrase is unintelligible.] [Ross and Carrie laugh.]
carrie
									
Okay, I'm going to do it again, alright?
ross
									
Alright.
carrie
									
[In a very exaggeratedly distorted, nasally voice, mimicking the last recording played] Hello. [Ross guffaws, leaning away from the mic. Carrie laughs.] Okay, and then you do this.
clip
									
Carrie (Reversed recording from the iReverseSpeech app on Ross’s phone): Hello.
ross
									
[Imitates the reversed recording, laughing heartily.]
clip
									
[Reversed recording of what Ross has just said from the iReverseSpeech app on Ross’s phone. The phrase is unintelligible.]
carrie
									
[Laughing heavily, inaudible phrase] Okay.
ross
									
[Laughing heartily] Wait, what just happened? Wait, that sounded like you!
clip
									
[Reversed recording of Ross speaking from the iReverseSpeech app on Ross’s phone. The phrase is unintelligible.]
carrie
									
[Catching her breath] Yeah, a little bit.
ross
									
[Crying from laughter, catching his breath] What?!
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
This is so weird!
carrie
									
Okay. Can I hear it one more time?
ross
									
Okay.
clip
									
[Reversed recording of Ross speaking from the iReverseSpeech app on Ross’s phone. The phrase is unintelligible.]
carrie
									
[Imitating the clip that just played, high-pitched, pinched sound, vowels holding an “r” sound] Hello. [Ross and Carrie are laughing heavily, both speaking when they can catch their breath.] Okay.
ross
									
This is so dumb.
carrie
									
Okay.
clip
									
[Reversed recording of Carrie speaking from the iReverseSpeech app on Ross’s phone. The phrase is unintelligible.]
ross
									
[Catching his breath, he imitates the recording of Carrie that just played.]
clip
									
[Reversed recording of Ross speaking from the iReverseSpeech app on Ross’s phone. The phrase is unintelligible.]
carrie
									
[Still laughing] Okay, see, now we’ve lost it.
ross
									
Alright, there we—
carrie
									
We’ve lost the, “hello.”
ross
									
There we go. Phew. Phew [laughs]!
carrie
									
Oh, man. What a good game. You’re all in quarantine. This is what you can do in your homes. [Both burst into guffaws.]
ross
									
Neighbors are like, “Oh, no. They’ve finally cracked up.
carrie
									
[Laughing, then catching her breath.] Oh, God. Alright.
ross
									
Yeah, so. Law enforcement.
carrie
									
Oh, yeah [laughs]. Law enforcement, yeah.
ross
									
He says he worked with the police department in Dallas for several months—
carrie
									
Oh, gosh.
ross
									
—un—until he says he—he recorded an officer and played back  their audio and found them saying, “Last week I bought snow.”
carrie
									
[Laughing] Oh!
ross
									
Or, as we know, “[in a pinched, distorted voice, imitating a reversed recording] Last week I bought snow.”
carrie
									
Uh, “Last week I bought snow?”
ross
									
Meaning, ah, cocaine, I’m guessing.
carrie
									
Oh! I—I—I’m so wholesome. [Ross laughs loudly.] I just pictured this person buying actual snow and bringing it to Texas—
ross
									
Texas—people in Texas shouldn’t be buying snow!
carrie
									
Yeah--it's jut gonna melt, you guys.
ross
									
It's upsetting the natural—
carrie
									
[Singing, belts] In summer!
ross
									
It’s upsetting the natural order. [Ross sighs with laugher.]
carrie
									
It's a bad idea! Oh, man.
ross
									
Then he said that he contributed to the JonBenét Ramsey case.
carrie
									
Oh, no.
ross
									
Yeah, so we remember this from when we were young. There was a young beauty pageant winner—
carrie
									
Yeah. Very young. Like, under 10.
ross
									
Yeah. And—super sad case. And—
carrie
									
But she was—she was murdered. Her parents were suspected. I think it’s not still totally known.
ross
									
Right. So David has figured out that it was the mother, because—
carrie
									
Okay. Great.
ross
									
—uh, he had audio of the mother saying, “Only two people know who killed her. The killer and someone they confided in.” But in reverse speech, she said, “I am that person.”
carrie
									
God. This is so damaging.
ross
									
And, uh, there was another quote of hers saying, like, “Oh, I can’t believe we know anyone who would be that vicious.” And then in reverse, she says, “I’m the only one.”
carrie
									
[Sighs in disgust] God. What kind of evidence is that?
ross
									
Which is also what Tigger says all the time [laughs].
carrie
									
[Chuckles] Yes. Or, um, Highlander. Um— [Both laugh heartily.]
ross
									
[Through his laughter] There can only be one. That’s clev—very good.
carrie
									
That there can be only one.
ross
									
Very good, Carrie.
carrie
									
Thank you. Thank you. My terrible ex-boyfriend was very into Highlander.
ross
									
Oh, nice.  Okay.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I don’t know.
ross
									
Um, that's funny. My current wife is, uh, very into Highlander.
carrie
									
[Snorts with laughter] Your current wife.
ross
									
Yeah. My first wife.
carrie
									
Right. The wife who might die this year?
ross
									
Yeah. If our gentleman psychic—
carrie
									
Is—
ross
									
--had anything to say about it.
carrie
									
Right, right. Fingers crossed. That she doesn’t.
ross
									
Elsewhere, JonBenét Ramsey’s mother in reverse speech, said, “I struck her head.” You know, so he’d—
carrie
									
God.
ross
									
[Carrie makes a couple of affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] —amassed all of this, uh, quote-unquote “evidence.” But, yeah, law enforcement great application. We looked into one of his other claims. Uh, uh, Carrie found a great news article. Because he says that he assisted in the Waco standoff. So, uh, when David Koresh was the—the leader of the Branch Davidians, there was this huge, uh, standoff between that cult and the government, uh, in the nineties. And, uh, yeah. Terrible situation. They had stockpiled weapons. And so he says that he had gone in and he had found all of this interesting information that was used by the FBI—“
carrie
									
When you say, “gone in,” you don’t mean to the compound?
ross
									
No, but just gone in as a—as a consultant.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
Uh, this from a 1993, in The Philadelphia Inquirer—ooh, it was on Pi Day, March 14th.
carrie
									
Nice.
ross
									
This is so great. Robin Clark, the, uh, the writer of this article, says, “Anyone thinking of hopping down here to lend a hand in negotiations with David Koresh, the FBI has a message for you. Stay home.” Quote—
carrie
									
[Laughs] Safer at home.
ross
									
“‘[Chuckling] We—we’ve had probably hundreds of requests to help resolve the 15-day-old standoff. Some claiming direct access to God, others looking for a ticket to stardom,’ FBI spokesman said last week. One caller enquired about Koresh’s birthday, August 17th, 1959, saying she wanted to work out the cult leader’s astrological chart. Another offer came from David Oates, the founder of Reverse Speech International in Wylie, Texas. Oates told The Dallas Morning News that he had recorded Koresh’s 58-minute religious message broadcast March 2nd, and listened to it backward for subconscious clues to the cult leader’s state of mind. In one instance—“
carrie
									
[Quietly] Thank goodness.
ross
									
“—when Koresh said, ‘We know he gave counsel to the seven churches of Asia,’ Oates said he uncovered this reverse speech message: ‘Let me warn you.’”
carrie
									
[Stuttering] Dot dot dot?
ross
									
[Chuckles] Yep, that's it.
carrie
									
That's it [stutters]?
ross
									
Ok—but—“At another point in the rambling sermon, Oates said Koresh subconsciously showed his vulnerability, saying in reverse speech, ‘[lightly mimicking distorted tone of reversed clips] I fought no one. Don't want to kill. I feel afraid.’” I feel okay saying it in that cadence, ‘cause that’s usually what the reverse audio sounds like.
carrie
									
Sure. Well, how—how—how—I—why would that even be useful even if those things were accurate? That tells you nothing.
ross
									
Correct. And listen for this—
carrie
									
Kor-eshed.
ross
									
[Chuckles] Oooh. Listen for this beautiful, beautiful brush-off. “Oates said he offered to share his backtalk analysis with federal negotiators. They haven't gotten back to him yet.” [Both chuckle.] And that was it! That was his involvement—
carrie
									
Oh, man.
ross
									
—in the Waco standoff.
carrie
									
Man.
ross
									
Unsolicited advice.
carrie
									
You know what’s interesting, though? My FOIA-loving brain is getting going here. Since it was the FBI that was engaging with Waco—
ross
									
Mm-hmm.
carrie
									
—they would have been the ones to collect anything that he sent to them, which means it would be accessible via a FOIA request, which I will now put in.
ross
									
Good. Okay.
carrie
									
Cause I want to see if, uh—I want to see if they actually collect it and kept it. I’m writing a note for myself.
ross
									
I think it should be called, “the FOIAFC,” for “Freedom of Information Act for Carrie.” [Carrie laughs briefly.] ‘Cause I think you probably are one of the most frequent requesters.
carrie
									
[In satisfaction] Ugh. I love a FOIA. [Ross chuckles.] I just love it.
ross
									
This actually will come up a little later. Uh, some information that came from a FOIA about, uh, David Oates’s claims.
carrie
									
Oh, right. Okay.
ross
									
Yeah.
carrie
									
Got it. It’s in my notes. It’s happening, people.
ross
									
So, he referenced other times that he’s helped law enforcement. He said that he once identified a murder weapon.
carrie
									
[Chuckles briefly] “There it is.”
ross
									
[Chuckling] Yeah—or, he—
carrie
									
“That’s a gun.”
ross
									
He listened to—I guess they were, uh, talking to a suspect, and when he played it backwards, uh, he got something about it being in the cellar. And he said, “Yeah, they got a warrant and they went and they found it in the cellar.”
carrie
									
Ah.
ross
									
I’m sure that’s exactly how that went down.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
There was, uh, an interview with a man denying that he killed the woman, but in reverse, the man said, “Yes, I hit hard.” [Carrie chuckles.] “[Imitating the distortion of a reversed audio clip] Yes, I hit hard.”
carrie
									
God. This is devastating for those people, though. Like—
ross
									
I know!
carrie
									
Ugh.
ross
									
The—this is the problem with, like, the psychics who swarm in after something horrible happens, because ostensibly, on the surface, they’re there to help. They’re there to comfort.
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
They’re there to give restitution and resolution. But if it’s not real, you’re just wasting their time and messing with their memories.
carrie
									
Yeah. Uh-huh. And—
ross
									
And that’s malicious and gross.
carrie
									
And accusing someone of a crime they may not have committed.
ross
									
Yeah, right!
carrie
									
About—of—of their loved one!
ross
									
[Carrie makes a few affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] And inputting this innuendo that is completely useless, but we as humans, we can’t just treat that neutrally. When someone tells us, like, “Oh, he said, ‘I hit hard,’” that’s now in our heads. Even if he’s completely innocent, now when we see him, that's in our heads. Thanks, David Oates!
carrie
									
That forms a little pathway. Yeah.
ross
									
Yeah! Right, exactly. A few neutrons just got connected, and they won’t get unconnected. Good job.
carrie
									
Right. It’s like—it’s like if you pull out a picture of a vast landscape, and I say, “Look at all the pink things—“ even if before you didn't notice there was much pink in it—
ross
									
[Chuckling] Yeah.
carrie
									
—every time you look at that now, you're going to be like, “Oh, yeah. Oh, look at that. Oh, yeah. All the pink things.”
ross
									
Yeah. Yeah. These things get tainted. And that’s why negative associations with words catch on and ruin those words.
carrie
									
Uh-huh. Yeah.
ross
									
[Carrie makes several affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] So—like, a word can mean a positive thing and a negative thing. Or a symbol [chuckles]. You know. And as soon as we have that negative association, well, now it’s just tainted. You got to move on and pick a different word or phrase or symbol or something. And that’s why I think this kind of advice can be less than neutral. It can actually be unhelpful. ‘Cause it just kind of slightly rewires everyone’s brain in the wrong direction. Or maybe the right direction. But, if so, it’s just by chance. That’s no good. Getting off of my soap box.
carrie
									
[Chuckles] Well, this talk sounds delightful, but a little exhausting.
ross
									
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
carrie
									
Do you have anything for me that’s delightful and restorative?
ross
									
You know what? I’ve got just the thing for you. It’s a game called, “Best Fiends.”
carrie
									
Oh, Best Fiends, you say?
ross
									
Yeah! It’s a free download on the Google Play store.
carrie
									
A download, like from aliens?
ross
									
A lot like that, but—
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
—on your phone.
carrie
									
[Disappointed] Oh.
ross
									
No, no, no. This is better—
carrie
									
[Makes some indistinguishable high-pitched sounds] Okay, I’m listening.
ross
									
This is better than an alien delivering—look at that, I just got my 12-day completion in my series. Every day, I log in, get my gifts.
carrie
									
Oh, wow.
ross
									
Oh! Cindy B. sent me a surprise gift. Okay. I’m sending one back to her.
carrie
									
Is Cindy B. someone you know in real life?
ross
									
Yes.
carrie
									
Ah! Hi, Cindy.
ross
									
It’s somebody—well, a Facebook connection.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
So, uh, you know, ever now and then, Carrie—
carrie
									
Ooh, it’s so pretty.
ross
									
Carrie checks in on my progress to see how I’ve been advancing through the world of, uh, Best Fiends. I’m in the Willow Woods right now, around level 848. The important thing is that I passed up Becca. [Carrie makes a couple of knowing, affirming sounds.] She is back at level 844. I am sorry, Becca. Good luck catching me. Uh, but yeah. Best fiends is a lot of fun. Uh, so you—you travel through this world. There’s multiple levels. And each level has a puzzle to it.
carrie
									
Hey!
ross
									
Uh, so, like, if I jump into level 848, now—
carrie
									
Look at those little friends.
ross
									
Yeah! These are my friends. So, I’ve got, uh, a great crew here. I’ve got Roo, I’ve got Bam, I’ve got Gene, Terry, and Woody. They’re all pretty—[knowing, proud voice] uh, you know, pretty advanced.
carrie
									
Okay!
ross
									
I do like to say so myself. Uh, but I’ve got others as well, for each color category. Anyways, in this one I’ve got to clear 90 of the green leaves. And 90 of the yellow flowers, but also help 6 of these chicks hatch. Do you see these eggs up here? [Carrie makes an interested, affirming sound.] I’ve got to make sure they get safely to the bottom, and successfully hatch, so—
carrie
									
[Thoughtfully] Okay. Pretty fun.
ross
									
A lot of good fun. And it changes with every level—it usually takes me a couple times. ‘Cause they’re tricky.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
They—they take some thinking. There’s an element of randomness. You don’t know what you’re gonna get each level.
carrie
									
A good tricky.
ross
									
Good tricky. That’s right. So, it keeps my brain active. And, uh, you know, I can play it while, uh, watching my son watch Titanic for the first time.
carrie
									
Or while going to the Conscious Life Expo? Did you do this in between talks?
ross
									
You know what? Probably during that laser talk I haven’t mentioned.
carrie
									
Oh, okay. Interesting. Well, Best Fiends is a unique and exciting puzzle experience that updates monthly with new levels and events so it never gets old. Best Fiends has thousands of levels already, with new levels, events, and characters added every month. It’s hours of fun right at your fingertips, and you can even play offline.
ross
									
Which is really cool. And there’s over a hundred million downloads and tons of five-star reviews, so don’t take it just from me. Take it from them. Best Fiends is a must-play.
carrie
									
Download Best Fiends free on the Apple App Store or Google Play.
ross
									
That’s “friends” without the R. Best Fiends!
carrie
									
That would make you, “Oss.” And me “Caiee”
ross
									
Best Caie [snorts with laughter]!
carrie
									
Sounds like a fun ritual. One of my rituals, of course, is caring for my teeth.
ross
									
Aw, that’s a great ritual. How do you do that Carrie? Give me a pro tip on—
carrie
									
Mm.
ross
									
—taking care of your teeth.
carrie
									
Uh, thank you for asking. One of my pro tips is to use a very good tool. Something that will be sleek, slim, fit in a bag so I’ll be able to carry it everywhere. ‘Cause when you think about it, the most important thing about your dental hygiene—
ross
									
Mm-hmm.
carrie
									
—is the accessibility of the tools.
ross
									
Well, I hope—at least, from your description—I hope you’ve heard of Quip.
carrie
									
I have. I actually have.
ross
									
Is that what you were leading up to?
carrie
									
Yes. Yes!
ross
									
Oh, my goodn—well, we are so on the same wavelength, here.
carrie
									
I know. It’s like one mind. Quip, the makers of the Quip electric toothbrush, want you to know that no matter what brand you use, if you have good habits, you’re good!
ross
									
That means brushing for two minutes twice a day. Flossing regularly
carrie
									
Mm-hmm. And Quip makes it simple. Their electric toothbrush has sensitive sonic vibrations with a built-in timer. And they have these 30-second pulses that guide a full, even clean.
ross
									
Plus, Quip delivers fresh brush heads, floss, and toothpastes refills every three months with free shipping.
carrie
									
So go to getquip.com/ohno right now for your first refill free.
ross
									
Spelled, “Get Q-U-I-P.com/ohno"
carrie
									
Quip! The good habits company.
ross
									
So, next he moves on to therapy.
carrie
									
Oh, good.
ross
									
[With put-on joviality] This is his main source of income!
carrie
									
O-kay.
ross
									
He works over the phone. And we’ve already said we’re looking at 2,000 bucks for—
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
—an eight-part session.
carrie
									
God.
ross
									
And he says most of his clients are in the States. So, he’s still—
carrie
									
Oh, intersting!
ross
									
—living in Australia, but he’s, like, still fairly popular in the US.
carrie
									
Intersting. So—
ross
									
Still—
carrie
									
—he couldn’t be offering licensed therapy here, then?
ross
									
I bet not.
carrie
									
Yeah, interesting.
ross
									
That’s a very good point.
carrie
									
Maybe he’s not claiming to be that sort of therapist, though.
ross
									
Oh, maybe. Yeah. Maybe, if it’s fully under the guise of reverse speech.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm. If it’s like, “I’m credentialed by my own agency I founded.”
ross
									
[Chuckles] Right.
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
Like in the Simpsons episode about the monkey trial in Springfield—
carrie
									
Mm.
ross
									
—you get the—the guy who comes up on the stand, and he says, “[imitates a Simpsons character voice] I have a degree in truthology from Christian Tech [giggles].”
carrie
									
Aw. Adorable.
ross
									
Okay, so here we go. Little bit of insight into David John Oates.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
Here’s how our problems work. [Carrie chuckles.] So, we all create our own problems. We create our own reality.
carrie
									
Uh-oh.
ross
									
So the more you don’t take responsibility, the more problems you have.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
Alright?
carrie
									
Uh, that’s—okay. I mean, that can be partly true. Is largely untrue.
ross
									
He’ll unpack this a little more.
carrie
									
Okay,
ross
									
But we’re getting a certain vibe from, uh—
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
--from this guy.
carrie
									
We’re getting a Tony Robbins thing going on.
ross
									
So, uh, he plays a clip of a man talking about his relationship. And, you know, it all sounds positive. But then when you play it backwards, the guy says, “I must muck it.”
carrie
									
I thought “relationship” always said a particular thing backwards, and it was, like, “unstable” or something.
ross
									
Oh, but the—the man’s just saying general things about his relationship.
carrie
									
Oh, okay. Okay.
ross
									
And—so, playing it back somewhere in the midst of all of the soup of words, he found the phrase, “I must muck it.”
carrie
									
[Sarcastically] Okay. Wow.
ross
									
Yeah. Which I like because David John Oates does not shy from pulling in little Australian turns of phrase.
carrie
									
I was just thinking that. Like, I mean, I know what that means, but it sounds, uh, just slightly uncanny—
ross
									
Right.
carrie
									
—to American ears.
ross
									
Yeah.  Would this guy say—in his conscious brain and speech—“Oh, I’m going to muck this up.”
carrie
									
Right.
ross
									
And, “I’m gonna muck it.” It—
carrie
									
Yeah, you might, but you’d be like, “Oh, Tony always says that,” you know?
ross
									
Ri—exactly, yeah.
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
It almost sounds like an LHR-ism. Like something that’s—
carrie
									
Uh-huh.
ross
									
—clearly either out of date or just from a different, uh, vocabulary, you know
carrie
									
Totally.
ross
									
[In a deeper, pinched voice] “You’re gonna muck up these three states if you don’t get your 70% retrieval.”
carrie
									
Right.
ross
									
[Carrie makes a few understanding, affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] Uh, so I threw in a question at this point. I asked about the quality of the recording itself and what kind of software he uses to manipulate it. So, as soon as I mentioned the quality of the recording, he said, “Oh, very important. Yeah, yeah. We want to make sure we get the best quality audio possible.” Alright. Uh, but he didn’t really directly address the software question. ‘Cause I wanted to know, you know—obviously every time he’s playing these, he’s slowing them down. Naturally, a pitch shift is happening. He’s not correcting for it. And so he didn’t go into that other than to give a quick little plug for his iReverseSpeech app.
carrie
									
A very good app, I must say.
ross
									
Yep, get that. Yeah. Though I’m sure he’s using, you know, some sort of audio editing software—
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
—and I’m sure he has got his own little methods, but he didn’t, uh, want to elaborate on that. Oh, okay, here we go.
carrie
									
Oh, no [chuckles nervously].
ross
									
So, he plays an interview of a woman in an abusive relationship.
carrie
									
Okay, this is going to be good, and he’s gonna say a nice thing that makes us all feel good. I can’t wait.
ross
									
So he finds hidden in her speech—
carrie
									
Uh-huh.
ross
									
—she says, “Make him abuse me.”
carrie
									
Oh, God!
ross
									
[Carrie makes a couple of distressed affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] “She obviously denied, after I told her this, that she wanted him, or was trying to make him abuse her. But at some level, we create our own reality, and we want it to happen.”
carrie
									
Huh! So. We know about something pretty bad that happened in David John Oates’s life.
ross
									
Mm-hmm.
carrie
									
And I wonder if wanted to make it happen.
ross
									
[Chuckles] He must have. He creates his own reality.
carrie
									
I guess so. We’ll talk about that in a bit.
ross
									
Yyeeeep. Another woman said that she wanted grief.
carrie
									
[Snorts with derisive laughter] Okay.
ross
									
And that’s why she was having all these relationship problems. So here we go. Direct quote from David Oates, “[In a mock jovial tone] If you're in poverty, it's because at some level, you’ve created it!”
carrie
									
Oh, cool, cool, cool. This is like law of attraction shit.
ross
									
Mm-hmm. Same if you’ve had a series of bad relationships. “I helped my clients discover these hidden thoughts. I love working with clients and helping them find these things and change them.”
carrie
									
Oh, I’m sure they love working with you, David. Yeah, ugh. Oh, God. I always hate this thing. It comes up so often, especially in self-help stuff.
ross
									
Yeah.
carrie
									
Because it’s obviously gonna speak to some people. It’s obviously true that your brain can get in the way. It can.
ross
									
Mm-hmm.
carrie
									
That doesn’t mean that that is the solution to every problem you've got.
ross
									
And sometimes you know the right thing to do, and you’re just working at cross-purposes with yourself.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
Sure, that’s part of being human.
carrie
									
And—and sometimes people manipulate people and you get the shitty end of the stick, or you were born in a less privileged position and that affects you your whole life.
ross
									
Yeah. That’s the broader context.
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
I—I think with this little, simple philosophy, he’s ignoring that, yeah, there’s these external factors that you don’t have control over.
carrie
									
Right.
ross
									
And it's really shitty to tell someone who’s struggling with that and doesn’t have control of the situation, “Oh, yeah, you’re just making this for yourself.”
carrie
									
Right. Yeah, it seems like there’s that, you know—what do they call that? Prayer?
ross
									
Oh, right. Uh, I like that one.
carrie
									
The, uh, serenity prayer.
ross
									
Yeah, it—
carre
									
“Teach me to change the things I can and, uh—“
ross
									
Reinhold Niebuhr.
carrie
									
I’m gonna not say it right.
ross
									
“Give me the grace to accept the things—“
carrie
									
“I cannot change—“
ross
									
Right.
carrie
									
“—courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” I think that’s really lovely, because that’s—
ross
									
Yeah!
carrie
									
—it also cushions you from other people’s impressions of which things you need to change. Like, everyone’s ratio’s gonna be different.  Yeah.
ross
									
I actually think that’s really powerful wisdom.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
Like, that’s a prayer I can give full thumbs-up to. I—
carrie
									
Yeeaah. Good prayer.
ross
									
[Carrie makes a couple of affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] Um, but, what is not nice is to come from the other end and say, “Hey, I’ve got this tapped-in knowledge of the subconscious of these—these truths and they’re telling me that you’re actually the cause of this, so you can control it, uh, all of it. And you’re not.”
carrie
									
Yeah. Makes me want to record him and play it backwards and be like, “Well, actually, during our session, I heard you say this.”
ross
									
[With attitude] Mm-hmm.
carrie
									
[Imitating Ross’s tone] Mm-hmm.
ross
									
So, he played back another woman who’s talking about how her business is really going to catapult, buuut when played backwards, she said, “I go with slum.”
carrie
									
What. No one even talks like that.
ross
									
[Laughs] Exactly. That’s not a—
carrie
									
Ugh. What does that mean. That doesn’t mean anything.
ross
									
That’s not a thing.
carrie
									
“I go with with slum?”
ross
									
“I go with slum.”
carrie
									
Ooohh, God.
ross
									
Somebody in the audience was saying, “Wait, what? What was that?” [Chuckles] He played it again. Like, “Wait, what is she saying?” [Ross and Carrie chuckle.] So, C-plus at best.
carrie
									
Yeah. I may give that a minus.
ross
									
There was a  woman next to me the whole time, and as we were hearing him play these things and ask him questions, you know, I would do that thing where I look over like, “You hearing what I’m hearing?”
carrie
									
Uh-huh.
ross
									
And she would look over at me like, “This is amazing, right?” [Carrie laughs.] So we—we had kind of a disconnect going. But, uh, at one point she asked whether this can be used for someone’s spiritual journey. And he said—
carrie
									
Ah. I’m gonna guess, “Yes.”
ross
									
[Chuckles] Yeah—[mock surprise] how did you know?
carrie
									
[Sarcastically] Ooh, okay.
ross
									
Amazing.
carrie
									
That would be great, though, if he was like, “Not really.”
ross
									
[Giggles] He said, “Yeah. With 30% of my clients, we do look at the spiritual. And, uh, this method is really good for identifying emotions, like grief and jealousy. And you can even use reverse speech to pinpoint the moment, or series of moments in your life that affected you.” Uh, which remind—
carrie
									
Like the time track?
ross
									
Exactly!
carrie
									
Oh, my God.
ross
									
Reminded me of Scientology. This ties into so many things!
carrie
									
Scientology really did a number on everybody.
ross
									
I’m glad L. Ron Hubbard hadn’t heard of this, or this is what they’d be doing in auditing.
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
Boy, talk about keeping Scientologists busy. You could have them just listen to these—
carrie
									
Oh, definitely.
ross
									
—things in reverse for hours.
carrie
									
But, because LRH wasn’t the one to come up with it, they never will.
ross
									
It took somebody like, hm, John Oates. [Carrie chuckles.] So, uh, he played one woman backwards, She had been confiding with him about other things, but he heard her say, “I’ve been molested.”
carrie
									
Okay. And did she confirm that that was true?
ross
									
Yeah. So, he said that when she told her this, she broke down in tears and said— [Carrie makes a sympathetic sound.] —“I haven’t told anybody this. I wasn’t going to tell you. Uh, yeah, it was my brother.” And, uh, and so there we go. He had made a breakthrough and he had identified what was causing all of these other things for her.
carrie
									
Okay. So, two things could have happened there. One is that he made a lucky guess, and it’s an unfortunately common crime.
ross
									
Mm-hmm.
carrie
									
Uh, the other is that he has completely forgotten the order of operations, as people often do, and is remembering this now, as—
ross
									
Oh!
carrie
									
—“I came up with this independently, and she verified it later,” instead of, “She said something about it earlier. I kinda forgot. I couldn’t really remember the details. Then I heard it in the thing. They she reminded me that yes, she had told me about this before.” Which is usually how these things end up.
ross
									
That’s a good point. Either one is shitty.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm. [Chuckles briefly] That’s right.
ross
									
Uh, and so he said it took him 20 years to develop. He records the clients for 30 minutes. I guess they have a conversation. He tries to lay out questions that he thinks will give him stuff to work with, essentially. So, he analyzes that. And then he calls the clients back, and—
carrie
									
Oh, so it’s double-blinded.
ross
									
I’d love to hear him define double-blind. Maybe he could. So then he calls them back and he reveals kind of what he found out. And sort of gets their reaction, what he thinks they might be able to do to fix it. And so then he can analyse that second conversation and see what came across.
carrie
									
Interesting.
ross
									
So their answers usually come in metaphor.
carrie
									
Oh! Okay.
ross
									
Here we have another big part of David John Oates’s—
carrie
									
Oh, interesting.
ross
									
—process. And that is the metaphor.
carrie
									
Okay, kind of a Jesus figure.
ross
									
For example, he was talking to this one man who had business problems. In the second session, the guy was talking about how, “You know what? Maybe I should make some new pamphlets. That’s something I could do for my business.” And in reverse, the man said, “[mimicking the vocal tone in reversed audio clips] See the whirlwind to shoot this devil out.”
carrie
									
[Chuckling, softly] What? No. What [laughs]?
ross
									
[Laughing] Normally, this is where you and I might say, “Well, alright, we heard something.”
carrie
									
Uh-huh.
ross
									
“We—we worked real hard and we heard, “[mimicking a distorted vocal tone] See the whirlwind and shoot this devil out.”
carrie
									
That—-yeah. I wouldn’t have even tried to make that something.
ross
									
But, it turns out—
carrie
									
It—it is very Nostradamus-y.
ross
									
You got it.
carrie
									
Oh, good!
ross
									
Yep, yep. We’re—
carrie
									
Okay.!
ross
									
We’re travelling straight into Nostradamus land [makes a bubbly, sci-fi effect sound].
carrie
									
[Amused] Oh, no.
ross
									
So, David has a dictionary of metaphors which you can find online.
carrie
									
Okayyy.
ross
									
With, like, 1,000 metaphors that he has discovered from all of these sessions.
carrie
									
Oh, he made the dictionary?
ross
									
Sure, yeah.
carrie
									
Oh, sure. Okay.
ross
									
[Laughing] Yeah. Yeah, where do you think he got it? Aleister Crowley? He might as well have.
carrie
									
I mean, there are those dream dictionaries. I thought maybe it was one of those.
ross
									
[Carrie makes a couple of affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, no. There’s this whole vocabulary of words and phrases that are these Jungian archetypes that everybody refers to. And many of them are religious. You know, like the Garden of Eden. Eve, Adam, those sorts of things will play in all the time.
carrie
									
Good hypothesis. Can’t wait for you to test it.
ross
									
[Carrie makes a couple of dubious, affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] So, “devil” is negative traumatic emotions that are holding you down. A whirlwind is our life force or aura. I tried playing the word, “whirlwind” a few times and reversing it. I think any time someone says “new” or “newer,”there’s a good chance you’re gonna get “whirl—
carrie
									
Ohhh, yeah. That makes sense.
ross
									
—[In distorted tone] “whirlwind.” Uh, “wolf” is a big one. “Wolf” shows up all the time.
carrie
									
I’m guessing that’s, like, “liar,” or something?
ross
									
That’s the part of our personality that is the hunter and protector of the psyche.
carrie
									
[Surprised] Oh! Okay, it’s a good thing. Okay.
ross
									
The prime motivator behind behavior.
carrie
									
[Quietly] Okay.
ross
									
So, yeah. So the wolf kind of plays multiple roles. But, yeah, that gets said all the time.
carrie
									
[Loudly, distinctly] Wolf.
ross
									
Yeah, anytime you say something like, “full.”
clip
									
Carrie (Reversed audio recording from iReverseSpeech app on Ross’s phone): Wolf.
ross
									
Yep.
carrie
									
Oh, yeah. Okay.
ross
									
Oh, yeah. “I was full of pizza last night.” “Oh, the wolf has gotten in!”
carrie
									
[Chuckling] “The wolf has protected thou!”
ross
									
[Laughs briefly] Uh, Lancelot is another one—
carrie
									
Lancelot?!
ross
									
Goddess.
carrie
									
I—okay, well—[stuttering]. [In a sing-song voice] Lancelot. [Resumes regular tone] Why do I sound like that?
ross
									
[Laughing] I don’t—yeah, you sound very Siri-like.
carrie
									
Lady on Google Voice.
clip
									
Carrie (Reversed audio recording from iReverseSpeech app on Ross’s phone): Lancelot.
carrie
									
[Imitates her reversed recording.]
ross
									
Yeah, if I had a dime for every time I said, “[imitates Carrie’s reversed recording],”…I’d have a dime. [Carrie laughs.] He said that 70%-80% of language that people use in reverse speech is in metaphor.
carrie
									
Oohhh. Wow.
ross
									
Yeaahh. So, once— [Carrie groans.] So, once you start understanding his language of metaphor, some of these posted reverse speech snippets that he’s finding make more sense.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
I looked through the metaphor dictionary, and it included, like, “grey” for the alien—
carrie
									
Oh, sure.
ross
									
—‘cause that does come up sometimes. But also Australian terms like [Australian accent] “bloke” and “sheila.”
carrie
									
Oh, sure.
ross
									
“Poppy” was in there!
carrie
									
Oh! What does that mean?
ross
									
It says, “See ‘flower,’ ‘opium,’ meaning ‘unknown, part of a new developing flower group of metaphors.’” Also opium is made from poppies.
carrie
									
True. [Ross laughs.] Okay. I’m done.
ross
									
Alright, that was it for “poppy.” “Owl—”
carrie
									
Oh! What’s an owl represent?
ross
									
—has an entry. “Owl is kn(owl)edge”
carrie
									
[Very drawn out, as Ross continues] Ohhhh.
ross
									
“—from conscious mind, whereas wisdom is from the unconscious mind.” [Carrie makes an affirming sound.] “Knowledge that one has reasoned with the intellect. Earthly wisdom. The part that intellectually reasons and understands.” That’s “owl.”
carrie
									
Mm. Okay.
ross
									
[Carrie makes a couple of affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] S—so, you know, “[Distorted tone] Owl throws wolf in lake,” you know, will have some very specific meaning about how, “[intense, kind of spaced-out tone] your worldly knowledge has thrown out your motivation to the metaphorical lake,” you know, there’s—so now you’ve just freed him to make his own metaphorical interpretation.
carrie
									
Right, right, right, Okay.
ross
									
You know, which he already pulled quite subjectively from your reversed speech. [Groans loudly] And he said, “Yeah, my dictionary has over 1,000 metaphors, and I’ll find lots more.” [Chuckles] He’s not done yet.
carrie
									
This guy could have been Jesus in another time.
ross
									
Yeah! Totally.
carrie
									
Jesus’s responses to questions are so wild. “Hey, should—should we go down this path?” “[Soft, slightly muffled voice] There once was a man. And the man…didn’t know what he should do for a living. And he went to the store and he bought six fish, and later one of those fish became a man.” What?!
ross
									
What?
carrie
									
Seems like that’s all of Jesus’s conversations.
ross
									
Yeah! And then what happens is 35 years later, somebody kind of remembers what you said, maybe?
carrie
									
[Chuckling, quietly] Yeah.
ross
									
And they finally decide to write it down. They get it a little wrong, but it’s still nice and vague.
carrie
									
Right.
ross
									
And then everybody attaches huge significance to it, and now you’ve got a religion.
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
Liar, lunatic, lord, lost in translation. [Carrie laughs pointedly.] So, he started going into this, and he talks about how one of his students had financial problems. But she had said, “Eve is damaged.” And so— [Carrie makes a realizing sound.] —Eve is the spiritually matured, emotional, stable, strong woman. We need to fix that. [Carrie makes an understanding sound.] That will take care of your financial problems. Oh, yeah. That was an actual example. “See the wolf fallen in the lake.” The wolf is his motivation, and it’s drowning in his emotions. We need to deal with that.
carrie
									
[Quietly] Okay. [Regular tone] How do we deal with that?
ross
									
Oh.
carrie
									
Does this actually have any instructive quality?
ross
									
Well, now he does another layer of, “Oh—“
carrie
									
Oh, you need more of him?
ross
									
Yeah [chuckles].
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
To talk about your emotions and how you deal with them.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
Well and he said, “What am I gonna do with this guy? Send him to Tony Robbins?”
carrie
									
Ah!
ross
									
“That won’t work. Because I’ve done Tony Robbins’s reversals.”
carrie
									
Oh-oo-hh!
ross
									
Yeah, so on that page `I sent you, there’s this amazing page that has—
carrie
									
Yes.
ross
									
—just tons of reversal examples.
carrie
									
Yes, they’re very good.
ross
									
And, you know what? I’ll give him credit. On these pages—where he does list out the audio—every time, he’ll play the clip—the broader clip—and then he’ll just play back the reversed snippet. And then he’ll do it at a slower speed and then an even slower speed. But, I’ll give him credit for this. At least on the text below, he’ll use brackets to show the part of the speech that he reversed.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
I appreciate that.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
That's a least a little nod to the fact that, “Yeah, I grabbed some weird, random part of this sentence—“
carrie
									
Yep.
ross
									
So we got…Tony Robbins saying, “liar.” “Satan, your horse? [Snorts with laughter.]
carrie
									
[Amused] ‘Kay.
ross
									
“Her bell. I break it.”
carrie
									
Oh, no.
ross
									
“I want our money. Buying it.”
carrie
									
It would be funny to hear him interpret, “Her bell. I break it,” ‘Cause I’m sure he’d go off on some long parable—
ross
									
Mm-hmm.
carrie
									
—and then you could be like, “Oh, no. He literally broke a bell I had. I had a bell on my living room table, and he broke it.
ross
									
[Laughs] Right. Oh, well, then, yes. Now it’s true, literally.
carrie
									
Then it—oh, okay. Then that’s—then that’s true.
ross
									
“I'm a terrible—“ and then F-word that is a slur.
carrie
									
Oh, F slur. Yeah, yeah. Okay.
ross
									
Okay? There’s aaa fair amount of that in the reversals. I’ve seen the N-word—
carrie
									
Wow.
ross
									
--in some of his reversals. Yeah. It’s like, “David how much do you want to reveal of what’s—“
carrie
									
Oh, wow.
ross
									
“—floating around in your head.”
carrie
									
Now—ooh, yeah, that’s rough. Okay, sorry. This is just settling in.
ross
									
Okay.
carrie
									
Okay, so the N-word ones, are they within the speech of a Black person?
ross
									
I don't believe so.
carrie
									
Okay, so—
ross
									
At least the—the one I remember seeing.
carrie
									
Okay, so he is implying then that that person is racist, rather then that—
ross
									
Yeah.
carrie
									
—someone is harboring, like a self-hatred.
ross
									
Yes.
carrie
									
But, of course, this just reveals that he has the N-word floating around in his head and it’s easily grabbable.
ross
									
Right.
carrie
									
I see. Okay, cool.
ross
									
Correct.
carrie
									
And then—so sorry, still catching up. With the F-slur…[chuckles uncomfortably] uh, I guess—so, Tony Robbins, as far as I know, has had all female partners, at least publicly.
ross
									
Mm-hmm.
carrie
									
Um, so the implication here would be that he’s closeted gay and hates himself?
ross
									
I guess so.
carrie
									
I guess? Okay.
ross
									
Yeah.
carrie
									
But again, David has the F-slur floating around in his head. It’s easily grabbable. Got it.
ross
									
Tony Robbins also said, “I rape on the Rome.”
carrie
									
Jesus.
ross
									
And here “Rome” is meaning Italy, meaning “great civilization level,” something like that [chuckles].
carrie
									
What?
ross
									
Yeah.
carrie
									
Ugh. You can't just drop these things like—they’re fucking bombs. He just, like, walks away.
ross
									
III know!
carrie
									
Yeah. [Makes a disgusted sound.]
ross
									
And some of these just don’t make sense. Like, these are the ones that you should just leave out ‘cause they’re no good. Like, “Fake getting Nixon.”
carrie
									
Okay, what?
ross
									
Yeah. “I’ll mess with Lucifer.” Okay [chuckles].
carrie
									
Okay. Who said that?
ross
									
Those are all Tony Robbins.
carrie
									
Oh, okay.
ross
									
So on this page, there's multiple—[breaks off, laughing, then inaudible short phrase]—of Tony Robbins.
carrie
									
Okay. Cool.
ross
									
Here's how it works in the therapy. So it’s called, “the meta walk,” which is, of course, a combination of “metaphor” and?
carrie
									
Walk?
ross
									
“Walkabout.”
carrie
									
Really?
ross
									
[Laughing heartily] Yes.
carrie
									
The Scientology term?
ross
									
No, no, no. That’s the, “take a walk.”
carrie
									
[Chuckling] Oh, you’re right.
ross
									
“[In an Australian accent] A walkabout,” [resumes regular tone] is, you know, like, in Australia. You know, you go for a walkabout.
carrie
									
Oh, you go for a walkabout.
ross
									
Like in, uh, Crocodile Dundee, you know. “[In an Australian accent] Walkabout Creek.”
carrie
									
Oh, okay. No, I had never heard that.
ross
									
Oh, okay. Ah, you haven’t seen Crocodile Dundee?
carrie
									
[In the negative] Mm-mm. I don’t think so.
ross
									
Oh, that’s pretty fun! I don’t know if this a big guilty pleasure I’m revealing here. But I like Crocodile Dundee—
carrie
									
Oh, okay.
ross
									
Pretty heartwarming films. Little backwards, in terms of the gender relationships.
carrie
									
Got it.
ross
									
Be forewarned. So, we’re going back to this earlier case where he had this guy, and he didn’t know what to do with him, other than give him his own therapy. You know, he can’t—
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
—give him to Tony Robbins. But in his reverse speech, he said, “See the wolf fallen in the lake.”
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
So now he’s saying, “We have to literally help him get a wolf out of a lake.”
carrie
									
Oh, so this one is not a metaphor?
ross
									
[Chuckling] Okay, this is where I’m confused.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
So—so maybe the metaphor is metaphorical, but now he’s saying to solve this, he’s saying we need to get a literal wolf out of a literal lake? I don’t know!
carrie
									
I mean, I kind of like this.
ross
									
Yea—I know! But—
carrie
									
That this would be the fix.
ross
									
I—I’m guessing the better explanation here is that he doesn’t know what the word, “literally,” means.
carrie
									
Ohhh. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. That’s what it is.
ross
									
_[Laughing] Y_eah.
carrie
									
That’s what it is. Okay. And now we sound like pedants—
ross
									
Right.
carrie
									
—but we really just knew the meaning of the word.
ross
									
But he said, “So we have to get him a wolf and a lake and literally take the wolf out of the lake.”
carrie
									
Ahhh…
ross
									
I mean…
carrie
									
Yeah! It’s not our fault! It’s not our fault!
ross
									
[Laughing] But do you really have a wolf [sighs]?
carrie
									
Okay. I mean, dogs can drown. So if he wants to go trying to find and help dogs in the water, I’m all for it.
ross
									
So this is where someone from the audience said, “Ah, this is like neural feedback!” and David said, “Exactly [laughs with a plosive burst].”
carrie
									
[Laughing] Okay.
ross
									
Which is a whole other can of worms for another investigation.
carrie
									
Also, I think they meant neurolinguistic programming.
ross
									
NLP played a lot into this.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
In fact, David even mentions it regularly, that he’ll use little NLP things. But neural feedback is another whole, like—
carrie
									
It is.
ross
									
Yeah, it—
carrie
									
It just—I don’t see the connection to that one. But maybe—
ross
									
Monitoring people’s brain signals, and—
carrie
									
Right.
ross
									
—and trying to feedback into that and counter their brain signals. It—it’s kind of similar.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
Yeah.
carrie
									
I’m not seeing that one, but I’m sure it’s there.
ross
									
So, we do two meta walks, and then, uh, hypnosis journeys—essentially, that’s what that is—one week apart. And, uh then there’s pre-vision. “The clients see images, uh, before I suggest them.” So sometimes—a—again it’s just like the pre-speech, you know, where they’ll say something that reveals that they’re already aware of what, later on, he’s gonna give them as imagery to work through.
carrie
									
Oh, okay?
ross
									
So, again, he’s speaking to their subconscious. Their subconscious knows what’s going on. But this is just for their verification. He’s so tuned in that he knows what their subconscious knows. And they verify it for him.
carrie
									
And a more cynical person might way, “Well, all they have to do, then, is supply you with the image, and you just have to say, ‘That’s exactly what I was gonna say.’”
ross
									
Well, and even worse, he’s pulling their verification from their reverse speech.
carrie
									
[Sighs] Oh, for God’s sake.
ross
									
[Laughs] Meaning, he is the judge, jury, and executioner
carrie
									
Yeah. Jes-us.
ross
									
He’s doing all the therapy on his own. But he says, “I’m just feeding back what they’ve told me. So, pre-vision really makes sense.” So, then, their third recording is going to be a post-trance tape. And so he’ll ask them, “How are you feeling now?” And so then he can analyze that to see have they recovered? [Carrie makes a thoughtful sound.] And that’s when you’ll find additional little snippets that can tell him that, uh, things have gone well. For example, he plays a client saying, “[in a distorted tone] I have potential now.” And another women—
carrie
									
[Chuckles] Not before.
ross
									
Another woman saying, “[In a distorted tone] Spirit in the goddess in center.”
carrie
									
“Spirit in the goddess in center?”
ross
									
Mm-hmm.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm. ‘Kay
ross
									
There we go. See. It worked. Another guy said, “[In a distorted tone] Healing that wolf.” Don’t you love that? Like, you pay $2,000 to this guy.
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
You have all these sessions. And he finds you in the third recording saying, “Healing that wolf,” out of your half hour.
carrie
									
And he’s like, “You’re done.”
ross
									
He's like, “I did it.”
carrie
									
Yep.
ross
									
“You’re welcome.”
carrie
									
God.
ross
									
So, now we’re getting towards the end, and he says, “Oh, we’ve barely talked about the spiritual piece. I only got like 20 minutes. How am I going to do this? Well, you know, I’ll do my best.” Um, but this where a woman from the audience says, “Uh, quick question. Have you worked with physical problems, like migraines and stuff?”
carrie
									
Oh, hey!
ross
									
Hey, hey!
carrie
									
Yeah, tell me about that, David.
ross
									
“Okay, so, let me just say that a lot of physical issues have psychological cause.”
carrie
									
Okay, that’s…not untrue.
ross
									
“And if you can—if you can fix that psychological cause, you can fix the physical one.”
carrie
									
That is sometimes true.
ross
									
“I can’t say any more, or I’ll get in trouble.”
carrie
									
[Dubious] Okay…
ross
									
“But you can read between the lines.”
carrie
									
No, I cannot. I don’t—[breaks off, laughing]. Where were you going?
ross
									
Essentially—
carrie
									
Oh, boy.
ross
									
—he was saying, “Yeah, I can help with physical cases. But I can’t claim that here in this rooom—“
carrie
									
Right. I see.
ross
									
“—that I can fix your physical problems.”
carrie
									
[Ross makes a couple of affirming sounds as Carrie speaks.] That's really bizarre, because she started with such a easy thing to make that claim about. Like, migraines can be stress-induced. They, you know, doing calming exercises and CBT and stuff often helps people, depending on what the cause of their migraine was. So, he could have just gone with that. I want to be his publicist and tell him how to do this better.
ross
									
Uh, he played another successful recording of a woman saying, “[Distorted tone] Living in the earth with joy.”
carrie
									
Aww. Well, that’s nice.
ross
									
Yeah, good!
carrie
									
That’s another one where I want to be like, “No, I have a friend named Joy, and we live in a cave together.” [Ross laughs.] “It’s not metaphorical.”
ross
									
“In the earth. With our wolf.” [Carrie laughs.] Uh, so this is where he made a reference—and this is my first time being exposed to him. I’d—I’d seen his booth, snapped a couple pictures, but I didn’t really know anything about this guy. And so, this is where he alluded very quickly, "For those of you who know my history, you’ll know that I—I was chased out of the United States. But we won’t get into that.”
carrie
									
O-kie do-kie.
ross
									
And there’s laughter from some people in the audience. Like, “Okay, you people know what he’s talking about. What is this?”
carrie
									
[Laughs] So, Marco Lightman from This American Life one time gave a storytelling talk that I went to.
ross
									
[Laughs] Okay.
carrie
									
And the biggest thing I took from it was, “Never drop a bomb if the story’s not about the bomb.” And I feel like—
ross
									
This is a Checkhov’s gun situation. You know, you introduce the gun in the first act, and it never goes off.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
Yeah.
carrie
									
Yeah, you—if you want to do that intentionally, you can, but know that the rule is there for a reason and know why you’re breaking it.
ross
									
Indeed. So he drops that bomb.
carie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
And—and he also makes it clear he doesn’t want to talk about that today. [Carrie snorts with laughter.] But—and he says, “It was very nasty. And then my son died not long after that.”
carrie
									
Oh, shit.
ross
									
And I was in a very bad way.
carrie
									
Sure.
ross
									
So, he was setting this up to tell a little bit about therapy that one of his students had done on him.
carrie
									
Hmm.
ross
									
So, he says he doesn’t do this to himself.
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
[Carrie makes a few affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] Again, you kind of have, like, Jerry Mungadze. You know, where he’ll paint his own brain, he’ll color it in with the crayons and then he’ll do the reading. At—at least David Oates had the presence of mind to say, “I don’t do this to myself because it’s so subjective. I feel like I know too much about the process and myself that I wouldn’t be objective.”
carrie
									
Though I’m guessing he’d still refrain from saying certain words that he’s used to seeing in reverse, but.
ross
									
Interesting. Oh, that’s a good point. I wonder if he would a—avoid certain phrases—
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
—as a result. But he said that he’ll talk to his own therapist. And so he played a recording of himself after his son had died. His reverse speech said, “[In a distorted tone] My soul give the pain.”
carrie
									
Aww.
ross
									
 I know. And he said, “Listen to how tortured I sound, and—“
carrie
									
Aww.
ross
									
“—that’s just how powerful this reverse speech can be, that it can, you know, convey such emotion.”
carrie
									
Aw, poor dude. Obviously, he was looking for answers in that moment. That doesn’t add to our collection of information at all. Of course he was in pain.
ross
									
Yeah. Yeah. Then he said that he just finished a book about soul and spirit and clarified that reverse speech doesn’t endorse any particular religion.
carrie
									
M-kay.
ross
									
He played a reverse speech saying, “It’s the voice in heaven.” Okay, good. [Carrie chuckles softly.] Um, so reverse speech is the voice of the soul. It taps into everything you are and everything you long to be. So, he’s trying to keep it very non-denominational so anybody can use it.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm. Keep that net wide, Dave.
ross
									
Uh, someone asked him, “Have you gotten any opposition?”
carrie
									
[Intersted] Mm-hmm!
ross
									
Is—uh, he laughed at that. And he said, “Oh, yeah. Many times. Three arson house fires in America.”
carrie
									
Whoa.
ross
									
“Several lawsuits trying to shut me down.”
carrie
									
Oh,.
ross
									
“I’ve had lynch mobs outside my home.”
carrie
									
Oh, my God.
ross
									
"That’s why I had to leave America.”
carrie
									
Huh.
ross
									
Apparently, one of the audience members, she knew this all fairly well, and she said, “Ah, you—if anyone deserves a medal of honor, it’s you for what you’ve had to deal with.”
carrie
									
Gosh. Okay. Uh—
ross
									
Let’s make her president. [Carrie laughs.] ‘Cause Rush Limbaugh already got his medal of honor. David John Oates should get one.
carrie
									
Oh, my goodness. Okay.
ross
									
[Carrie makes affirming sounds a few times as Ross speaks.] So, yeah, let’s dive into this a bit. Had to look all this up afterward. And Carrie and I have read quite a bit surrounding these various pieces of his story. All of which unfurled and happened, like, in the late nineties, early—
carrie
									
Mm-hmm. Somewhere between, like ’95 and 2000.
ross
									
[Carrie makes a couple of affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] Yeah. And so this was all when the internet was fresh and new and many links are now dead. We made ample use of the Wayback Machine from archive.org. Thank you archive.org. Everybody contribute to them financially. But, yeah, what were we able to find out?
carrie
									
Uh, my primary tool was actually newspapers.com.
ross
									
Oh, yeah.
carrie
									
Um, but, yeah. I—I mean, the story is murky. And it’s not really told by the people in it, which has drawbacks and plusses. But, it seems like legendary radioman Art Bell—
ross
									
Of Coast to Coast fame!
carrie
									
[Ross makes a few affirming sounds as Carrie speaks.] Of Coast to Coast, RIP. He used to have this call-in radio show that was very popular, that was all about paranormal claims. He was more on the sort of believing end of things. And a guy named Robert A. M. Stevens called into Art Bell’s show to say, “Hey, Art, I know you’re really into UFO’s. I’m from an area of the country where there’s been a lot of sightings. Uh, I do actually believe that there are UFO’s and that aliens exist, but I don’t love this whole narrative people are building around NASA. I have a good relationship with NASA. I’m pretty in with them. And, uh, I can just tell you from my own experience, they're not trying to cover anything up. They’re the good guys.” And he had sort of a list of what he considered evidence of his positions. Art Bell, who was [chuckles] quite a character, uh, apparently hung up on him. Uh, you know, which really incensed this guy. So then he ended up going on David John Oates’s radio show.
ross
									
Yeah, perhaps the David John Oates Reverse Speech Show, that ran for three years.
carrie
									
Yeah. Probably. Uh, went on that. Told the same story, but now had—if I’m understanding everything correctly—had gotten a little, uh, hot under the collar about Art Bell in general.
ross
									
Yes.
carrie
									
[Ross makes a couple of affirming sounds as Carrie speaks.] And so now was adding additional claims about Art Bell. So he—he was, uh, calling him names. Accusing him of having been involved in child pornography, for which there is scant evidence. Well, really, no evidence. The FBI actually raided his house to look for it before that, and found none.
ross
									
And selling pornography in general.
carrie
									
Right. So then Art Bell ended up suing both of these characters
ross
									
Mm-hmm. And it should be said that Oates had been on Art Bell’s show many times. He was a regular contributor. But—and this is—this is a little hazy. Like, when did they first have their falling out? But—
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
Apparently at some point, Oates had made some claim that he had a bunch of incontrovertible reverse speech evidence, but he wasn’t really coming forth with it. And so Art Bell sort of kicked him off earlier.
carrie
									
Hmm. Hmm, that feels familiar.
ross
									
[Carrie makes a couple of affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] And so that made David Oates a little bitter. But, yeah, then they had this other show, and they were then, um, making all these claims. One of them was—at least, Stevens was. And, uh, so yeah, the lawsuit was what? $60 million?
carrie
									
Oh, gosh. I don’t know. So, I was able to find the final judgement notice, which did find—this was in Nevada—it found in favor of Bell. So I suspect that that is when Oates fled the country, just to make it harder to collect on his debt.
ross
									
Yeah.
carrie
									
But I don’t know that, and—
ross
									
We don’t know what the final judgement was?
carrie
									
Yeah, that’s not—that’s not available completely either.
ross
									
All of this is very fractional and taken from, like, pieces of news reporting and internet forums, where people are talking about this. So—so we don’t claim to have any kind of solid knowledge about—
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
—the exact timeline here about how all this broke down. But those seem to be the—the players and the pieces.
carrie
									
Yeah. I think everything I just said was at least backed up with news sources, but—
ross
									
M-kay.
carrie
									
Yeah, so obviously this was a big, messy thing. And then David would subsequently mention in interviews and things that his—at least one of his houses had burned down in a mysterious way. That—I—he seemed to be implying was somehow tied into this narrative?
ross
									
Yeah, so he writes about that on his site, and—so this is in 1997—he had—
carrie
									
1997. There it is. Yeah.
ross
									
Right, just like the cost for the therapy session. Interesting. Uh, so he had—he had been receiving various threats from people after this whole fallout. So, he has these little pieces of information. Like, “Oh, a client came over to my house and she smelled a really strong flower smell outside, so we investigated that. And another person said that he had seen these two guys that had, like, fluid canisters of some sort. But while I was in this therapy session, somebody noticed that the house was now on fire. So we all had to—“
carrie
									
Oh!
ross
									
“We all had to get outside. And we called the fire department. And—but the fire department—even though they’re just minutes away—they took 45 minutes to show up. And, uh, you know—“
carrie
									
Hmm.
ross
									
“The—the house was burned quite a bit. Except, thankfully, most of my records were kept. The tapes and my recordings. Which is good, ‘cause those were irreplaceable. But then, apparently, a few days later, men were spotted coming back and setting another fire, and trying to complete the job, essentially.” Yeah, so there were multiple arson attempts. And he said, “Oh, I provided—
carrie
									
According to him, yeah.
ross
									
“—I provided all this evidence, and even, like, recordings. And—and the police refused to investigate.” So he felt the whole system was against him.
carrie
									
Gosh. Yeah. Horrifying if true.
ross
									
Right, and then he had all these other stories about how earlier he had been investigating the JFK assassination—
carrie
									
Oh, wow. Okay
ross
									
And after he had revealed a little bit of the information that he had gotten out of that, saying that Oswald was a patsy and he didn’t fire the kill shot. Uh, that he had a drive-by shooting that threatened his life. Uh, that the FBI had turned on him. So, there’s just—there’s so many weird little claims in all this. Another thing we reference with the Freedom of Information Act—at some point, the CIA had posted on their website that “Yeah, we had this material we were looking at from David John Oates,” and it turns out it was one of his books, and they had published a PDF that just had some of the introductory material, but not the whole book. Uh, but David John Oates now uses this as sort of a verification. Like, “Ah, look. I’m validated. I did speak.” Ah, which—
carrie
									
Right, which I don’t think that’s even corroborated directly.
ross
									
Yeah. Not necessarily, at least from that piece of evidence. But it could mean that they looked at it—
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
—for whatever reason.
carie
									
Someone made a photocopy of that.
ross
									
And maybe he did come and speak at some point.
carrie
									
Maybe.
ross
									
But, um, that document—as it was released—it tied to, like the Stargate program. This is all very interesting and a very big rabbit hole to fall down into on the internet.
carrie
									
Goodness.
ross
									
Spend many hours reading stuff.
carrie
									
Yeah, the FOIA reading room I highly recommend. That’s basically—if someone submits a FOIA for a public figure, and the FBI or CIA deems, “Oh, yeah. We’re gonna get a lot of requests about this person, and we don’t want to field them all and we’re comfortable with this information just being very readily available,” they put it in the FOIA reading room. And so any previous FOIA’s for, like, Marilyn Monroe, JFK, those are probably going to be in the FOIA reading room. Go look! Spend your entire quarantine reading the FOIA reading room.
ross
									
There you go. And then getting back to Art Bell. During all of this—I think kind of why he had claimed the millions of dollars in damages is because all of this was upsetting him so much that he had left the show for a while and that lost him income. [Carrie makes an interested sound.] And I think you’d found that early on, he had run like a—a video dating service.
carrie
									
Oh, Art. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
ross
									
And—and that’s perhaps what was confused as being somehow tied to pornography that—
carrie
									
That seems to be right. Yeah.
ross
									
Would have had nothing to do with it. So—
carrie
									
Yeah, I believe that was AP reporting that found that.
ross
									
[Carrie makes a couple of affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] So, uh, there you go. You had David John Oates moving to Australia to escape this situation or just to seek peace. In that interview with George Kappas, he just says, “Oh, yeah, my children were of high school age, and I wanted them to go to high school back in Australia. So that’s why we moved back there.” So many different versions of this story. Very confusing.
carrie
									
Ordinarily, I am inclined to come to a person’s defense in that sort of inconsistency, and say, “Well, we all do that with stories, right?” Like, there are usually many reasons why we do a thing. There are many ways to look at in in hindsight. With this, where it’s like, “Mm, did I go back to Australia because my kids have finished high school or because there were lynch mobs outside my house?”
ross
									
[Chuckles softly] Right.
carrie
									
I'm less inclined to go to their defense.
ross
									
Indeed.
carrie
									
Mm.
ross
									
Anyways, he—he said enough in this Conscious Life Expo talk that made it seem like, “Wow, okay. Sounds like the US holds a lot of past for you.”
carrie
									
Mm-hmm. Sure.
ross
									
“And you fled for, like 20 years. What is—“
carrie
									
Oh, is that right? 20 years?
ross
									
Yeah.
carrie
									
So, he just got back a few years ago, then.
ross
									
Well, I think—just like for this talk—he came to come visit and give this talk. He’s still—
carrie
									
And Art Bell just died two years ago.
ross
									
Yeah.
carrie
									
Ah, right.
ross
									
The—though the George Kappas interview, uh, that happened here in LA in 2010, so—
carrie
									
Okay. Okay.
ross
									
—at least he’s visited in the inerim.
carrie
									
Uh-huh. Right, right, right.
ross
									
Uh, but yeah, I—I just came away from that meeting going, “Whoa, I want to know what happened here.”
carrie
									
Yeah. No kidding. And it took some digging to find. A lot of this stuff has been scrubbed, for sure.
ross
									
[Carrie makes a few thoughtful, affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] So, uh, so yeah. That’s when he kind of talked a little bit about the—the persecution that he’s experienced and that he’s been away for 20 years. And, uh, people were asking questions about whether intelligence agencies used this information and this method, whether they've spent maybe millions of dollars even advancing it beyond his own ability. And, uh, he wasn't able to comment on that. You know, he said, “Well, I don’t know if they have, but I would imagine so.” He said, “And I did, uh, work for the FBI during the, uh the Waco siege.” We know how that actually worked out. And he talked about giving talks at the CIA. On the George Kappas interview they had asked him about—I guess early on he had said, “Oh, we want to build kind of an AI-driven, uh, way of making this faster. Having a computer go through and listen to the reverse speech and identify things that sound like words so we can very quickly get to them. Which would be cool. But, at least, at that point—ten years ago—he said, “No, we haven’t made any progress on that.” So. Yeah, he talked about a analyst that had trained under him working for the Dallas police, but she was forbidden to use reverse speech. And it—
carrie
									
[Chuckles] I wonder what their forbidding looked like. “Alice! Focus. Come on.”
ross
									
[Chuckles] Right.
carrie
									
This isn't useful.
ross
									
Exactly, yeah. There’s always these two different versions of the stories. You know, he says, “Oh, well, the FBI was embarrassed, you know, and wanted to cover this up. That this is—had been used, because of what it found.” But more likely it was just them saying, “Stop doing this.”
carrie
									
Uh-huh.
ross
									
“This is a waste of everybody’s time.”
carrie
									
Right.
ross
									
But, you know. Everybody spins stories the way they need to.
ross
									
Hey, Carrie?
carrie
									
Yeah, Ross, is it?
ross
									
Oh, all of this reverse speech makes me want to hear some other podcast.
carrie
									
Just something that’s forward?
ross
									
Y—yeah. I just want to play it forward. What do you got?
carrie
									
[Chuckles] Oh, man. There’s so much good stuff to play forward instead of backward. But in particular, I recommend this MaxFun show right here:
promo
									
[Radio interference followed by laidback music with a snare drum beat. A phone rings as the DJ speaks.] Radio DJ: Welcome back to Fireside Chat on KMAX. With me in-studio to take your calls is the dopest duo on the West Coast, Oliver Wang and Morgan Rhodes. [Click.] Go ahead, caller. Caller: Hey. Uh, I'm looking for a music podcast that’s insightful and thoughtful, but like, also helps me discover artists and albums that I’ve never heard of. Morgan Rhodes: Yeah, man. Sounds like you need to listen to Heat Rocks. Every week, myself, and I’m Morgan Rhodes, and my co-host here, Oliver Wang, talk to influential guests about a canonical album that has changed their lives. Oliver Wang: Guests like Moby, Open Mike Eagle, talk about albums by Prince, Joni Mitchell, and so much more. Caller: Yooo! What’s that show called again? Morgan: Heat Rocks. Deep dives into hot records. Oliver: Every Thursday on Maximum Fun. [Music suddenly gives way to static and a dial tone.]
ross
									
Oh, man. That’s a good MaxFun show. Thank you.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm. You can play it backwards if you want.
ross
									
Thank you for sharing it with me.
carrie
									
You’re so welcome.
ross
									
So, uh, so toward the end he really emphasized that he’s just looking for more students to do this with him. He wants—
carrie
									
Aww.
ross
									
—more people. And he said there’s only, like, you know, a dozen people around the world who are really trained to do this and do this for an income source. And he’d like for there to be more than that. He—he claimed that as his biggest disappointment, that it just hasn’t spread more.
carrie
									
Aw, buddy.
ross
									
Yeah, and the George Kappas interview, George was saying, like, “Well, why isn’t this a bigger thing? Why aren’t you doing, like, all of these, uh, analyses of celebrities? It’s seems like—“
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
“—after every Oscars, we should be hearing your—your takedown. What Lindsey Lohan said,” You know, or—
carrie
									
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
ross
									
—or whatever it may be. And David is, “Ah, yeah, I don’t know. I—I’m working really hard trying to get this out there. It’s just—“
carrie
									
Aw, yeah.
ross
									
“—not taking off.” And it’s like, you feel a little bad for him, and then you remember what this is.
carrie
									
[Chuckles pointedly] Aaand you can still feel bad for him. Yeah, I—I recognize in Kappas—when he was giving the, uh, intro for David John, I was like, “Oh, man, I know this feeling. Of, like, something just really lit up for you—“
ross
									
Mm-hmm.
carrie
									
“—and you're realizing, like, it just doesn’t do it for other people. This isn't giving them what it’s giving me, and why not?” You’re looking around the room, “Wha—but—eh—Goofy Movie’s so good! Why are we not all in on this together?” You know?
ross
									
[Chuckles] Yeah, and I think—again, the saving grace is that reverse speech analysis takes so long—
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
—it’s not easy. And I think a—my little theory here—I think most people—when they’re getting into something like this—they’re looking for an easy calling card that gives them authority and credibility and people listening to them and loving them. And I—and I think this just takes a little too much work.
carrie
									
Yeah! And a little too much technological savvy.
ross
									
He says he makes good money from this. Uh, but he wants more people to get started. So please, yeah, take that $3500 course. I notice that— [Carrie chuckles.] —at Christmas he had a discount. You could get it for $2800, um—
carrie
									
Oh, damn. Did you get it for Cara?
ross
									
Uh, I didn’t.
carrie
									
“Merry Christmas!”
ross
									
[Chuckles] “I love you! But if you play it backwards, I’m saying something like, ‘I’m a bad husband.’” [Carrie chuckles.] So, uh, so, yeah. He’s almost desperate at that point. Like, “Please, consider taking this training. It’s such a powerful technology.” And, uh, you know, he said it’s much easier now with computers being what they are. There's a lot of tools out there. “I used to make these $200 machines,” that he used to sell that were tape recorders that had a playback functionality in reverse, essentially.
carrie
									
Aww. Okay. Fair.
ross
									
Uh, so yeah. So now, at least, it’s all digital. There was a woman in the audience who just said, “Can you tell us anything about the future of the world. I’m a little worried right now—“
carrie
									
Oh.
ross
									
And D—David said—
carrie
									
Big question.
ross
									
“I have great belief in the potential of the human race. We’re going to make it. We’re on the cusp of a huge spiritual renewal.”
carrie
									
[Singsong] Ohhh, we’re always on that cusp!
ross
									
[Matching Carrie’s tone] How many times do we hear that? [Speaking again] He believes that reverse speech will be a big part of it. [Carrie snorts quietly with laughter.] And, uh, everyone got up, gave him a standing ovation.
carrie
									
Wooww.
ross
									
 Yeah. People were clapping for him, and he’s like, “Oh. Thank you. Oh, man. I’m just—I’m a bit overwhelmed. Well—“
carrie
									
Aww.
ross
									
“—come see me at my booth.”
carrie
									
That’s so sweet.
ross
									
And that was our talk.
carrie
									
DJO! [Ross chuckles.] Well, I went through that same talk that you listened to with him and George Kappas?
ross
									
Yeah?
carrie
									
And I played it backwards for myself—
ross
									
Yeah!
carrie
									
—to see what I could find in—in David John Oates’s speech.
ross
									
What did you get?
carrie
									
Okay, I’ve got a few. So, I’m gonna give you the timestamp where I heard it backwards. So that’s obviously starting from the end. You know what I’m saying?
ross
									
Okay, s—I’ve got it cued up. Okay. Let’s see what David Oates says in reverse. What you got?
carrie
									
Okay. Uh, let’s go to 3:57. Ooh, this feels like defending your life, and they’d be like, “[In a lower, older, Southern accent] Let’s go to age 26, day 42.”
ross
									
3:57?
carrie
									
Yep.
clip
									
[Reversed recording of David John Oates speaking in a talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
“Time that—timed out?”
clip
									
[Reversed recording of David John Oates speaking in a talk with George Kappas.]
carrie
									
Okay.
ross
									
[Distorted tone] “Timed out.”
carrie
									
I hear, “Find them.”
clip
									
[Reversed recording of David John Oates speaking in a talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
“[Robotic tone] Find them.” Okay.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
Yeah. Alright.
carrie
									
What is that forwards? I haven’t heard any of it forwards. [Laughing] I haven’t heard this whole talk forwards.
ross
									
[Laughs loudly] I love that you only listened to it backwards.
carrie
									
[Laughing] Eh, what’s the use?
ross
									
[Sighs with laughter.] Let me be forward with you. [Carrie chuckles.] Oh, you know what? Oh, I’m sorry. I was doing this with my whole talk. Never mind. I was in the wrong—wrong audio file.
carrie
									
And we still heard, “Find them?”
ross
									
[Chuckling] It was pretty close.
crosstalk
									
Carrie: Wait, what? Ross: Yeah! Yeah! Carrie: We were in the wrong? Wait— Ross: That was a very unintentional test of this system. Carrie: What? What?! That was the wrong file? Ross: That was the wrong file. Carrie: What was the file? Ross: That was my recording of his talk at Conscious Life Expo. Carrie: What the fuck?!
ross
									
[Laughs loudly, briefly] Okay, that’s weird. Okay.
carrie
									
That [beat] is discrediting in and of itself. QED.
ross
									
Okay. So—
carrie
									
The experiment is over.
ross
									
3:57?
carrie
									
Yeah?
ross
									
Okay. Alright [chuckling]. Let’s go to four—
carrie
									
From the end.
ross
									
Whaaat? Okay. Ready?
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates talking in a talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
Yep. [Laughs] That’s—
carrie
									
Oh, my God!
ross
									
[Laughing] We were able to make both of those work just fine then!
carrie
									
[Laughing] Oh, my God!
ross
									
Okay, here we go.
carrie
									
Unintentional test.
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates talking in a talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
“[Distorted tone] Fi-ind them.”
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
Okay, so let’s see how—
carrie
									
[Chuckles] Oh, my God.
ross
									
Wow, okay. What was that forwards?
clip
									
David John Oates (Recording of an interview with George Kappas): But now, of course, we have reverse speech. Which—
ross
									
“[Chuckles, then imitating an Australian accent] But now, of course, we have reverse speech!”
carrie
									
Okay. “[Robotic voice] Find them!”
ross
									
Okay. What’s the next one?
carrie
									
Kay.
ross
									
What’s the next one?
carrie
									
Uh, 4:05.
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates talking in an interview with George Kappas.]
carrie
									
Right there, yeah.
ross
									
Oh, okay.
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
“[In an affected tone] This is not nice.”
carrie
									
Oh, yeah, okay! I have, “Who is this? This is not nice.”
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
carrie
									
“Who is this? It’s not nice!”
ross
									
Yeah, you’re right. “Who is this? It’s not nice.” Okay, what is he actually saying?
carrie
									
Kay.
clip
									
David John Oates (Recording from talk with George Kappas): [Laughter] The unconscious is still going to betr—
ross
									
Ohh, “the unconscious is still going to betray—“
clip
									
David John Oates (Recording from talk with George Kappas): [Laughter] The unconscious is still going to betr—
ross
									
Okay.
carrie
									
Hmm.
ross
									
Who is this? This is not nice. So, maybe he doesn’t like that interview as much as he says he does.
carrie
									
Oohhhh. Or he doesn’t like his subconscious.
ross
									
Right. Okay.
carrie
									
Okay, um…4:47.
ross
									
[Singing] 4:47
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas. The volume is increased as it plays.]
carrie
									
You’re way past it now.
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
“So, we all know what he believes.”
carrie
									
Oh! “We all know what he believes.”
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
“We all know what he believes.”
carrie
									
Okay. Yeah, yeah. ‘Kay. [Murmuring] We all…
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas plays softly in the background.]
carrie
									
Here’s what I heard.
ross
									
“We all know what you believe,” maybe
carrie
									
Okay. I hear, “Nasty little knife Hillary.”
ross
									
Whoa!
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
I hear the “nasty” for sure.
carrie
									
Yep.
ross
									
Yeah, I could even see mine combining with that. “Nasty little—I know what you believe.”
carrie
									
Oh! Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I thought—when you said that he has this dictionary of metaphors, I thought, “Oh, cool. I’ll look up knife.” And I just did. And it’s not in there.
ross
									
Oh!
carrie
									
Knife?!
ross
									
Yet to be added, I guess. [Carrie makes a blowing sound of disbelief.] Alright, let’s see what he was actually saying.
clip
									
David John Oates (Recording from talk with George Kappas): —mind and finding out what’s really going on, and really trans—
ross
									
“Finding out what’s really going on.”
carrie
									
Okay…
ross
									
Yeah, we found out what’s really going on.
carrie
									
[Accusing tone.] Mm-hmm.
ross
									
[Matching Carrie’s tone.] David, if that’s your real name.
carrie
									
You have secrets.
ross
									
Okay, what’s—what’s next.
carrie
									
Uh, 5:13.
ross
									
[Singing] 5:13
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas, repeated once at the same speed.]
ross
									
Something, something, “next illusion hobosec [chuckles].”
carrie
									
I hear, “This makes me lose it all the time.”
ross
									
See, this is why I can’t do this. Okay.
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
Oh, “This makes me lose it all the time.” [Slightly under his breath, jokingly] Or, you know, “It makes me lose a hobosep” Okay. Now what was he actually saying?
clip
									
David John Oates (Recording from talk with George Kappas): Barack Obama are very revealing as to, uh, as to what his real intentions are—
carrie
									
Ahhh!
ross
									
“As to what his real intentions are.”
carrie
									
Uh-huh. He doesn’t like Barack.
ross
									
Mm-kay. Okay.
carrie
									
Okay. And then 5:20.
ross
									
[Chuckles briefly] 5:20 [chuckles pointedly].
carrie
									
Nope. [Both laugh.] You’re close.
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
Whoa, that sounds like something. Okay, let’s see here.
carrie
									
This one’s a C at best [chuckles]. But I’ve got something.
ross
									
Okay.
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas. It repeats more quietly in the background as Ross speaks.]
ross
									
“I see the res—“ [Carrie chuckles.] “I—I see the red. I see the red. Or went off as the shit—[quietly, to himself] or went off as the shit—“ [Carrie giggles.] “I see the red, or went off as the shit that goes off when zombie nee-sht.” [Chuckles] That’s all I got.
carrie
									
Uh, okay, well we both landed on zombies. That’s nice.
ross
									
I heard “zombie,” yep.
carrie
									
Okay, I have, “If Hillary went off and went chased along by zombies.”
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
Yeah, I’ll buy that for a vowel.
carrie
									
Yeah? Okay [laughs]. Wi—what is it really?
clip
									
David Oates (Recording from a talk with George Kappas): The [inaudible] politicians and find out what they really think—.
carrie
									
[Gasps, then loudly] Oh, my God!
ross
									
Hey, politicians! “Find out what they’re really thinking.” Hillary and zombies.
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas plays quietly in the background as Carrie speaks.]
carrie
									
[Gasps] What they’re really thinking is, “She’s being chased by zombies.” M’kay, that’s a good one.
ross
									
M’kay, okay. Yeah, good.
carrie
									
Okay, 5:30
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
carrie
									
There.
ross
									
Wow. Okay, that sounds powerful. Alright. [Carrie giggles.] Now, I do feel like I would be qualified to do this. Like, I have the idiotic attention to detail and audio editing skills required.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
But I’m not buying in the premise.
carrie
									
Mm.
ross
									
So, sorry David.
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
But I—but I don’t have the ability to hear. I don’t have the ear.
carrie
									
Together we could do it.
ross
									
Yeah. Alright.
carrie
									
Screw this business.
ross
									
Yeah—should we do this instead?
carrie
									
[Chuckling] S—sure.
ross
									
Okay. Bye, everybody! [Carrie laughs.] Alright.
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
Wow, okay.
carrie
									
It's near the end. It’s that “[vocalizes to indicate the rhythm of speech].”
ross
									
Sockin’ in the Sahara s…
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
“Her shade…”
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
What do you got?
carrie
									
I just have the phase, “I would love to help.”
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
Oh, yeah! “Her shade I would love to help.” Okay.
carrie
									
[Inaudible] and what’s that really?
clip
									
[Reversed audio recording of Ross from his phone.]
ross
									
Nons, reverse.
clip
									
David Oates (Recording from a talk with George Kappas): [inaudible] by the ready, a show host. And then, of course, she—
carrie
									
Hm. Nothing. Cool
ross
									
Yeah.
carrie
									
Okay, I hear the name of a TV show at 5:59.
ross
									
Ohh, okay!
carrie
									
See if you can spot it.
ross
									
“[Distorted tone] How I Met Your Mother.” [Both laugh.] [Ross starts to make another distorted sound.]
carrie
									
It would be funny to see with the American versus Australia thing, I wonder if he’d hear that and be like, “So this is about—“
ross
									
Oh, yeah, yeah.
carrie
									
“[Hushed tone, continues as she’s quoting] How you’re—a father explains to you—“
ross
									
“[Distorted tone] Jeopardy.”
carrie
									
“You—“
ross
									
Oh! So, uh, you’re—
carrie
									
“You’re in Jeopardy—“ [Ross laughs.] _“—_and you’re experiencing, like a lot of discord.”
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas, repeated once.]
ross
									
So, “A little bit, but one day you—you’ll survive soon.”
carrie
									
Ohhh!
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
“A little bit, but, you know, one day you’ll survive Zoom.”
carrie
									
“One day you’ll survive Zoom.” Oh, he’s predicting the—
ross
									
Ye—Yeah. He knew about the coronavirus situation, that we’re all going to be out on Zoom calls all day long, every day.
carrie
									
And—but, we’ll survive it. I hear, “The Wonder Years.”
ross
									
Oh!
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
Oh, yeah. Now that you say it, I am primed. [Carrie laughs.]
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
"But you know, Wonder Years.” Yeah, okay. Let’s see what he was actually saying in there. [High-pitched voice] Forward, dear, forward.
clip
									
David Oates (Recording from a talk with George Kappas): Was, uh, obviously, uh, not wanting the people—
ross
									
Ah,” obviously not wanting the people to—“
carrie
									
To something.
ross
									
The Wonder Years.
carrie
									
Hmm.
ross
									
[Sings to the tune of “With a Little Help from my Friends,” off the album With a Little Help from my Friends by Joe Cocker] What would you do if I listened to your audio backwards? [Carrie chuckles.] Would you stand up and walk out with a wolf into a la-a-ake.
carrie
									
[Makes a dismissive blowing sound] Let’s go to 8:39.
ross
									
[Continues singing] Lend me your ears and I’ll play the song backwards. And I’ll try not to sing backwards out of key-ey-ey. Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends.” [Carrie imitates a trumpet.] I love Joe Cocker. Uh, okay, here goes.
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
Oh, here we have the “not nice” again. Okay. [Carrie makes an interested sound.]
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
“Ipso physician,” um…”Not—“ [Carrie chuckles quietly.]
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
“Not nice. A week’s finally so ipso a physician.”
carrie
									
Ooh! Close. Okay. [Ross laughs.] I have—well, I wasn’t counting that “not nice” part—
ross
									
Okay.
carrie
									
—but now I hear that. So, “Not nice. A week to find the kids will be sufficient.”
ross
									
Whoooa. That sounds way more ominous.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
Yeah. I’ll buy it.
carrie
									
Yeah? Okay. Cool.
ross
									
Alright, well, what—what’s he saying? Let’s see.
carrie
									
He has kidnapped some children.
clip
									
David Oates (Recording from a talk with George Kappas): It shows reverse speech can often give us the uncon—
ross
									
Okay, “So it shows reverse speech can often give us the unconscious.”
carrie
									
[Pointedly] Mm-hmm.
ross
									
Yep.
carrie
									
Uh-huh!
ross
									
[Increasing in volume] About the kids. Where—where are the children?!
carrie
									
[In an accusing tone.] Where are the children?
ross
									
Where are you keeping them, David John Oates—
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
—from 10 years ago?
carrie
									
[Laughs] Oh, Gosh.
ross
									
They're not children anymore, probably.
carrie
									
Yeah. Okay. Now that we realize his dark side—
ross
									
Yes?
carrie
									
—how about 8:42?
ross
									
How about 8:42?
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
Okay, “Close your eye hole. What you’re looking at is shit.” [Carrie laughs.] Ready?
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
carrie
									
[Chuckling] Sure.
ross
									
[Laughing] Okay, what do you hear?
carrie
									
I have, “We have all these little kids who are looking out for me. Shit!” [Both laugh heartily.]
ross
									
Okay.
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
Sure!
carrie
									
Ah! [Both laugh.]
ross
									
Okay, what's he actually say?
clip
									
David Oates (Recording from a talk with George Kappas): Issue of psychological issues over how—
carrie
									
 [Amused, doubting] Hmmmm. Mmmm. Mmmm. Mmm-hmm!
ross
									
Oh, you're telling me about issues—psychological issues or behavioral issues? Where are the children, David?
carrie
									
[Chuckling] Where are the children? [Ross laughs.] Uh, this would not be funny if true. We’re just very confident it’s not. Okay. Last one. This one is Kappas. And it’s at 11:36.
ross
									
Yesss.
cilp
									
[Reversed audio of George Kappas from talk with David John Oates.]
ross
									
"She served me for eight. Yeah, that’s a nick.”
carrie
									
Ohh, very interesting [chuckles].
clip
									
[Reversed audio of George Kappas from talk with David John Oates.]
carrie
									
Okay. I have, “Served me right, sitting here.”
clip
									
[Reversed audio of George Kappas from talk with David John Oates.]
ross
									
Alright, yeah.
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
I definitely heard the, “Serve…me…right,” yeah. Okay, now what—
carrie
									
Yeah. So he’s like, “Oh, I’m sitting next to this guy.”
clip
									
George Kappas (Recording of his talk with David John Oates): And this idea of reverse speech—
ross
									
[Chuckles briefly] “And this idea of reverse speech.”
carrie
									
Yep.
ross
									
Okay.
carrie
									
I skipped a couple, but, like, there was one where I think he says, “You know atheists. Yes, I’m an atheist.”
ross
									
Oh, really?
carrie
									
Mm-hmm. You want to hear that one?
ross
									
Yeah. Where’s it at?
carrie
									
Okay. 10:57
ross
									
[Singing] 10:57
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
ross
									
Oh. 100%. David John Oates is an atheist.
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
crosstalk
									
Ross and Carrie: “[Imitating the recording, with different levels of distortion] Yes, I am an atheist.” Ross: He’s a drunk atheist. Carrie: He’s also—he’s drunk. His subconscious is drunk. [Ross bursts into laughter.] Ross: He said— [Carrie makes slurring sounds.] Ross: You’re an atheist and a drunk! Carrie: Yup. Ross: At the same time.
clip
									
[Reversed audio of David John Oates from talk with George Kappas.]
carrie
									
[Slurring] Yes, I’m an atheist.
ross
									
Yep. Well, we have proof positive, right there. [Carrie chuckles.] Okay, and what is he saying in reality? But, I mean, he should be held accountable for this—
carrie
									
Yeah! These are—these are the things he uses against other people.
ross
									
Not that there’s anything wrong with being an atheist.
carrie
									
[Emphatically] Oh, true.
ross
									
Or even a drunk atheist, for a short time.
carrie
									
[Chuckling] Uh, sure.
clip
									
David John Oates (Recording of his talk with George Kappas): The name “reverse speech” refers to hidden messages in our speech. The theory is that as we’re speaking—
ross
									
Yeah, no kidding
carrie
									
Mm-hmm.
ross
									
No kidding.
carrie
									
Mm-hmm!
ross
									
Wow. Well, all of this reminds me of the, uh, song from Weird Al Yankovic, “I Remember Larry.”
music
									
“I Remember Larry” off the album Bad Hair Day by Weird Al Yankovic. Song plays for several seconds and then quickly fades out.
ross
									
So, Weird Al put that into the song. His voice was backwards, but the music was forwards.
carrie
									
Ohhh. Oh, got it, got it.
ross
									
So, here it is backwards.
music
									
“I Remember Larry” off the album Bad Hair Day by Weird Al Yankovic plays backwards. Music plays for several seconds and then quickly fades out.
ross
									
“Wow, you must have a lot of free time on your hands.”
carrie
									
Uh-huh.
ross
									
Which I think is the message of reverse speech.
carrie
									
[Laughs] Ah, that’s funny.
ross
									
Good ol' Weird Al.
carrie
									
There’s also, of course, the famous Joan Baez song, “Play me Backwards,” that was about, um—
ross
									
Oh, right!
carrie
									
—repressed memories being recovered—
ross
									
[Gasps] That's right!
carrie
									
—and back masking and the Satanic Panic. Oh, yeah.
ross
									
Oh, yeah. She just went off the deep end there for a little bit, huh?
carrie
									
For a sec, yeah.
ross
									
Yeah. Okay. But welcome back.
carrie
									
But, we all—yeah—we all do. It’s a good lesson in—I mean, even Gloria Steinem kind of bought into that. And I think of her as one of he smartest people alive.
ross
									
Yeah, wow.
carrie
									
You know, it’s a good lesson. There aren’t just like, you know, dummies and smart people. We all have beliefs that, uh, we need other people to help us correct.
ross
									
[Carrie makes a couple of thoughtful, affirming sounds as Ross speaks.] Absolutely. And any of us are capable of getting caught up in these weird little flights of fancy. In these ideas, and, uh, we should listen when a lot of sane people around us are not buying into that, or—or even speaking against it. That should be a warning flag for us to say, “Okay. Let’s take a look at this idea. How well do I actually know this?”
carrie
									
How will I test it?
ross
									
Yeah. How will I test it, and how can I remove myself from it personally so that my analysis of this idea doesn’t impact my sense of myself as a person.
carrie
									
Mm. Mm-hmm. Because the actual test here is of my ability to let go.
ross
									
Indeed.
carrie
									
Yeah. Hypotheses are powerful. But they are step one. I’m Carrie Poppy.
ross
									
Notable, quotable.
carrie
									
Mm-hnm.
ross
									
But when I reverse that, oh man are you gonna say something different, Carrie. [Carrie laughs.] Yeah, I like the idea of this whole episode being in reverse.
carrie
									
Oh, yeah. I’m gonna do it.
ross
									
[Carrie makes several affirming sounds while Ross speaks. And, um, oh, my goodness. This is such—again—a rabbit hole. We could share so much stuff. Chiefly amongst them, all of these reversals that you can find on the website. So if you go to reversespeech.com/reversals , you’ll find a long list of analyses that have been done of all kinds of interesting world figures, speakers. So, for example, Cardinal George Pell, uh, who was involved in that, uh, molestation case brought against the Catholic church. He was, um, Australian—oh, go figure, Australian—cardinal who the Vatican was kind of protecting for a long time, and then finally he got prosecuted for his role in knowing this abuse that was going on and covering it up. Clips that show he says: “We’re not the love.” “Mine was a sin.” “Do we help your guilt?” “Guilt was near the heart.”
carrie
									
It would be interesting to see how he would have analysed these before theoe stories broke.
ross
									
Right. Yeah, are they—
carrie
									
Presumably very differently.
ross
									
—are they predictive?
carrie
									
Right.
ross
									
Or, once you know exactly what you’re looking for, do you find interesting stuff. “Soon, you’ll feel the strap.” “Youth with abuse.” “Saw the guilt.” “The guy will be arrested.”
carrie
									
Oh. That’s a good one.
ross
									
“Damn misery cock define ugly day [snorts with laughter].”
carrie
									
[Deadpan] What.
ross
									
[Laughing] Oh, you gotta play that one.
carrie
									
That's not even useful.
clip
									
[Reversed recording of George Pell from David John Oates’s website.]
carie
									
That’s nothing.
ross
									
“Damn misery cock define ugly day.”
carrie
									
God.
ross
									
He also said, “I then might feel them up.”
carrie
									
Oh, goodness.
ross
									
So—so, uh, boy. Just all of this incisive insight into, uh, the OJ Simpson parole board.
carrie
									
Ooookay.
ross
									
“President Donald Trump,” he shows up quite a bit. Um, “Mark Zuckerberg testifying before congress.” A lot of Barack Obama as well. Uh, Tim Kaine. Donald Rumsfeld. “Steve Jobs reverse speech analysis.” Okay, wait, I gotta look. What is Steve Jobs say? “Evil shadow want it.”
carrie
									
Whoaaa.
ross
									
“Want to throw that by you. The sizzle.”
carrie
									
[Laughing] He wants to go to Sizzler.
ross
									
“Whirlwind I loot.”
carrie
									
Oh, whirlwind is something, right?
ross
									
Yeah, the significance right from the metaphors.
carrie
									
“He knows the demon, and it shows this.” “There’s grief when you panic.” “You surround the wolf eagle.”
clip
									
[Reversed recording of Steve Jobs from David John Oates’s website.]
carrie
									
Hey, okay. [Distinctly, slowly] You surround the wolf eagle.
clip
									
Carrie (Reverse recording from the iReverseSpeech app on a phone): You surround the wolf eagle. [Someone snorts with laughter.]
ross
									
Here you can see the culmination of years of study, three decades. And look at all he useful information that can be gleaned from, say, Bill Gates! “But I was nice in city.” [Both laugh.] “United States, did I need their fun?”
carrie
									
What?
ross
									
“You must do our way.” [Chuckles] And he clarifies, “An insistent that things be done Microsoft’s way.” “We now fuck you.”
carrie
									
Oh!
ross
									
Yeah, let’s hear that one.
carrie
									
I was just about to say these are boring. Until you got to, “We will fuck you.”
clip
									
Bill Gates (Recording from David John Oates’s website): Well, for a year we kept finding bugs un—until finally the—the company said, “No, no, no. You have to pay for this.” [Short, reversed sample from the above Bill Gates recording, repeated twice, slowed and pitch lowered each time.]
ross
									
[Imitating distorted sound of reversed audio] We now—[resumes regular tone] it helps—its helps when you slow it down.
carrie
									
Yeah, I hear it.
ross
									
“[Imitating distorted audio sound] We now fuck you.” [Regular tone] He also says, “I’m a fart.” [Carrie snorts quietly with laughter.] Oh. Another gay slur.
carrie
									
Gosh.
ross
									
M-kay.
carrie
									
I feel like David is giving us a little peek into at least his hangups.
ross
									
[Thoughtfully] Yeahhh.
carrie
									
Uh, I mean, and I might be being charitable there. I’m not sure. But, at least the—you know, the grab bag of concerns—
ross
									
Mm-hmm. Yeah, just—
carrie
									
—possibly prejudices—
ross
									
What is he listening for? What does he hear, you know?
carrie
									
Yeah.
ross
									
It says a certain thing. Oh, yeah, we’ve got an Oprah Winfrey. We’ve got Edward Snowden. Hours of fun on this website.
carrie
									
Hm. Well, you’re right. The human brain is wild. And it draws connections where there sometimes are not connections. And that served us very well, a very long time ago. [Ross chuckles.] I’m Carrie Poppy. [Ross sighs with laughter.]
clip
									
[Reversed recording of Carrie and Ross on the iReverseSpeech app on a phone.]
ross
									
And you can support us on social media at facebook.com/onrac.
carrie
									
Or on Twitter @OhNoPodcast.
ross
									
Or at MaximumFun if you want to contribute financially, you can slash join or slash donate. And listen at the end, uh, for this awesome rendition of our theme song by listener Thea Horowitz.
carrie
									
It’s pretty great.
ross
									
It’s [initiates distorted audio] fantastic.
carie
									
And remember:
clip
									
[Reversed recording of Ross saying a short phrase.]
music
									
“Listen to Me Backwards” off the album Play Me Backwards by Joan Baez. Music fades out after about 15 seconds. You don’t have to play me backwards To get the meaning of my verse You don’t have to die and go to hell To feel the devil’s curse
music
									
Cover of “Oh No, Ross and Carrie! Theme Song,” originally by Brian Keith Dalton and performed here by Thea Horowitz. Played entirely on violin, and given a music-hall style.
promo
									
Music: Upbeat, simple electronic music. Janet Varney: Hi! I'm Janet Varney, and like many of you—brand new sentient robots excluded—I used to be a teenager. In fact, just about all of my friends were, too! Including folks like comedian Danielle Radford. [Into interview.] Danielle Radford: And of course all of us, you—you take on that theatre accent, and our teacher would say, "No, that isn't how people talk!" Janet: Right?! Danielle: "Don't do the super theatre kid accent; it's the worst!" But so, when I was doing theatre in high school, of course I immediately was talking about [pseudo-British accent] being in the theatre. Janet: [Laughing] Uh-huh? [Both laugh.] [Out of interview.] Janet: So join me every week on the JV Club podcast, where I speak with my favorite women artists, innovators, and humans as we reminisce about the past and how it led us to becoming who we are. Find it every Thursday on Maximum Fun. [Music ends.]
music
									
A cheerful guitar chord.
speaker 1
									
MaximumFun.org
speaker 2
									
Comedy and Culture.
speaker 3
									
Artist owned—
speaker 4
									
—Audience supported.
About the show

Welcome to Oh No, Ross and Carrie!, the show where we don’t just report on fringe science, spirituality, and claims of the paranormal, but take part ourselves. Follow us as we join religions, undergo alternative treatments, seek out the paranormal, and always find the humor in life’s biggest mysteries. We show up – so you don’t have to. Every week we share a new investigation, interview, or update.
Follow @ohnopodcast on Twitter and join the Facebook group!