Have you ever wondered if people can really predict the future? Today, Ben shares a campfire story about telekinesis and the amazing power of our minds.
Have you ever wondered if people can really predict the future? Today, Ben shares a campfire story about telekinesis and the amazing power of our minds.
* Share your camp adventures on social media using #AKCAsummer or write to us at listen@akidsco.com. We love, love, love hearing from you.
Follow the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever podcasts are found and check out other podcasts made for kids just like you by visiting akidsco.com. While you’re there, be sure to check out Ben’s book, A Kids Book About Adventure.
Camp Adventure: A Kids Summer Camp Podcast
S2 E02 Amazing Powers of the Mind
[INTRODUCTION]
[bugle plays a welcome]
Louis: Hello everyone. And welcome to week two of Camp Adventure.
The camp in your bedroom or living room. The camp that's in the bus or in the car.
Camp Adventure is for everyone, no matter who you are.
This week's theme is Amazing Powers of the Mind.
My name is Counselor Louis, I love music, dancing and science. I love learning all about the
Earth, animals, and about different cultures and I'm so excited to be here at camp with you.
Oh I forgot mention it’s evening time at camp and we always get a campfire going and i just love staring at it and feeling the warmth of the fire and listening to stories.
I want to pass it off to Camp Counselor Ben. He has the best stories.
[WELCOME]
Ben: All right, everybody let's gather around and settle in, and it is time for stories, which is as you well know my favorite part of camp. I'm stoked. Maybe imagine a crackling campfire going here. You might have to put a blanket on to stay cozy. You know, it can get a little chilly in the evening.
So, here we go, stories. You ready? I'm excited. Catherine Hulick is the author of the story that I'm going to read to you. It's from a book called strange, but true. And today's story is about controlling things with your mind. Yeah, I know, kind of weird. I don't even know if it's true. Can that actually happen?
I've seen Mary Poppins do it, and I was very envious of Mary Poppins. She could stand at a doorway and move all of the messy things in the room around with her mind and then put it back where it was supposed to be. Wouldn't that'd be wonderful. If you could control your room with your mind and just put it all away in an instant?.
That's like, that'd be pretty fun. Well, Catherine Hulick, our author. She tells a story and then she asks questions about, did that really happen and talks about some of the science behind it and all of that. So it's a really cool way to go about storytelling. I'm excited. We're going to do this all through camp, this round.
So here we go. I hope that you're settled in and ready for a story. The title of our story is…
“Amazing Powers of the Mind”.
[STORYTIME]
Ben: A tall young man with striking features and thick black hair hunches over a piece of paper, pen in his hand, eyes closed. He's about to demonstrate remarkable and mysterious powers of the mind.
The year is 1973 and the young man is named Uri Geller. He's appearing on a live television talk show that was very popular in Britain at the time. Before his appearance, a production assistant for the show went into a closed room, drew a picture of some unknown object and hid it in an envelope. Geller says that he can use the powers of his mind to see it. He doesn't know how he does it. Maybe he reads the thoughts of the production assistant, a power called telepathy, or maybe his mind probes inside the envelope somehow to see the drawing hidden within an ability called clairvoyance.
“Okay, I'm getting something,” Geller says, resting one hand on the sealed envelope, sitting on the table in front of him, he begins to draw a large triangle over a long, thin horizontal shape. “It could be a boat or a ship.” The talk show host opens the envelope and out comes a drawing of a sailboat, almost identical to the one that Geller has just made. The audience cheers.
Geller has more amazing abilities, too. Later on the same show, he picks up a fork and he begins to rub it between his fingers. I'm holding it very, very gently. He says, and the camera zooms in on his fingers. After a few minutes, he says, it's cracking. Look, it's becoming like plastic. It's breaking the end of the fork falls to the floor with the clatter. In similar performances around the world, he bends or breaks spoons, keys rings, and other metal objects. He stops or starts watches and he influences the behavior of other machines. He claims that he does this with the power of his mind, an ability called telekinesis.
In multiple radio and television appearances, Uri Geller tells his audience to try these same things at home. Surprisingly, many people report that metal objects in their homes bend mysteriously, or that broken watches or other machines suddenly start working again. One woman in San Francisco had a watch that once belonged to her grandson. It hadn't worked for many years and she always kept it in her dresser drawer. But after watching Geller on TV, she found the watch on her bed. In a letter, she reports, “It was running. It had been transported some way from the drawer to the bed while I was in the living room.”
Could psychic powers be real? In a book about his life, who are you? Geller wrote this. I feel that these powers come from far outside me that I am like a tube that channels them. I know that something unusual is going on here and I'd like other people, as many as possible, to know about it and to explore it together.
Matthew: Wait! Hold on just a minute. Hold on just a minute. Camp Counselor Matthew here.
This can’t be real, can it? Is it really possible to read someone’s mind? To see and recreate a drawing done by someone else? In an entirely different location? No way!
Call me a skeptic, but I feel like if telekinesis was real then we’d be able to take classes and all learn ourselves, right? Right….?
Then again, maybe I just wasn’t born with the gift? Or maybe I just need to be taught how to unlock those skills?
Honestly? Feels a bit like an X-Men power, right? Dr. X or Jean Grey? Concentrating, maybe putting two fingers to their temples, and then being able to see and hear and know and control everything?
WOAH! Are X-Men powers real?!
Okay. Okay. Zipping my lips so Ben can continue.
Ben: Geller and his audiences are not the only ones exploring the possibilities of psychic phenomena. Over the decades, some scientists have tried to determine if telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis and other powers are real. And if they are real, then how do they work? What unknown forces or energies might be involved? In 1970 during the cold war between the USA and the Soviet Union American spies obtained video of secret Soviet. In the film, a woman called Nina Kulagina seemingly stopped a beating frog's heart using only the power of her mind.
Oh, man, I feel bad for that frog. Don't you?
She also seemed to be able to lift and move small objects with mental powers. The video alarmed the United States defense department. Could psychics stop people's hearts from afar. What else could psychics? Might the alter the thoughts of us leaders, or maybe disable us military machines and equipment? The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) decided to take action. They planned an investigation into psychic phenomena.
Two excellent physicists help putting off and Russell targ agreed to perform the research, the science research they worked with and several other psychics on the series of experiments during 1972 and 1973 at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in place where they do lots of science study. During a series of experiments. Geller tried to reproduce hidden drawings for most of these trials. Geller sat locked inside of a room, surrounded by double walls of. This was meant to prevent him from seeing or hearing anything going on outside of the room. Once he was locked inside, researchers outside selected an object and they made a drawing. When the researchers drew the solar system, Geller also produced a picture of planets. Remarkably, when the researchers drew a bunch of grapes, Geller produced a picture with the exact same number of grapes on it.
In a presentation to fellow scientists. After these studies, Targ said, “We have observed certain phenomena with the subjects, for which we have no scientific explanation.” A year later, the study appeared in Nature, one of the world's most prestigious science journals. Geller told his adoring fans that his abilities had been scientifically proven to be real.
Louis: Well hello again. It’s counselor Louis. So what do you think? Are psychic powers real? Or is it all just tricks of the mind?
Let's take a quick stretch break, move around, wiggle a little, and when we come back, we’ll hear the end of “Amazing Powers of the Mind.”
Be right back.
[BREAK]
Louis: Hello and welcome back. I saved your spot by the campfire and you’ll want to lean in close as Ben shares the rest of the story, “Amazing Powers of the Mind.” Is it possible that science may help us read thoughts or see what someone is thinking?
Im so excited for you to hear the rest! Back to you, Ben!
[STORYTIME CONTINUED]
Ben: You may have experienced unusual events in your life too. Perhaps you sometimes have dreams that later come true, or maybe mechanical objects that seem to fail around you. They stop working for some reason. Or maybe you always know which friend is going to text you next. Do these kinds of experiences mean that the human mind has mysterious psychic powers?
People often build up beliefs based on events that seem related, but are not. Our brain is a meaning-seeking machine, says Martinez-Conde. Normally linking together causes and effects helps people form useful beliefs about the world. For example, dark clouds, lead to rain. And thorns lead to painful pricks on your finger arms. But this same process also leads to false beliefs and superstitions. Like the idea that wearing your lucky hat or shirt or socks can help your favorite sports team win a game.
People also tend to notice and remember only evidence that supports their existing beliefs. At the same time they ignore or explain a way, the evidence that conflicts with those beliefs. This is called confirmation bias. If you believe that your dreams predict the future, you will remember dreams that match future event. But we'll probably ignore or totally forget the majority of the dreams that don't.
Matthew: Wait, what?!
Our brain might be the superpower at work here?
Is this why some fortune cookie fortunes feel like they know me? And they know exactly what’s going to happen in my future? It’s definitely a really strong feeling when that fortune seems to point to something that happens later in my week.
I even hold onto fortunes that seem especially strong and I tape them inside my desk drawer to see later!
And it’s all…. My mind… making meaning and connection where there isn’t really any meaningful meaning or connection in the first place.
Wow.
Oops! Sorry Ben! Please continue.
Ben: Most believe in their own abilities. They are fooling themselves as much as everybody else says. Christopher French, a psychologist at Goldsmiths university of London. Uri Geller may use tricks in his performances, but still, truly believe that he has real powers that only work occasionally. Other psychics may not consciously use any tricks. They usually meet one-on-one with clients to help them figure out how to handle problems in their lives or plan for the future. Psychics may study the lines on the poem and arrangement of cards or the date of a person's birth.
When Ray Hyman was a teenager, he learned to read palms. You know, the palm of your hand. He just wanted a way to make some extra. But his readings worked so well that he became a believer. If he saw that the line on a person's palm, called the heart line, was broken, then the person always said that they had been unlucky in love. A few, few years later, a friend challenged him to tell his clients the exact opposite of what he saw in their poems. If the heart line was broken, he had to say to that person that they were in a happy relationship. Strangely, the reading still worked.
That's quite an experiment, isn't it? He told them the wrong thing and they said, well, that's right.
Hyman has now a psychologist at the University of Oregon who debunks claims of psychic ability. He says that he learned an important lesson from this early experiment. If you set people up, right, you can tell them anything. If they've got a creative and intelligent mind, then no matter how crazy it seems to be, they can find a way of re-interpreting it. So it really fits them like a glove.
The psychic and client worked together to come up with a meaningful story. The psychic often begins with vague statements that apply to anyone. For example, “You are shy at times, but also have a great time going out with friends”. Well, a person who is not very shy ignores the first half of the sentence, but may smile and nod during the second year. So the psychic can continue on using this information. If the psychic gets something completely wrong, he or she can change the story until the client responds positively. If the psychic says, “I see a long trip on a boat” and the person has never been on a boat, that's no problem. The psychic can say that the boat is a metaphor for traveling or maybe a boat trip is in the future. Or maybe a loved one has spent some time on the boat. The ultimate effect is that the reading feels like it's magical, but the real magic is in the creativity and adaptability of the human mind.
Real psychic abilities do not seem to exist. This does not make the human brain any less amazing or mysterious. It is an organ that sparks with electricity as billions of cells called neurons. Communicate with each other patterns of flashing neurons control the body and form salts, emotions, dreams, and more scientists who studied the brain are beginning to understand and decipher some of these patterns. People who are paralyzed or have lost limbs have learned to control a robotic arm or a leg with their thoughts. This seems like telekinesis, but in fact, a computer system translates messages from the brain into instructions that move the arm or the leg. Other researchers have collected brain activity as people watched movies. They managed to recreate blurry images of the movies from patterns inside the brain activity. These brain computer systems can not read entire thoughts, like reading a book, but in the future, it is certainly possible that people could gain powers very similar to telepathy. If this ever happens, it will be science and technology that make it possible.
The End
And thanks everybody. Thanks for has story time. And oh, I wonder what you're thinking. And I wonder what sorts of stories you have to tell about the same kind of thing. Very interesting. I can't wait to see you next time. All right. Goodbye.
Louis: Wow what a story! It's Counselor Louis and I hope you enjoyed that. It is so interesting to hear about how the brain works and all about the awesome world of psychics and how it works.
The story went perfectly with our theme this week “Amazing powers of the mind” and i told you Camp Counselor Ben is amazing at telling stories. The theme next week is You belong.
I want to let you know It has been super fantastic spending time with and before we end here's a quick message from Counselor Matthew.
[CLOSING CREDITS]
Matthew: Thank you, Louis! And thank you Ben for sharing that story with us. As the campfire’s dying down, I’ve just got a few reminders and bits of information to share.
A reminder to all campers to share your camp adventures on social media using #AKCAsummer or write to us at listen@akidsco.com. We love, love, love hearing from you.
Camp Adventure is written by Ben Tertin with help from the A Kids Podcast About team.
Permission to use excerpts from Strange But True, written by Kathryn Hulick and illustrated by Gordy Wright, was granted by the publisher Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, an imprint of The Quarto Group.
The show is edited and produced by Matthew Winner.
Audio production is by Chad Michael Snavely and the team at Sound On Studios. Our executive producer is Jelani Memory. And this show was brought to you by A Kids Podcast About.
Follow the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever podcasts are found and check out other podcasts made for kids just like you by visiting akidsco.com. While you’re there, be sure to check out Ben’s book, A Kids Book About Adventure.
See you back at camp next week for another adventure!