Joe Rogan Experience #1163 - Banachek

Joe Rogan 0:03 Here we go. Four, three, two, one. Boom. And now we're live. How are you, sir?

Banachek 0:10 I am wonderful.

Joe Rogan 0:11 We had wonderful chat offstage. (laughs)

Banachek 0:12 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:13 Off microphone. But, uh...

Banachek 0:14 Yeah. You probably would love to have that on here, but I just couldn't do it.

Joe Rogan 0:17 No. No, I wouldn't.

Banachek 0:18 No?

Joe Rogan 0:18 I would never want to do that to you.

Banachek 0:19 Yeah. No, I, yeah, exactly.

Joe Rogan 0:20 Yeah.

Banachek 0:20 And I wouldn't want to do that to... Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:23 Yeah. So listen, man, it's great to see you again.

Banachek 0:25 It's good to see you again. Been a while.

Joe Rogan 0:26 Yeah. We, well, I know we ran into each other once in Vegas-

Banachek 0:29 Mandalay Bay.

Joe Rogan 0:30 ... at a bar, right?

Banachek 0:30 Mandalay Bay. Uh-

Joe Rogan 0:31 So random.

Banachek 0:32 Uh, Eye Eye Candy. And I turn a-

Joe Rogan 0:34 There's, is that what it's called?

Banachek 0:35 Yeah. I turned around-

Joe Rogan 0:36 Oh.

Banachek 0:36 ... and you turned around and we made eye contact in Eye Candy. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:39 Wait, how long ago was that? That was a long time ago? Still.

Banachek 0:41 Uh, yeah, it had to be about probably five years ago, four years ago now, right?

Joe Rogan 0:44 Yeah. I know we talked about doing a podcast back then even.

Banachek 0:46 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:47 I'm glad we finally got together and did it.

Banachek 0:48 Yeah, me too. It's gonna be fun.

Joe Rogan 0:50 You did that TV show that I did a long time ago, Joe Rogan Questions Everything. And you, um, uh, blew me away. You, and, uh, me and Duncan, uh-

Banachek 1:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00 And you showed us all the tricks that people... Well, you didn't... You showed us that they were tricks, but you didn't show us how to do the tricks.

Banachek 1:10 I broke one thing down for you, but that was about it. It was a psychological thing 'cause here's the thing-

Joe Rogan 1:14 Yeah.

Banachek 1:14 ... right? It's, it's better to know that you can be fooled rather-

Joe Rogan 1:17 Yes.

Banachek 1:17 ... than tell you how you can be fooled. And we'll, we'll get into this about with scientists and how I fooled them in a little bit. But people always tell me, "Why don't you just teach parapsychologists the tricks?" And the problem is, is for every single trick that I have, I probably have about seven or eight methods. So if I teach you one method, Joe, somebody else will come along and maybe a method of Benday Key, they'll do it a completely different convincing way and you'll be looking for that one method. And you may say, because you don't have the experience, you may say, "Uh, this has to be real. I know how the trick's done. They're not doing that. They are actually doing something completely different. This has to be real." So it's better to get an expert.

Joe Rogan 1:55 Let me ask you this one because my friend Eddie was at Venice Beach and, uh, this guy w- was doing... He had some save the rainforest thing. And he said, "If I tell you your birthday, will, will you listen to me and donate some money or something like that?"

Banachek 2:11 Right.

Joe Rogan 2:11 And he goes, "Okay." And he, he just goes, "May 15th."

Banachek 2:15 Right. Just straight out-

Joe Rogan 2:16 Just whatever it is.

Banachek 2:16 Straight out like that?

Joe Rogan 2:17 Yeah, he just figured it out.

Banachek 2:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:18 I'm like how could someone do that?

Banachek 2:19 I can't tell you because I wasn't there. There could have been other circumstances, there could have been something overheard, there could have been something he's seen. He may have been in the store when the guy took his driver's license. There, there, there's could be... there's a million things that could have happened that your friend Eddie was not aware of before that guy even walked up to him.

Joe Rogan 2:35 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 2:36 So I can't... I really can't answer that because it's circumstantial. And here's the other thing, does Eddie really remember everything exactly the way that it was, you know? Or has he forgotten something and left something out in that story because he's told it so many times?

Joe Rogan 2:48 Right.

Banachek 2:49 And usually, here's the thing, right? When people want to convince you of something, they embellish.

Joe Rogan 2:55 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 2:55 And the more times they tell that story, that embellishment becomes their reality. They basically create a whole new reality for themselves that they forget that maybe they wrote it down. They forget that maybe they said something. They forget that the person might have asked specific questions. He might have said, "Yeah, I get the feeling that you're probably not born in the beginning of the year, maybe later in the year, maybe in the fall or something like that." The person says, "No, but I am born at the beginning of the year." Now you know it's the wintertime, so now you get within a few months right there.

Joe Rogan 3:24 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 3:24 So there's, there are ways within mentalism, which is what I am, a mentalist, and we'll explain what that is in a minute. But, um, there are ways to do those things and there's many ways to do those type of things. So without being there, I can't tell you exactly what your friend Eddie experienced. To him, it was very, very real.

Joe Rogan 3:41 You don't believe in any psychic power?

Banachek 3:43 I've s-

Joe Rogan 3:44 Is that fair to say?

Banachek 3:45 Okay. It's fair to say, but if you just say it that way, it sounds very cold. It kinda sounds like I'm an asshole, I'm a dick, I'm a-

Joe Rogan 3:51 No, it doesn't.

Banachek 3:51 ... I'm a skeptic dick in a way. Well, it can because it means I'm not having been open-minded. I am very open-minded about these things. And whenever I investigate a new phenomena, I open... I step back, I put everything that I, I think that, "Hey, it's not real," I put that aside and go, "This could be the one. I'm gonna give him a chance, but I'm gonna look at it... I am gonna be a little bit skeptical. I am gonna do, you know, double blind test. I am gonna step back and look at it from a scientific point of view. I'm not gonna be stupid about this and I'm not gonna let them get away with something." And I also know they may be self-deceived. And I've seen so much of this type of phenomena that I usually know what's going on when I do see it. So, I can honestly say that I've seen so much phenomena and I've looked at so much of it, and I've seen the best people out there, and I've tested some of the best people out there that I have not seen anything indicative that psychic phenomena is genuine.

Joe Rogan 4:45 Have you ever heard of anyone who is reasonably believable that has seen anything that counts as psychic phenomena?

Banachek 4:53 I think you hear that all the time, right? When you see a John Edward on TV or you hear these, these anecdotes and stuff like that, and it's just like you telling me about Eddie. So you telling me that sounds like, "Oh, wow, that person could be really psychic."

Joe Rogan 5:05 Right.

Banachek 5:05 But I know that there's probably more going on when that person did that.

Joe Rogan 5:08 Well, I'm glad you answered the way you answered because that does make a lot of sense that-

Banachek 5:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:12 ... you do tell stories and people do forget how the story actually went. The human memory is very flawed.

Banachek 5:18 Oh, absolutely. I- it's why we can change a person's memory, you know. There's been plenty of experiments that have done on that of, you know, you take a certain group of people... I can't remember what her name is. It's just not coming to me. Um, I have dyslexia a- as well, which is really weird when you see what I do on stage because I work with numbers, I work with names, and I use a lot of mnemonics for these things. So I have a really hard time recalling names and books that I read and stuff like that. I just... It's really hard. It'll come to me, but it takes a while for those things to come back to me.

Joe Rogan 5:44 How does dyslexia work? Like what does it... I always thought that it, like, switched things a- the girl I dated in high school had it.

Banachek 5:50 It does switch things around. Uh, it's one of those things, like if I'm working with numbers, I can't... I don't even... I think what it is is I got so disappointed with numbers when I was young. I love numbers. I love the fact that everything in the world is numbers. I love th- the idea of numbers, of what they do. But I think when I was young I would get so frustrated.Um, even in high school, I, I, and, and, and in middle school, I would do math problems, but I would figure out a way that worked for me to do the math problem. And then the teacher would come up, they'd say like, "Show your work," and I would put it down. And they'd say, "No, that's wrong." I'd go, "But I got the right answer." "Yeah, but that's not the way we do it. You need to do it this way." And the normal way of doing things was extremely difficult for me-

Joe Rogan 6:31 But why so? What, what is-

Banachek 6:32 ... so I give up.

Joe Rogan 6:32 What happens?

Banachek 6:32 Well, it does switch, it switches numbers around, you know, and if you're trying to carry numbers-

Joe Rogan 6:36 Switches them around.

Banachek 6:36 ... it'll, it, it'll switch letters for me. I'll use words that are the wrong words. Like, I could be talking to you during this podcast, and then I'll listen to the podcast, and I'll go, "Oh, my God, why did I use that word?" You know, I, I had a thing where, um... I'll give you an example, uh, the type of things that happen to me. I have a line when I say, um, in, in some of my shows, where I say, uh, "I, I read thoughts, not minds." What do I mean by that? Husband and wife are sitting on a park bench. Pretty girl goes jogging by. Husband turns his head and looks. Wife slaps the husband in the face. We know what the husband was thinking. We know what the wife was thinking, right? We haven't read their minds, but we do know what their thoughts are. So it's sort of that body language thing.

Joe Rogan 7:15 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 7:15 And I remember one time doing this for a skeptics group, and I was on stage, and I was like, "Husband and wife are sitting on a park bench. Pretty girl walks by. Husband slaps the wife in the face." So I said it exactly the opposite-

Joe Rogan 7:26 Oh.

Banachek 7:26 ... of the way... And they just thought it was a joke. Like, they thought I, I was being stupid and just, just a joke.

Joe Rogan 7:31 Right.

Banachek 7:31 But I do that kind of stuff consistently, and I have a really hard... Like, if you say certain words-

Joe Rogan 7:36 But a lot of people do that.

Banachek 7:37 Yeah, that-

Joe Rogan 7:37 They, they do it accidentally.

Banachek 7:38 ... but it's really bad for me. Like, I do it-

Joe Rogan 7:40 Ah.

Banachek 7:40 ... I do it consistently. You'll, you'll, you'll talk about things, and I hear you talk about things, and you'll use words that I actually know what the word means, but if I wanted to recall that word and use it, cannot remember it.

Joe Rogan 7:53 W- but what's the mechanism? Like, what is happening in your mind where it switches things around-

Banachek 7:56 I, I, I-

Joe Rogan 7:57 ... that they call it dyslexia?

Banachek 7:58 ... yeah, I don't know. I, I, I, I don't know.

Joe Rogan 8:00 Is it just the effect?

Banachek 8:00 For me, it's just-

Joe Rogan 8:01 Just the fact that it happens-

Banachek 8:01 ... for me, it's just-

Joe Rogan 8:02 ... they call it dyslexia?

Banachek 8:02 ... for me, it's the effect, and it's a, a really fucked-up word, right-

Joe Rogan 8:05 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 8:05 ... for a dyslexic to use dyslexia.

Joe Rogan 8:07 (laughs)

Banachek 8:07 Like, couldn't they come up with a, a better word for that, right?

Joe Rogan 8:09 That's funny, it's true.

Banachek 8:10 I mean, it's horrible. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:11 A word that's really hard for dyslexics to say.

Banachek 8:13 Well, that's, that's the way it is with all that stuff.

Joe Rogan 8:15 Right.

Banachek 8:15 But, you know, it's like, um, I got a lisp. Uh, there's an S in there. It's like-

Joe Rogan 8:19 Right.

Banachek 8:20 ... why?

Joe Rogan 8:20 That's funny.

Banachek 8:21 Why, you know?

Joe Rogan 8:21 It's true.

Banachek 8:21 Why?

Joe Rogan 8:22 It's true.

Banachek 8:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:23 Um, so y- so you... Is there anybody that, like... I mean, there's the James Randi Challenge, right?

Banachek 8:29 Right.

Joe Rogan 8:30 Famously, where-

Banachek 8:30 Yep, yep, which I was in charge of the million dollars, and I tested many psychics for that. I, I'm, I guess what I should do is probably go-

Joe Rogan 8:35 You were in charge of it? How so?

Banachek 8:36 Yeah, well-

Joe Rogan 8:37 Like-

Banachek 8:37 ... let's go back to my beginning, so you understand-

Joe Rogan 8:39 Okay.

Banachek 8:39 ... how I got here on this journey.

Joe Rogan 8:41 Okay.

Banachek 8:41 If that's okay?

Joe Rogan 8:41 Yes, please.

Banachek 8:42 So, all right. And, um, I'll talk about a couple of personal things in the very beginning. So, I was born in 1960, so I'm, I'm 58 years old, you know, so yeah. Uh, and, uh, I was born in England, left there and came to the United States. My mom divorced my dad in that year, went back to the, to England. And I'm giving you this so you understand where I'm coming from and how I got on this journey. Uh, she had two kids. Uh, we immigrated to South Africa in 1969. She abandoned me in South Africa that time, with my two brothers, a year and three years old. We had a stepfather who was an alcoholic. We saw him maybe on Sundays, maybe, if I drug him in from the car into the house, we would see him then. So I was changing diapers, I was taking care of my brothers, and so forth.

Joe Rogan 9:20 Wow.

Banachek 9:21 Uh, and I was there until I was 15 years old. Now, it was during that time that I, I heard a guy by the name of Uri Geller, who was a famous psychic, and he's the first one to claim that he could actually bend objects with his mind, like silverware, and became really famous for it. He was supposedly, uh... They did research with him at Standard, uh, Stanford Research, uh, uh, Stan- uh, Stanford, uh, Stanford Research Institute. Um, and he was using that sort of as an endorsement to say that he was genuine. And one of the things that Geller did was he said if you bring metal objects to the radio, you can get them to bend as well. So, I mean, think about my horso-

Joe Rogan 9:54 To the radio?

Banachek 9:55 To, to... Yeah, because he was on radio.

Joe Rogan 9:56 So, like, he was on the radio-

Banachek 9:57 There was no T-

Joe Rogan 9:57 ... and he was talking, so he would say that-

Banachek 9:58 Well, there was no TV there at the time. They had-

Joe Rogan 10:00 Right.

Banachek 10:00 ... Springbok TV. Uh, they didn't have the actual station, but they were putting it up. And they had TVs in the store at the time, but they were playing Popeye VHS movies back then, you know, on the-

Joe Rogan 10:10 Oh, wow.

Banachek 10:10 ... or however they played it back then, but no TV station, so that was the thing. Everybody there listened to the radio. And he's like, "If you bring it to the radio, you can do it with the unleashed powers of your mind. You can get metal to bend."

Joe Rogan 10:21 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 10:21 So I went around the house. I found a little pin in my mom's old sewing sh- kit, and I held it up, and I looked at it, and I stared at it, and I concentrated on it, and it bent. Well, on a micro level. At least I thought it bent. So I convinced myself that it had bent minutely. Uh, and I, I learned that years later, but in my mind, I had got that to happen. From there, I went to Australia to go be with my biological dad, and from there to Colorado. And it was while I was in Colorado that I picked up a book by James, the Amazing Randi. And that book said the truth about Uri Geller... In fact, the book was changed, the name was changed years later to The Truth About Uri- The Truth of Uri Geller from The Magic of Uri Geller, and that book basically said that Uri was a magician posing as a psychic. And no adult had ever told me that before. All the adults that I did know, they believed in Uri, so I believed in it as well. And I learned a valuable lesson. Just because people are in a position of authority, because they're adults, they're older than you, doesn't make everything they say correct-

Joe Rogan 11:18 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 11:19 ... which I learnt it, learnt it that way. Um, 'cause keep in mind, I was really socially inept, th- because I was always taking care of my brothers. I had no free time, so I wasn't hanging out with other kids. I wasn't doing those things. I had a great life, don't get me wrong. I had a really great life in South Africa. I did stupid stuff like jumping off bridges, into trains, just so we could get apples, so we would have apples to eat at home, and stuff like that. Jump off the train, take it home, so those were great things. Those were great times, actually. Bel- even though it sounds like it's really sad, it's not. So anyway, I read this book, and, uh, in the book, uh, Randi sort of mentions, alludes to a method for bending a nail. And so I picked... I got some nails. I started creating my own ways. I'm sort of a problem solver. I can... You give me something you want to do-... and I can go ahead and figure out a way to do it. It's why I work for people like Criss Angel and, you know, David Blaine opened his second TV special with one of my effects. And I'm the first person to be buried alive, six feet under the ground, chained and handcuffed in a coffin and dig my way to the surface, which I've done twice and almost died twice doing that. Um, but anyway, getting back on track here. So-

Joe Rogan 12:21 We'll get back to that later.

Banachek 12:22 Yeah. So, I wrote-

Joe Rogan 12:23 We need to hear about that.

Banachek 12:24 S- so I wrote-

Joe Rogan 12:24 You can't just gloss over that, sir.

Banachek 12:26 I'll, I'll gloss over a whole bunch of crap. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 12:28 (laughs)

Banachek 12:28 Like, I, I've done crazy, crazy stuff where I should be dead. I look back now and I go, "I am really li-" I mean, even when I was a kid, I was crawling down just, just to do it. I'd look out the top story window and I'd go, "I think I can climb down that drain pipe. I think I can do it upside down." And I would actually climb upside down using my feet to keep myself up there-

Joe Rogan 12:46 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 12:46 ... and climb down the drain pipe to get down. So I did a lot of dumb, dumb, dumb stuff. Um, so I was in high school, and I started to create methods for bending silverware, so much so that all the kids there went to plastic ... I mean, the school actually went to plastic silverware because all the kids in there were bringing all their silverware to me, so we were getting low on silverware. Um, they went to plastic silverware. I got in trouble.

Joe Rogan 13:07 You were bending the silverware with your mind?

Banachek 13:09 I w-

Joe Rogan 13:09 Is that what you're saying?

Banachek 13:10 Well, I was making it look like I-

Joe Rogan 13:12 You were using an effect.

Banachek 13:12 I was using tricks to make it look like I was bending it with my mind.

Joe Rogan 13:15 Right.

Banachek 13:15 Yeah. I was cr- I was basically doing what Geller was doing, only the difference was is I didn't realize it, but ... until I saw Geller. I was ... I'd never seen Geller work. I just heard about him on the radio, and I heard you're supposed to see the metal bend. So in my mind, the effects that I created to bend metal, you actually saw the forks and the spoons and that bending. And if you see any magician working today, more than likely they're using a couple of my techniques to make metal look like it's actually bending. Uh, I even figured a way to make the school bell go off so we could get out of school early. I got suspended for that one.

Joe Rogan 13:46 Why'd you do that?

Banachek 13:47 Because I could. I-

Joe Rogan 13:48 No, how?

Banachek 13:49 Oh.

Joe Rogan 13:49 How'd you do that?

Banachek 13:50 Th- there was a, there was a, a wire, and there was a short that goes through this one classroom that I was in, and I was able to figure out how to exactly, how to get that short to work so the bell would go off. And we got out of school early. It was just connecting the two, and it's like, you unconnect, you connect, and it goes off. So it was like, "Oh, okay. This is great," and got out. Uh, with the clock up on the wall, if you look at a clock, I realized that as the clock hand goes around, all the way around, it looks like it's slowing down when it comes back up. It's not. It's just an optical illusion from one side. So I would make kids think that I was making the clock slow down. And I figured a way on an old Tim- Timex watch that I used to be able to wear that if I pulled the stem out and slowly turned it backwards and pushed it in, the second hand would keep moving for about 35 seconds, and then it would just start, like, going click, click, click, and then it would stop. So I could put my watch in somebody's hand. So I come up with all these different methods for accomplishing all these different feats. I started learning how to do a thing called muscle reading, which we can talk about in a little bit.

Joe Rogan 14:47 Muscle reading?

Banachek 14:47 Yeah. It's like if ... it, it's, it's an old, old technique that nobody uses, and I was really surprised that people were not using it. But it was really, really popular, uh, back in the, uh, l- late 1800s, where if you ... if I take your wrist, and it, it's based upon the ideomotor response. If I take your wrist and I tell you, "Look at my other hand, and I want you to imagine it actually touching an object." Think of one of these objects, five objects on a table. Think of my hand actually touching it, and I move my left hand l- which you're not holding. You're actually ... I'm holding y- you with my right hand.

Joe Rogan 15:19 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 15:19 But I'm moving your hand in sync with it. I ... if you're thinking, go to the left, go to the left, go to the left, I can actually feel the resistance when I go to the right in your arm. So you give off this, this, this thing that lets me know exactly where to go. And you ... Preskin did it with his check. He would hide the check, and, and before that, Polgar did it with his check, and I've done it with my check when I do shows in the past, where they can hide your check anywhere in the theater. You take somebody's hand and you tell them, "Think of my other hand," and they have to know where the object's hidden. And think of that hand actually going there and touching it, and you can actually find the object. So I was doing a lot of muscle reading back in those days.

Joe Rogan 15:56 Does it work on everybody? What about if you get some stone-cold psychopath?

Banachek 15:59 Nah. No.

Joe Rogan 16:00 And he just-

Banachek 16:00 They, they, they have to really truly be thinking it and wanting it to happen. And that's why I reframe it in the aspect of, uh, you've seen me do things with my mind. I want you to try doing something with your mind. Will this hand to actually touch that object?

Joe Rogan 16:13 Oh, okay.

Banachek 16:13 So, so they do.

Joe Rogan 16:14 Right.

Banachek 16:14 And they don't realize that subtly they're pushing and pulling you in the right direction.

Joe Rogan 16:19 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 16:19 And you can even say to them, "Don't pull me in the direction. Let me pull you." But you're still pulling and pushing with them and you can find the actual object.

Joe Rogan 16:24 Wow.

Banachek 16:24 And so I wrote a book on it. It's called Psychophysiological Thought Reading. And it's c-

Joe Rogan 16:28 Psychophysiological-

Banachek 16:29 Psychophysiological-

Joe Rogan 16:30 ... Thought Reading.

Banachek 16:31 ... Thought Reading.

Joe Rogan 16:31 Did you-

Banachek 16:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:31 ... name it?

Banachek 16:31 Which is muscle reading. I didn't name that. What I did was, uh, we call it muscle reading in the business, and-

Joe Rogan 16:37 The business?

Banachek 16:38 In the business, yeah. And I started looking at some of the older terms for it, and I found that term psychophysiological thought reading. I thought, "That's a great name for the book." Because every book I have written on mentalism, because I write books that teach people, and video I have, they all start with a P, psi series, you know?

Joe Rogan 16:53 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 16:53 It's, it's ... yeah. So it's all ...

Joe Rogan 16:54 I've talked to, you know ... I've talked to Penn about magic and about-

Banachek 16:59 Right.

Joe Rogan 16:59 ... illusions, and he's, you know, funny about it, and he laughs and says it's all lies and bullshit.

Banachek 17:05 Right.

Joe Rogan 17:05 And, you know, he makes it seem fun. But the way you described it, it, it became m- a little bit more compelling because you're, you're s- you're seemingly obsessed with it. Like, obviously to get as good as you got at becoming a mentalist, like, you, you had to be. Like, even the way that you rattle off things. You ... there's n- very little pause to you. You stop and start.

Banachek 17:26 And I talk too fast.

Joe Rogan 17:27 Yeah.

Banachek 17:27 I kno- everybody says, "You talk way too fast."

Joe Rogan 17:29 But you don't talk too fast, you just talk fast.

Banachek 17:31 So ... yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:31 I mean, I can hear you, it's very clear, but that's also what I noticed when you were doing the reading, when we did it in front of the, the crowd of people and you were able to pick out certain things and aspects of their life.

Banachek 17:40 Yeah. That, that's something that didn't make the air, because it didn't fit the format of the show there.

Joe Rogan 17:44 We just didn't have enough time.

Banachek 17:45 But one of the things-

Joe Rogan 17:46 Yeah.

Banachek 17:46 ... what, what, what Joe's talking about is there's a part in the show where I ask people just to think of things.

Joe Rogan 17:51 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 17:52 Um, and then I start getting initials, and then I get names, and then I get, um, yeah, you're, you're actually thinking about your grandmother and how you went on a bike ride with her through certain forests and went to Lake Wallenpaupack, and your birthdate is this and that. And I get birthdays-

Joe Rogan 18:08 People are freaking out.

Banachek 18:08 I get birthdays and stuff there, yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:09 Yeah.

Banachek 18:09 Yeah. And f-

Joe Rogan 18:10 They were freaki- but what ... the weirdest thing is, like, they, they're also overwhelmed by the fact that you never stop talking.

Banachek 18:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:16 Like it just, it just ready, go. (mimics rapid speech) It just keeps coming, they're like, "Huh? What? How do you know that?" And then, "No, no, don't, don't worry about that. We'll get to that in a minute."

Banachek 18:24 Y- you know where that comes from, Joe? That comes from back in my early days. I, I, um ... well, in the very beginning. Well, let's, let's continue with that story-

Joe Rogan 18:30 Okay.

Banachek 18:30 ... because I'll get to-

Joe Rogan 18:31 Yeah, please do.

Banachek 18:31 I'll, I'll get to that, to where I worked the places.

Joe Rogan 18:33 Okay.

Banachek 18:33 Because that sort of comes from working the comedy clubs and some really shitty, shitty places-

Joe Rogan 18:38 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 18:38 ... and having to grab people's attention.

Joe Rogan 18:39 Right.

Banachek 18:40 Um-So from there, I ended up writing Randy a letter, uh, just out of the blue because I was getting a little cocky, I guess, at young... you know, that age because I was getting away with all this stuff. And I wrote Randy-

Joe Rogan 18:50 Right.

Banachek 18:50 ... a letter. I said, "Look, if you ever need a kid to try to convince scientists that this stuff is real, I would be happy to, so long as I come out and say it's a hoax at the very end."

Joe Rogan 18:58 Hm.

Banachek 18:58 I had a couple of hypotheses. Um, and one of them was that scientists had lamented for years there's no evidence of ESP on a proper scientific control, so... now, this is back in the '80s, because of lack of funding. It was my contention it had nothing to do with funding. It had to do with the scientists were going with a pro-biased opinion and they were documenting their own beliefs rather than using proper science, first of all, to find out if it was even genuine. So they were not pro- using the proper scientific method. They were basically just saying, "I believe this is real. I'm gonna get it on tape or I'm gonna get it to where I can document it so the rest of the world can actually see it."

Joe Rogan 19:30 Well, okay, I just want me to slow you down. Uh, were they biased towards believing that it was real or fake?

Banachek 19:35 Yes. No, believing it was real-

Joe Rogan 19:36 Huh.

Banachek 19:36 ... because you don't get... usually, you don't get into parapsychology unless you have an interest in it, and usually-

Joe Rogan 19:41 Hm.

Banachek 19:41 ... you don't have an interest in it unless you think there's something there, right?

Joe Rogan 19:44 Do those ghost shows drive you fucking crazy?

Banachek 19:46 Yeah, they do because I know-

Joe Rogan 19:48 Drive me fucking crazy.

Banachek 19:48 ... I, I've actually b-... I've actually been called to work on a couple of them behind the scenes-

Joe Rogan 19:53 (laughs)

Banachek 19:53 ... but I always tell them, "No, I can't do it." And I have some friends that have worked on them behind the scenes to try to make some of the investigators freak, and they're using magic tricks to get the investigators freak. And the great thing about those kind of shows is you only need to do one little thing, just something falling off a shelf because it just-

Joe Rogan 20:09 (laughs)

Banachek 20:09 That's all you need, right?

Joe Rogan 20:10 (laughs)

Banachek 20:10 I mean, it's like, "Yeah, there's a ghost. It fell off the shelf." And it's like-

Joe Rogan 20:13 That is a whole half-hour episode.

Banachek 20:14 And then they play that s-... they play that tape over and over-

Joe Rogan 20:16 So dumb.

Banachek 20:17 ... and over again. They show a little shadow or something like that.

Joe Rogan 20:19 There's nothing dumber on television.

Banachek 20:21 No. No. And, and, and, and-

Joe Rogan 20:22 Cartoons are smarter.

Banachek 20:22 And I know for a fact there are people that work behind them, behind those scenes at... fooling those guys. When we work... I work with Criss Angel a lot, all right? Uh, the early days, I worked with him on almost all of his epi- shows. I've done over, uh, uh, 100 episodes of television with Criss. And we... every year, we would do one episode that was a seance episode, that type of thing. And, uh, we brought a group of researchers in, and the moment they got off the bus, we had all this stuff set up and everything else to, to mess with them. The moment they got off the bus, I told my guys, I said, "We're not using any of that. We're just going to use pure psychology with these people." And that's what happened.

Joe Rogan 21:00 Why?

Banachek 21:00 Because I could tell they were s-... they were such believers-

Joe Rogan 21:02 They were suckers?

Banachek 21:03 ... that anything I suggest to them, they're gonna go for. So let's say we have six rooms, and I need this one room to be the room that is haunted because it's a story that goes on behind it-

Joe Rogan 21:15 Right.

Banachek 21:15 ... with something else that's already been said and position, or it's got to match up with a bunch of celebrities who feel something in the room as well. Um, all I gotta do is once we go in, I'll... you know, "You feel anything?" He says, "Oh, yeah, I feel a little haunting. I feel this and that," you know? "This room, I really want you to take time with." That's all I have to say, and it's like the psychics getting headaches and-

Joe Rogan 21:33 (laughs)

Banachek 21:33 ... they just... they go, they go crazy because I've already put it in their head at that point.

Joe Rogan 21:37 Right.

Banachek 21:37 So the stuff they come up with is gonna be much more believable than any of the little tricks that we had, like hidden recordings and stuff like that. The stuff they come up with is gonna be much more believable and much more of a hit.

Joe Rogan 21:50 Are there any real, like, supernatural investigators that actually believe in ghosts, or are they all con people?

Banachek 21:57 No, there's people who are investigators that believe in it. Yeah, absolutely there's people who believe in it.

Joe Rogan 22:00 But those shows, they must know that they're fucking with people.

Banachek 22:03 I think... yeah. Like, um, uh, what is it? Uh, Paranormal State was one of them, you know? And, and I, I think that some of them are a little abusive too because they work with the little kids sometimes and they talk the kids into believing these things and-

Joe Rogan 22:16 Hm.

Banachek 22:17 And, and it's just... it's just some of them are a little bit-

Joe Rogan 22:19 Creepy.

Banachek 22:19 Yeah, they're a little creepy.

Joe Rogan 22:20 Yeah.

Banachek 22:20 A little creepy what they do to them. And, you know, they usually don't have a psychologist taking care of the people afterwards-

Joe Rogan 22:25 Ah.

Banachek 22:26 ... to walk them through it. And it's just... it's... or the psychologist they do is also a paranormal investigator that believes-

Joe Rogan 22:32 Hm.

Banachek 22:32 ... in these kind of things and is gonna come at it a very slanted angle. So I've not seen a single one of these shows that I don't look at it and go, "Bullshit," and just end up turning it off. So, yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:43 Yeah. Did they... I mean, I mean, but is there anybody who, uh, like, legitimately bel-... like, anybody who's a reasonable person who legitimately believes in ghosts and legitimately believes... like, i- in every movie, every haunt-

Banachek 22:56 Right.

Joe Rogan 22:56 ... horror movie, there's always, like, this one real researcher-

Banachek 22:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:59 ... you know, that-

Banachek 23:00 Yeah. Yeah. No. There are. There's some people like Lloyd, uh, Lloyd Auerbach, you know, who I know is... he believes in this kind of stuff too. And-

Joe Rogan 23:06 Does he have a tumor?

Banachek 23:07 No, he doesn't have a tumor.

Joe Rogan 23:09 (laughs)

Banachek 23:09 (laughs) He d-... I... as far as I know, he does not have a tumor. He's a ni-

Joe Rogan 23:13 Sorry.

Banachek 23:13 He's a nice guy. You see, I respect a lot of these guys. I get along with them.

Joe Rogan 23:16 Right.

Banachek 23:16 And I, I think you have to, right? Because you've got to be able to debate with these people. You gotta-

Joe Rogan 23:19 Right.

Banachek 23:19 ... be able to talk to them. And if you show them respect, they're gonna show you respect.

Joe Rogan 23:23 Did you ever wanna, like, reason with them and sort of explain why what they're doing is faulty or problematic?

Banachek 23:28 We, we have con-... we have, we have conversations-

Joe Rogan 23:30 Hm.

Banachek 23:30 ... you know, about certain things, certain type of testing, you know, and, and, and how-

Joe Rogan 23:34 Their methods.

Banachek 23:34 ... how ridiculous some of these things are.

Joe Rogan 23:36 Yeah.

Banachek 23:36 And, and, um, but, you know, they're gonna be convinced that there's something there, even if it's a little, little something-

Joe Rogan 23:41 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 23:41 ... like one little thing you can't quite knock out away.

Joe Rogan 23:44 Right.

Banachek 23:44 They can do that. So, I mean, it's like when I worked with a para-... so back then, Washington University in 1979, James S. McDonnell gave a half million dollars to Washington University. All right? And that was shortly after I had wrote Randy that letter. And, uh, now James S. McDonnell, he was, uh, McDonnell Aircraft, uh, you know, the Banshee and all those different type of air... all named after spirits, by the way.

Joe Rogan 24:05 Ah. (laughs)

Banachek 24:06 Yeah, yeah. So if you take... if you do your research, uh, you'll find all these things. So he really, truly believed in-

Joe Rogan 24:11 Right.

Banachek 24:11 ... in, in the afterlife. And his thinking was, "Look, if they can find something that's even psychic, that might be indicative that maybe there's an afterlife, you know? At least it's indicative there's something supernatural, paranormal, there are things we don't... can't understand." So he gave half a million dollars to Washington University to form a, a laboratory called the McDon- uh, McDonnell Laboratory for Psychical Research. Short, we called it MacLab. A Peter Phillips there had an interest in parapsychology, but really didn't want to get involved. But the university said, "Look, we want this money. We want this lab. Um, you believe in this kind of stuff, you know, you're interested in this kind of stuff," and he was a physicist, so they put him in charge.Uh, they had over 300 and some applicants. And outta all the- I sent them a letter. Out of all the applicants they had, there was only two that were accepted. I mean, they did some research with other people, but there were two that they really accepted, and it was myself and another kid that I didn't know at the time by the name of Michael Edwards. Um, and, uh, Michael turned out to be a magician as well. And he had also spoke to Randy. So, I get a call. I, I sent the- they, there was an Associated Press article that came out, and that's when I wrote to them. And they said, "Yep, we'd like to, we'd like you to come visit." I get a call from Randy. He says, "You know, there's this guy at Washington University who's being given half a million dollars to study psychic phenomena." I'm like, uh, "Can you just think of his initials for me?" And I said, "Is it a P and a P?" He said, "How did you know?" I said, "I've already been accepted. I was gonna let you know." And he started telling me about Mike, that Mike had already been there. Mike had bent a key in their hands. They were completely convinced that this was real psychic phenomena.

Joe Rogan 25:41 (laughs)

Banachek 25:41 But at that point, Mike wasn't quite sure where to take it, and he knew Randy was the expert at- debunker in the field, because Randy had, uh, debunked Geller and other psychic phenomena. So he wrote- he, he, he spoke with Randy on the phone and, and, uh, wrote to Randy as well. And they had some conversations, and I said to Randy, I said, "Can I trust Mike?" He says, "I don't know enough about him to trust him." And Mike had the same concerns about me, because Randy had mentioned me to him and said, "You should mention," you know, my real name is Stephen Shaw, so it, it's Stephen Shaw back then. Banachek came years later because people couldn't remember Stephen Shaw. Um-

Joe Rogan 26:12 But they can remember Banachek because of the-

Banachek 26:14 No, so here's the thing, right, Joe?

Joe Rogan 26:15 ... detective on TV?

Banachek 26:15 So I, I did a corporate gig one day, and, um, which it's good that you say that. So, I did a gig one day, uh, and it was a corporate gig. And the guy got up there and he's like e- I was really insecure, you know, as we already talked about. So I had my introduction, "Here's my introduction." And, uh, he says, "I wanna do my own introduction, you know, about you. I've seen you do different things and that." So he gets up there and he says, "I've seen him on The Today Show, CNN Live, um, he's done this, he's done that, I've seen him do this and that. Please welcome Stephen... now what was the last name again?" It's like, great. So I get up, I do my gig. I get another corporate gig that week. I get up and say the last guy forgot my name. "Please, you know, remember my name, Stephen." "Oh, yeah, Stephen Shaw, yeah, I got it. No problem. Uh, he's done this, he's done that, he's done that. Please welcome Stephen... what was the last name again?" Holy crap. It happened to me a third time, and so I started to think about why is this happening? Um, and how can I fix this? Well, one way to fix it probably, I think back now, is just say, "Hey, read my thing. Don't even memorize it, just read it."

Joe Rogan 27:13 Right.

Banachek 27:13 But but Stephen is such a common name, and Shaw is such a common name. There's really no real hard syllables in there except maybe the T and the V a little bit, but not really. It's a soft syllable. So it kind of passes right through the brain. So, they're thinking so much about everything else they want to say, you know, CNN Live, The Today Show, this and that. I've seen ... and their story that they want to tell and everything. So by the time they get to my name, they haven't really thought about my name or memorized my name. So I wanted a name that had at least two hard syllables, something that would stick in the brain. And I wanted a one-word name. Not a two-word name, a one-word name.

Joe Rogan 27:49 Like a rapper.

Banachek 27:50 Yeah, this is- but this is before-

Joe Rogan 27:52 (laughs)

Banachek 27:52 ... I'm dating myself. This was before-

Joe Rogan 27:53 It's- (laughs)

Banachek 27:54 ... real rap music.

Joe Rogan 27:54 George Peppard.

Banachek 27:56 That's it, right there.

Joe Rogan 27:56 That's Banachek.

Banachek 27:57 Yeah. So C, C-E-K right there. And I loved that show. He was a- an insurance, uh, detective. And, uh-

Joe Rogan 28:03 What year was that show on?

Banachek 28:04 Oh, I don't know. I think it was only one season, right? If I'm not mistaken, Jamie. I don't know if you can look that up or not, but I think it was just- That's The Complete Season right here, season one. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:12 Hm. The complete season one.

Banachek 28:13 Yeah. And that was a great show, because he always had these great Polish sayings that meant absolutely nothing, but it was just-

Joe Rogan 28:18 Oh, really?

Banachek 28:18 ... yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Very charismatic in that show. But the, the, the way he solved it- (laughs) ... was almost like a magic trick. It was like, they put the statue on the truck, the truck arrives- Seventeen- ... and, and it goes all the way across the United States, and no statue. Where did it go? And it turns out that what they actually put on the truck, they thought it was a statue because it was covered and it was in this crate, but it was a block of ice. So by the time it got there, it had already been switched out. By the time it got there, it had melted. So it was sort of magic in its own way as well.

Joe Rogan 28:46 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 28:46 So, I- I had- it was sort of kindred spirits in a way to that. And I loved the name Banachek, and I was like, "You know what? If I use Banachek the way it's spelt there, they're gonna say Banacek."

Joe Rogan 28:58 Hm.

Banachek 28:58 And so I put B-A-N-A-C-H-E-K. I didn't want to put an extra C at the end, because then it becomes Bounce-a-check or something stupid like that.

Joe Rogan 29:05 Right.

Banachek 29:06 So yeah. I get Banana-check, I get Bona-check, you know, I get all these things. But, but at least, here's the thing, right? So, the old-timers back then, the CEOs of the company, the presidents of the company, if they remember the TV show, they may make fun of me at first, but they're gonna remember the name.

Joe Rogan 29:22 Hm.

Banachek 29:22 At the end of the show, they now associate it with me, because I've blown their minds. If they don't know it, they've gotta come up to me and say, "How do you pronounce that?" So they're thinking about my name. Never had a problem since. So there's the old TV show Banachek, but the way I spell it, there was a greyhound, uh, there was a dog, uh, there was a band called Banachek, and there was a construction company. Now, the construction company owned, uh, the Banachek URL, you know, the website. But they didn't do anything with it. So, and this is back before you could do automatic, uh, payments. Like, where it just goes every year automatically for you.

Joe Rogan 29:56 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 29:57 So I would sit there every year just waiting on that URL every day, you know, when, when I knew it was gonna go up and I finally got it. Like, like after three years of it just sitting there, I finally was able to get it. But yeah. So anyway, that's my name. That's how I got my name.

Joe Rogan 30:09 Okay, so go back to this Michael Edwards thing.

Banachek 30:11 Oh, so Mike Edwards. So-

Joe Rogan 30:13 Yeah. (laughs)

Banachek 30:14 We, yeah, we- I, I go off on these weird tangents.

Joe Rogan 30:16 We went-

Banachek 30:17 I, I go every-

Joe Rogan 30:17 You took a hard right turn into the woods.

Banachek 30:19 This is, this is, I do this all the time. I go off on so many different tangents, because I just, it's so many different stories and so many different-

Joe Rogan 30:23 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 30:23 ... directions I can go. So, with Mike, um, and, and you'll find that out. In my life, there is so much psychology applied to everyday life for me. Like, the name. Why did I choose my name? There was a reason for it.

Joe Rogan 30:35 Hm.

Banachek 30:35 There's, uh, it's not just haphazard and stuff like that. Or it's not- sometimes it's just a joke. My, you know, like a really sarcastic sense of humor. Here I go off on another tangent. All right, let's go back. Um, so here I am with, uh, uh, Randy telling me about them and, and I said, "Yeah, I've already been accepted."Mike and I are supposed to show up, um... And by the way, somebody recently bought my, uh... Barry Sonnenfeld had bought my write, li- life rights with... Because of this whole thing, which is called Project Alpha that I'm telling you the story about now. And, uh, he had bought it and wanted, uh, uh, Alan Sorkin to write it. But-

Joe Rogan 31:07 This is way back then?

Banachek 31:08 No, this is now. Like, not so long-

Joe Rogan 31:10 Okay.

Banachek 31:10 ... you know, like couple of years ago, um-

Joe Rogan 31:12 You're fucking me up with your timeline.

Banachek 31:13 I know. Aaron was, Aaron was... Oh, Yeah. Aaron was, um, busy, so he couldn't do it. Uh, uh, and, and then when he wasn't busy, Barry got busy and my life rights, that what they had were basically, you know, ran out. So I've taken it now and I'm working with another production company to do a series on what we're talking about right now. So, but anyway, so here I am, I'm with Mike Edwards. Uh, we show up at the airport in St. Louis, the first time we're gonna meet. We meet each other, we hit it off right away. I don't have my driver's license. Uh, I had some... What form of ID... I don't know what form of ID I had. I had some other form of ID. And Mike, uh, he had his and he could drive. He just got his at the time. So, I wonder if I used my passport then. I don't know. Anyway-

Joe Rogan 31:51 This whole thing you do, this, this fast talking thing, this is part of the shuck and jive, though. This is a little bit of part of the thing-

Banachek 31:58 No, this is me. This is... Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:58 I, I understand, but it al- it also is very effective. That's what a shuck and jive artist does. They talk very fast and they never pause, so you never get a chance to interject.

Banachek 32:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:08 And they're constantly going. So if they're reading, you know, or t- t- saying something, you have to keep up with them. And part of the keeping up with them is you get a little bewildered.

Banachek 32:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:18 And in bewildered, you forget what you've said or they've said, and you're, you're trying to sort of keep pace with them and you can't. And next thing you know, they're like, "Oh my God, I can't believe you know that. How'd you figure that out?" "Well, we'll get to that later." And then you keep going. And you keep, and you-

Banachek 32:31 That is part of the entertainment aspect of it. Yeah. It's not what I'm doing right now because I'm not performing.

Joe Rogan 32:35 You're like Julio Cesar Chavez when he was fighting. He would put a pace on you you couldn't keep up with.

Banachek 32:39 Right. Right. Yeah. See, you always analyze it with fighting, which is great.

Joe Rogan 32:43 Yeah. Well-

Banachek 32:44 Yeah. It's kind of a thing, so...

Joe Rogan 32:45 It's vulnerabilities.

Banachek 32:46 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:47 Exploit vulnerabilities in the human mind, and one of them is that you talk and think faster than most people. So most people, when you're talking, they, they don't have it like right... You just did right there. You went, "You wanna interject?"

Banachek 32:57 Because I had a-

Joe Rogan 32:57 You just get a chance to interject.

Banachek 32:58 Because I had a thought.

Joe Rogan 32:59 So I'm not gonna let you 'cause I'm gonna keep talking. And as I keep talking, I talk quicker. You get bewildered. That's one of the things that you do to people, whether you realize it or not. You do it because you've done it that way for a long time.

Banachek 33:08 That's probably right.

Joe Rogan 33:08 And it's become a pattern.

Banachek 33:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:10 It's become a pattern to make the other person feel insecure so you don't. So you take control of it.

Banachek 33:13 No, it's... You know what it's a pattern for? It's a pattern for me being able to think and not forget things as I'm saying them.

Joe Rogan 33:19 Oh.

Banachek 33:19 Like, because like, as you-

Joe Rogan 33:20 But it's so effective though.

Banachek 33:21 As you said that, there's another thing that popped in my... I got it... Like all day long, I have songs in my head. It doesn't stop. Like I, I do this with my teeth all the time.

Joe Rogan 33:31 So you're playing the song in your head?

Banachek 33:32 To music in my head, like constantly. If I'm not thinking about anything else, I have songs in my head constantly. And I've even... I went to the dentist and I said, "Hey, you know, I've got this thing with my teeth that I'm tapping my teeth. I'm wearing them down, you know, what's going on?" And he says, "Oh, musicians do that all the time." I go, "Well, I always have music 24 hours a day in my head." So...

Joe Rogan 33:49 Wow.

Banachek 33:50 But now I've gone off somewhere and there was... Oh, handwriting. So if you look at my hand...

Joe Rogan 33:54 (laughs)

Banachek 33:54 Look at my handwriting, how bad my handwriting. Get... Like, it's really hard to freaking read, right?

Joe Rogan 33:58 It's not that bad. Somebody just wrote me a letter the other day.

Banachek 34:01 Well, that's me.

Joe Rogan 34:01 And I, I read the letter. Somebody... A friend of mine sent me something. He wrote me a letter and I read his letter. I was like, "Well, what the fuck is that?" Because it's just scribble.

Banachek 34:08 Well, that's me write-

Joe Rogan 34:09 You want someone to read it.

Banachek 34:09 This is me writing neat and slow.

Joe Rogan 34:11 That's not bad.

Banachek 34:11 So- slow. Normally when I write, I can't read it myself. I go back and I look.

Joe Rogan 34:15 You should be a doctor.

Banachek 34:15 Well, that's the thing. What you just said, you... My... You, you, you, you're trying to keep up with your thoughts.

Joe Rogan 34:20 Yeah.

Banachek 34:20 And that's one of the things about bad handwriting. They say that you're trying to keep up with what you're thinking.

Joe Rogan 34:24 Oh, that makes sense. Doctors are smart.

Banachek 34:26 And my brain is always going a mile a minute. It's going a thousand different ways. And I think it's part of my problem solving, is like when people give me ideas that they want... Okay, this is what I'd like to do as a magic effect. How do I do it? I'm able to rattle off like 10, 15 different ways of doing it.

Joe Rogan 34:40 But it's so effective, like as a mentalist, that way that, that pattern of talking is so bewildering to people that they just sort of like, "Huh? What? What? Where? Huh?" And you've got them on the ropes always.

Banachek 34:52 It is that thing of even in my stage show, um... And you'll have to come to the stage show sometime.

Joe Rogan 34:56 I would love to.

Banachek 34:57 I'd love to... I would love you to come see the whole, the whole thing.

Joe Rogan 34:58 Well, I saw the mini version of it when you did the television show.

Banachek 35:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:01 I was blown away.

Banachek 35:02 I mean, the first thing I do is I come out before... I don't even introduce myself-

Joe Rogan 35:05 Where do you do it so if people can... They wanna see you?

Banachek 35:07 I was just at Planet Hollywood filming for the-

Joe Rogan 35:10 In Vegas?

Banachek 35:11 Yeah. I've got a, uh, a thing coming up, uh, at Ro- Rochester Fringe Festival, Rochester, New York. I mean, I'm, I'm at a lot of different colleges. You can go to my website, banachek.com, and look up the dates. But the Rochester is gonna be, uh, on the 13th, 7 PM, 14th, 5 PM. Then I'm on the 20th at 9 PM, the 22nd-

Joe Rogan 35:28 You're not gonna remember this.

Banachek 35:29 ... at 3 PM. I know. So you can find-

Joe Rogan 35:31 You're bewildering them.

Banachek 35:31 You can find it on the... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 35:32 You can't even help yourself.

Banachek 35:33 You can find it, you can find it on the... You're gonna find it on the website. So it is on the website.

Joe Rogan 35:37 Okay.

Banachek 35:37 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:37 Okay. But you're in Vegas all the time, right?

Banachek 35:39 I'm in Vegas a lot.

Joe Rogan 35:40 Quite a bit.

Banachek 35:40 I don't work Vegas that much. Uh...

Joe Rogan 35:42 Oh, really?

Banachek 35:42 I'm busy now, really, until, um, beginning of November. I'm gonna be like different places just touring-

Joe Rogan 35:48 Just touring the road?

Banachek 35:48 ... touring different places. Some of it's corporate, some of it's college. You know, it's a mixture of... A mismatch of different, different things. So, yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:55 So go back to this whole James Randi, Uri Geller.

Banachek 35:58 So here I am with, uh, Mike Edwards at the airport and we're hitting it off and everything. Uh, Peter Phillips shows up and he's the professor that I mentioned a minute ago who's gonna be doing the investigating of us. Um, and he has this wristband on, and I'm always asking questions, "What's this? What's that?" And I'm always noticing things. And he said it was a wristband that he got from a witch doctor in Africa that helps protect him.

Joe Rogan 36:19 Oh.

Banachek 36:20 So I'm starting to think this might be a little easier than I thought it was gonna be. Because going in, I was like, I didn't know... These guys skeptical? Are they gonna use one-way mirrors? Are they gonna be trying to trick us, catch us? I had no clue. So we get into, uh, we, we, I... We had Peter Phillips' car because Mike was too young to drive a rental. Peter Phillips has a rental, he's in front of us, we're following him. And this is, this is how it all starts, really. I l- I'm sitting there and just kind of like me talking all the time. I'm looking around, I'm always doing something, always noticing something. I look in the back seat and I notice there's a briefcase. I reach in the back and I kind of pull it under the dash.It's locked. And to me, like, if somebody locks something, it means they don't want you inside there, of course, right? But why does anyone is in there? Old briefcase, e- easily can just open the locks. So I pick the locks, open it up. Inside, there's a whole bunch of silverware. So, either this guy's a kleptomaniac or this is the silverware he's going to be using for the experiment. So I start bending it all up, lock the briefcase, put it in the back.

Joe Rogan 37:17 (laughs)

Banachek 37:17 Sit there for about two more minutes, open up the glove compartment. There's some extra keys and things in the glove compartment. I start bending those up.

Joe Rogan 37:25 You bent his fucking keys?

Banachek 37:27 I had... Well, I'm a psychic, right? This stuff-

Joe Rogan 37:29 (laughs)

Banachek 37:29 ... this shit, this shit happens, like-

Joe Rogan 37:31 Yeah, but what if he needed those keys to get in his house?

Banachek 37:33 Yeah, but I needed him to be convinced I was genuine.

Joe Rogan 37:36 Oh, yeah.

Banachek 37:36 Right? So I end up looking over at the car keys that are hanging out, the keys that are hanging out on the car key, out of the ignition. I start to reach over to get them and Mike just looks at me and says, "I think you've done enough. Stop." You know? So... But there's, there's this really interesting phenomena, right? We knew that in the laboratory, everything we did at that point was gonna be on a micro-level. It was gonna be very small because it had to be, because we couldn't make it look like it's a trick. We... It had to look like minute.

Joe Rogan 38:02 Right.

Banachek 38:02 And not just that. We didn't know if they were gonna be watching us, like I said, through one-way mirrors-

Joe Rogan 38:06 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 38:06 ... and things like that. So there's an interesting phenomena at the time that was called spontaneous PK, and that is stuff that just happens.

Joe Rogan 38:13 PK?

Banachek 38:13 P- psychokinesis. PK is short for psychokinesis.

Joe Rogan 38:16 Okay.

Banachek 38:16 Uh, telekinesis, psychokinesis-

Joe Rogan 38:18 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 38:18 ... the whole thing. They're all the same thing. Um, so there's these... Things just supposedly happen around these psychics that can bend metal.

Joe Rogan 38:26 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 38:27 Stuff moves, stuff breaks, stuff-

Joe Rogan 38:28 Right.

Banachek 38:29 ... like that. So, those things were the things that would convince him and keep him holding on, even if we did a big bend out of the laboratory, but not on camera. That's the thing that would keep him going, "I wanna get that on film. I definitely wanna get that on film. I'm gonna document that someday. That's gonna happen in the laboratory." When we ended up getting to the laboratory, all the students at the university were extremely skeptical, very, very skeptical. But they had heard about the spontaneous PK, so they hid things underneath the video recorders. And there was a separate room and they hid all kinds of things everywhere around. I noticed there was stuff hidden. I mean, why is there a recorder hidden under that VCR, you know? Why is there a fork hidden behind that cupboard? Uh, you know, it doesn't belong there. So I started bending up all those things on lunchtime.

Joe Rogan 39:14 (laughs)

Banachek 39:15 And that convinced all the students-

Joe Rogan 39:17 Oh. (laughs)

Banachek 39:17 ... that we were genuine as well.

Joe Rogan 39:19 Oh, Christ.

Banachek 39:20 So... So, this, this... I mean, this, this, this whole thing went on and on. You know, it, it... It's as simple as... So, what happened was, immediately, Randy sent them a list of 13 caveats of things that we, that they shouldn't do. And it was common sense stuff, right? It was stuff like, don't let the subjects work at the same time because they could distract you. Don't let them work with more than one object at a time because they could confuse you with those objects-

Joe Rogan 39:44 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 39:45 ... as to which ones you're bending. And there was this whole list of different things. They showed the list to me and Mike, and had a good laugh about it and said, "This would make you guys so uncomfortable. We want you to be comfortable." Where in reality, they should have followed that list because-

Joe Rogan 39:59 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 39:59 Oh, one of the things Randy said was, "Mark everything on a micro, micro and a macro level." So they, the subjects can see the macro mark but won't realize there's a micro mark on there as well, which would have helped because their idea of doing a macro mark was on every fork, they took the fork or spoon. They measured it at both ends, like the height from the table, and they measured the middle of the fork from the height from the table. Then they put a label on it, on a little string with a number on it. And that was their idea of keeping track of if something had bent or not, because they would measure it after we concentrated on it-

Joe Rogan 40:34 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 40:34 ... and they would then remeasure it again afterwards and they would say, "Oh, okay, this is, uh, this is bent a millimeter or two millimeters."

Joe Rogan 40:40 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 40:41 So we would do things like, we would say, "This tag's in my way, can I take it off?" "Yeah, you can take it off." We'd put it down, concentrate on it, didn't do anything. Put it down on the table, pick up another fork or spoon, say, "Do you mind if I remove this tag?" Take it off, put it down, concentrate on it, nothing happens. Switch the tags around on the one that was on the first one to the second one, the second one to the first one, and then put the two forks off to the side and then wait two, three hours later. Pick up one of those forks, obviously not doing anything with it, concentrating on it. Say, "Why don't you measure it?" And they would measure it, and the measurements had now changed, not realizing, because they never measured the other one again, because they remeasured everything consistently later on and put new tags on them every single time, not realizing that we just simply switched forks. Or as we reached across the table, we would lean on one of the forks and then hours again later, we would pretend like we actually bent that fork. So this went on. I mean, it went on for 180 hours over four years. I mean, we messed with these people bad. We did probably some things at the time that were probably illegal as well.

Joe Rogan 41:42 Like what?

Banachek 41:44 Like leaving the window unlocked at the laboratory, going off to the club across the, the state line, coming back, like, about 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning, breaking into the building and, uh, bending up every single piece of metal that was in the laboratory.

Joe Rogan 41:58 (laughs)

Banachek 41:58 Um, they had a-

Joe Rogan 41:59 What kind of fucking scientists were running this?

Banachek 42:02 Well, this is back in the '80s though, right?And they, they had... They actually had this aquarium.

Joe Rogan 42:05 Back in the '80s, scientists were like '80s TV shows.

Banachek 42:08 They really bel- No.

Joe Rogan 42:10 (laughs)

Banachek 42:10 It's, it's, it's true. Uh, here's the sad thing, right? I went into this thinking these people were gonna be the enemy. It was me against them, you know?

Joe Rogan 42:17 Right.

Banachek 42:18 I had to do this. Turns out these are just really, really nice, nice people that are very naive when it comes to what psychic phenomena is.

Joe Rogan 42:26 Right. Well, if you're a scientist, most likely you're not studying a whole lot of liars and mentalists and magicians and psychic phenomena, and you really are probably trying to find out whether or not it's real, and maybe you believe a little bit too much.

Banachek 42:40 Ye- ye- yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:41 You don't know enough yet.

Banachek 42:42 When it came to this type of phenomena, absolutely.

Joe Rogan 42:45 Yeah.

Banachek 42:45 But Geller was already doing that. Other psychics were already doing it in other countries and they were being validated as a genuine thing. We-

Joe Rogan 42:51 In other countries?

Banachek 42:52 Yeah, we knew like-

Joe Rogan 42:53 Like where?

Banachek 42:53 ... G. Gerard over in France.

Joe Rogan 42:55 Tanzania or-

Banachek 42:55 Stephen North over in England. You know, there was a lot of research going on in England at the time on this type of phenomena as well. It was a really big thing back then.

Joe Rogan 43:02 And it was just people hosing people?

Banachek 43:05 It was little kids. Like, uh, the, the ... Here's the weird thing, right? So over in England, there were, um ... I can't think of what the guy's name is now. Uh, there was a scientist over there, a parapsychologist who was working with little kids, and his thinking is that kids don't lie. Little kids don't lie. That's all they do is lie. They get to that point where they learn how to lie to get anything and everything. So-

Joe Rogan 43:23 Who the fuck thinks kids don't lie? That's someone without kids.

Banachek 43:25 And these kids only got caught, the only reason they got caught was by accident because they were ... The video cameras were left on, and as soon as the parapsychologists left the room, the kids were taking forks and spoons and actually bending them underneath their feet and then putting them back up on the, on the table, so ... And, and they would come in. It was-

Joe Rogan 43:41 They, they literally ... Scientists went in with the premise that children don't lie. That is one of the dumbest fucking things I've ever heard in my life.

Banachek 43:48 I don't disagree with you, but this is how badly people wanted to believe in this phenomena.

Joe Rogan 43:52 Why do, why do people want to believe in hidden powers?

Banachek 43:56 I think it's why people want to believe in most things, right? I mean-

Joe Rogan 43:59 UFOs.

Banachek 44:00 ... we wa- we wanna find ... We wanna believe there's something more than just us. Like, that for most people, we're ju- we're not enough. And I don't know if it's because we get so bored with our lives, we get depressed with our lives. We get ... You know, we're, we're in this everyday thing of going to work, coming home-

Joe Rogan 44:14 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 44:14 And it's, "Is this all there is?"

Joe Rogan 44:16 Right.

Banachek 44:16 "Is this it?" You know? "Is there something else that could ... That's a superpower that I could, I could actually have? Is there something I can discover that's bigger than me, better than me?" You know, "Does ... Is the universe much bigger than just this planet right here?"

Joe Rogan 44:29 Right.

Banachek 44:29 So, I mean, if you ask me, I would think that if y- if UFOs were coming here, if they were coming here, let's say ... I don't believe they were, but if they were coming here-

Joe Rogan 44:37 You don't believe they were?

Banachek 44:38 Uh, no, I, I don't. But, uh-

Joe Rogan 44:39 Why is that?

Banachek 44:39 But I think if they were... I just don't. I, I, I don't ... I, I, I think we would really have real evidence, 100% evidence of it by now. But here's the thing, right? Wouldn't it make much sense, even, like, for us ... Okay, let's say we start going looking at other planets. Are we gonna send other humans out there or are we gonna go ahead and send robots or something like that that can last-

Joe Rogan 44:59 Mm-hmm. Like we do to Mars.

Banachek 45:00 ... much ... Yeah, they can last-

Joe Rogan 45:01 Yeah.

Banachek 45:01 And robots are getting better and better and better at it.

Joe Rogan 45:03 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 45:03 So if there's an advanced civilation, civilization, surely they would also have-

Joe Rogan 45:08 Right.

Banachek 45:08 ... this advancement where they don't have to send themselves out. They can send-

Joe Rogan 45:11 Well, that's-

Banachek 45:11 ... something to represent them, right?

Joe Rogan 45:13 ... what the real hardcore believers believe those grays are.

Banachek 45:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:17 The gray aliens with the big black eyes. They think they're some sort of a android or something.

Banachek 45:21 And, and it could be, but I don't believe, I don't believe we had them.

Joe Rogan 45:25 I, um, believed a lot more before I started doing that television show.

Banachek 45:29 Right.

Joe Rogan 45:29 That television show cured me of Bigfoot, cured me of psychics, cured me of aliens, cured me of, like, almost everything.

Banachek 45:36 Well, this is the thing with me, right? When I was a young kid, I believed in that stuff. You know, when I was a young kid, I spoke in tongues, you know, or thought I did. You know-

Joe Rogan 45:42 Did you really?

Banachek 45:42 Oh, yeah, yeah. I had the whole experience. I mean, it was like, you know, all the chemicals running through my body and me just going ... (speaks in tongues)

Joe Rogan 45:48 Hmm. Right, right.

Banachek 45:49 You know, doing the whole damn thing-

Joe Rogan 45:50 Yeah.

Banachek 45:50 ... you know, and going to that. And I realized later what was going on, but-

Joe Rogan 45:53 Yeah.

Banachek 45:53 ... at the time, I, I was looking for answers. I was looking for answers in religion.

Joe Rogan 45:57 Well, you had a very disturbed life, and you were-

Banachek 46:00 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:00 ... probably looking for some sort of security.

Banachek 46:02 And I got shut down every single time I would ask questions. I was called a troublemaker, you know?

Joe Rogan 46:06 Right.

Banachek 46:06 "Oh, we're talking about darkness and evil." "Well, well, how come the Bible's covered in black?" "Just shut up. Don't ask questions." You know?

Joe Rogan 46:12 Covered in black? What do you mean?

Banachek 46:13 Well, well, you know, the cover of most of the Bibles back then, we didn't have the white Bibles. We all had the black Bibles.

Joe Rogan 46:18 Wow.

Banachek 46:18 And it was just ... I would just ask innocent questions like, "Okay, well, how come ... If, if you're talking about darkness b- being, you know, and evil, and you're, you know, it's all associated, why is this Bible covered in black?" You know? And I just wanted answers. I, I ... Looking for answers, I would ask these questions. And I do that. I, I thirst knowledge. I love knowledge.

Joe Rogan 46:35 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 46:36 You know, I read all the time. It's just, I'm always looking to try to understand things. I won't always retain all that information, but it'll be in the back of my head somewhere where it will pop out at some-

Joe Rogan 46:46 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 46:46 ... point when I do need it. So I-

Joe Rogan 46:47 But it's, it is fascinating, this desire to believe, especially the desire to believe things that-

Banachek 46:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:52 ... don't necessarily make sense, whether it's ghosts or it's UFOs or ... Do you ever watch that show Finding Bigfoot?

Banachek 46:58 I have in the past. It's not, not something I sit down and-

Joe Rogan 47:00 It's a hilarious show.

Banachek 47:01 ... I don't binge it, you know? But it ... But every episode is like, a rock got thrown or there's a something-

Joe Rogan 47:05 Well, it's exactly the same-

Banachek 47:06 ... you know, it's like ...

Joe Rogan 47:06 ... as these ghost shows.

Banachek 47:07 Yeah, like that, yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:08 That every week nothing happens-

Banachek 47:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:10 ... but somehow or another they manage to keep you glued to your seat.

Banachek 47:12 I think you watch it, people watch it because they think, "Oh, this is gonna be the show. This is gonna be the one." Because they, they tease it like that, but here's the thing, right?

Joe Rogan 47:19 (laughs)

Banachek 47:19 If it was the one, we would've already heard about it-

Joe Rogan 47:21 Right.

Banachek 47:21 ... before it got to air.

Joe Rogan 47:22 The key is night vision. Once you have night vision, you seem legit. (laughs)

Banachek 47:27 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 47:27 Are you looking for things in the basement? Are you looking for things in the woods-

Banachek 47:30 Right.

Joe Rogan 47:30 ... if you have night vision or thermal vision, like, something-

Banachek 47:32 Right.

Joe Rogan 47:32 "Oh, technology. They'll find it now."

Banachek 47:34 Well, it's like the, the ghost detecting meters, those little meters-

Joe Rogan 47:36 Hmm. Yeah.

Banachek 47:37 You can set them off just by hitting a walkie-talkie.

Joe Rogan 47:40 Oh, you can?

Banachek 47:40 Oh, yeah, like way across the room or in another room, you hit a walkie-talkie, those things go freaking crazy, you know? Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:45 Is there a ... In the, the t- in paranormal research, is there, like, a, a moment where, you know, like ... And do you know that in, in SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, there's, there's this one phenomena that happened? I think they call it the blip or something like that.

Banachek 48:01 Yeah, I-

Joe Rogan 48:02 Yeah.

Banachek 48:02 ... I don't think that's the name.

Joe Rogan 48:03 No.

Banachek 48:03 I know, I know exactly what you're talking about.

Joe Rogan 48:04 So it's ... I don't think it is either.

Banachek 48:05 Yeah, yeah. I know what you're talking about.

Joe Rogan 48:05 But there's this one-

Banachek 48:07 It's like the event or something like that.

Joe Rogan 48:08 ... bloop or bloop or whatever it is.

Banachek 48:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:09 There's one loud noise that came-

Banachek 48:11 Right.

Joe Rogan 48:11 ... from space that they think is-

Banachek 48:13 They don't know what it is.

Joe Rogan 48:13 Right, they don't know what it is.

Banachek 48:14 They don't know what it is. They're not sure what that was.

Joe Rogan 48:16 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 48:16 So, you know-

Joe Rogan 48:16 Oh, you know what? I'm conflating it with something that happened underwater. That's what I'm doing. There was something ... There was a, an organic noise that was underwater. It wasn't a signal. That's ... They called it the bloop, whatever it was.

Banachek 48:27 Yeah, but there's a SETI thing like that, too.

Joe Rogan 48:29 There is a SETI thing like that, too.

Banachek 48:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:30 But I'm c- ... I, I confuse the two events, that there was something that happened where they recorded an organic sound underwater from some sort of an animal that they don't know what it was, but they think it could be a whale or something-

Banachek 48:42 Who knows?

Joe Rogan 48:42 ... just, you know, something-

Banachek 48:43 Could be something way-

Joe Rogan 48:45 ... screaming, something crazy.

Banachek 48:45 ... discovered yet or seen yet.

Joe Rogan 48:46 Mm, could be, yeah.

Banachek 48:46 I mean, there's a lot of stuff under there we don't know about. Uh, I mean-

Joe Rogan 48:48 For sure. Yeah.

Banachek 48:49 ... it's a big, big place.

Joe Rogan 48:50 Yeah.

Banachek 48:50 Um, where, where, where, where were we on that story?

Joe Rogan 48:51 But we were talking about the desire for peop- I mean, this is what, one of the reasons why b- being a mentalist works or being one of these, uh, psychic hoaxers works is because people have this overwhelming desire to believe there's something more out there.

Banachek 49:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:05 And not, not just the powers that you and I possess, the normal senses of seeing and hearing and touching and smelling and d- but there's more. Some people have more. Some people know when the phone's gonna ring. Some people know things. They have an intuition.

Banachek 49:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:17 They can sense auras. Some people know, "Hold m- hold my hand. Let me look in your eyes. I know things. I know things you don't know." It's creepy.

Banachek 49:24 It's creep- creepy how you're looking at me right now, just the way-

Joe Rogan 49:26 It's weird.

Banachek 49:26 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:26 But that's a weird thing, right?

Banachek 49:27 But that, but that's what throws people off, right?

Joe Rogan 49:29 That desire, yeah.

Banachek 49:29 Because it gives a ... And why, why would somebody be looking at me like that if there wasn't-

Joe Rogan 49:32 Yeah.

Banachek 49:33 ... a purpose and if they-

Joe Rogan 49:33 Right.

Banachek 49:33 ... didn't believe and if there wasn't something there?

Joe Rogan 49:35 Right.

Banachek 49:36 When I perform, I don't just read minds. I, I, I do things, like I touch their hand. I say-

Joe Rogan 49:42 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 49:42 ... "Look at me. See this right there?" And I do certain things because it's that thing of, like, I've got to show a process.

Joe Rogan 49:49 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 49:49 And if I'm showing a process, why would I be showing a process if it wasn't real?

Joe Rogan 49:53 Right.

Banachek 49:53 Now here's the weird thing, right?

Joe Rogan 49:54 You're also overwhelming them with things to think about.

Banachek 49:57 Yeah, to a point. I mean-

Joe Rogan 49:58 Yeah, where you, you're touching them and moving them or looking at them. There's all these-

Banachek 50:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:01 ... variables they have to take into account. Now, if they, they're on their map of things that they're processing, that's now some new territory.

Banachek 50:08 Yeah. I, uh, it, it also ... We talked about this earlier and we got a couple ... We got so many stories all over the place we stopped at that I'll try to come back to some of them. But it's ... Back in my comedy club days, I worked the worst and the best clubs. I mean, uh, there was, uh, the Comedy Workshop in Houston, Texas. I don't know if you remember them or not.

Joe Rogan 50:24 Sure.

Banachek 50:25 Uh, Paul Menzel and Sharon Jerry, and they had me come and do a Christmas show 'cause they wanted a clean show for Christmas. And I came in and then they're like, "All right, you're gonna go out on the road and you're headlining." Like, straight off headlining, like no middling, no, no s- opening act, nothing. I went straight into headlining, which a lot of comedians hated me for that because they're working so hard again. It's like, "There's no place for magic in a comedy club. It's a comedy club." But I was going out, I was doing these comedy clubs, but I was doing, like, the best and I was also doing the worst. Like, I was doing comedy clubs where literally it's a kicker bar in a, a, an oil town and there's mesh like in Blue Brothers, you know, across the front s- because people-

Joe Rogan 51:01 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 51:01 ... throw beer bottles at the band and everything else.

Joe Rogan 51:03 Right.

Banachek 51:03 And I'm performing behind that with a little gate that they have to come in for me to perform with these people, with a big pole in the middle because people kicker dance around that. And the bar is actually around the corner and I got to try to get people in there. So I performed at the worst and the best places. I performed in situations where people were just not there to see the performer, they're, you know, at colleges-

Joe Rogan 51:21 Mm-hmm.

Banachek 51:22 ... where it's, uh, a day show. And day ... Oh, man, day shows are the worst in colleges, the worst. If you-

Joe Rogan 51:27 I've done them.

Banachek 51:28 Yeah, like you come in, it's like-

Joe Rogan 51:29 Yeah.

Banachek 51:30 ... they're sitting in the cafeteria.

Joe Rogan 51:31 Barely paying attention.

Banachek 51:32 You're performing in the cafeteria, they're trying to study for a test, they're not there for you. So I got to grab their attention. So my first thing is to come out and say, "If I was to ask everyone to think of a playing card, you might think ace of spades or queen of hearts. I want everyone to think of a card. Get one, get one, get one, get one. Stand up." And it's like bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, where it's like, "Holy crap, w- we need to pay attention to this guy." And so that's where I came in from those harsh days of really just trying to grab their attention, right?

Joe Rogan 51:57 Same thing with comedians.

Banachek 51:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:58 You do bar gigs.

Banachek 52:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:00 You know? Very similar.

Banachek 52:00 Yeah, yeah, you just gotta, you gotta quiet them down, you gotta go to grab them. So anyway, so I'm with the scientists, uh, we break in in the laboratory at night. Uh, they have an aquarium. There's another psychic there that supposedly gets ghosts to come in and the ghost will write things in these coffee grounds in this, uh, uh, inverted c- aquarium, uh, with a padlock on it. And there's bars that go over it. Mike Edwards, the other kid that's with me, looks underneath and realizes that the ... Even though it's locked on top, the post that it's locked to, there's nuts underneath it, like bolts. He just unbolts it, lifts it up, we write stuff in the coffee grounds, we bolt it back up.

Joe Rogan 52:38 (laughs)

Banachek 52:39 And, and, you know, so it's like all these things and we bend everything. Uh, we go to bed about 5:00 in the morning and, uh, uh, Peter Phillips calls and he calls at about 7:00 in the morning. He says, "How you doing?" I said, "Oh, I didn't sleep well last night. I had a dream that we were in the laboratory, you know, trying to work and everything just bent and it went crazy." He said, "Well, go back to sleep. I'll, I'll talk to you in a few hours." He calls me back in about another hour, he says, "You did it! You did it! You did it!" And I go, "Well, what did we do?"

Joe Rogan 53:03 (laughs) .

Banachek 53:03 He goes ... You know, he says, "Your psychic powers when you were sleeping bent everything in the laboratory." So it was just ... We played these games, we did these things consistently.

Joe Rogan 53:10 Is that guy still alive?

Banachek 53:11 He's still alive. I've met him since then, you know, and he's a nice guy.

Joe Rogan 53:13 Does he feel sad that you tricked him?

Banachek 53:16 He felt r- well, the-

Joe Rogan 53:16 Like a loser? (laughs)

Banachek 53:17 Here's the th- y- h- I, I felt bad. And so we were talking to Randy at one point because, um, we did a conference. And there's a kid by the name of Masaaki Kyoda, all right? Uh, from Japan. Masaaki could speak English, he had a band that he was in as well. Um, so he sang English songs and everything. And I'm rooming with him and I say to Masaaki Kyoda, 'cause he's playing it up for real, like, you know, and I say, "Is there any time when you can't do your psychic powers, you use a trick?" And he says, "Oh, can't speak English. Cannot speak English." All of a sudden he couldn't speak English. So we're at this gala, at this, this thing as well, um, and the reason I mention Masaaki is because there was a, uh, TV producer from England that came over and he said to Randy, he said, "Randy, what would convince you that this stuff is genuine?" Randy gave him the same 11 caveats that he gave to the scientist, the same 11 caveats. And, uh, the guy followed them. He sat with me, he sat with Mike, he sat with Masaaki Kyoda. Now, Masaaki had a way for twisting a spoon and basically had a thing in his shoe, he would go down and when nobody was looking, put it in there. But because this guy followed the 11 caveats, nothing happened that day. Absolutely nothing happened until the cameras went off. The moment the cameras went off, Masaaki twisted a spoon and started getting it to twist. The producer had a complete mental breakdown. Now, up to this point, I'm just thinking this is tricks, right? It's not, it's not that big of a deal. He starts screaming, yelling that Randy's evil, should never have listened to Randy, he would have got this on tape if it wasn't for Randy. And he looks down and he's got a wet spot on the front of his pants, and he looks down and he says, "I just had a demonic ejaculation."... like, literally, and he's having this mental breakdown. I go and I have to spend the night, which was not a bad thing, she was quite pleasant, um, to look at his, his assistant. I had to spend the night with her in her room because Randy was calling her... Uh, not Randy, I mean, uh, uh, uh, Tony Edwards was calling her. The producer was calling her consistently, screaming and yelling about Randy. And this scared the fuck out of me.

Joe Rogan 55:21 Hold the fuck up. You can't just gloss over the fact the guy just nutted in his pants as he was yelling.

Banachek 55:25 (laughs) He-

Joe Rogan 55:25 You're just gonna, like-

Banachek 55:26 ... he had a men-... It's a mental breakdown. I mean, it's a complete-

Joe Rogan 55:28 Well, how do you-

Banachek 55:28 ... mental breakdown.

Joe Rogan 55:29 ... how do you orgasm in your pants during a-

Banachek 55:30 I don't know.

Joe Rogan 55:31 ... mental breakdown?

Banachek 55:31 I didn't do it. He did it.

Joe Rogan 55:32 But, uh, you should document that.

Banachek 55:33 So-

Joe Rogan 55:33 That's more impressive than bending a spoon.

Banachek 55:35 (laughs) I should've said, "Yep, that's my psychic ability working right there."

Joe Rogan 55:38 Yeah. I mean-

Banachek 55:38 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 55:39 ... that doesn't make any sense. So he ye-... He tells you-

Banachek 55:42 Can't tell you. He says-

Joe Rogan 55:42 ... that he has an ejaculation-

Banachek 55:43 He says-

Joe Rogan 55:43 ... in his pants.

Banachek 55:44 ... he, in front of everybody, he says it's a demonic ejaculation.

Joe Rogan 55:47 Hmm.

Banachek 55:47 He straight up says, "I had-"

Joe Rogan 55:48 Yeah.

Banachek 55:48 "... a demonic ejaculation." So-

Joe Rogan 55:49 Well, seems like a together guy with definitely... Got a head on his shoulders.

Banachek 55:53 He was a producer for-

Joe Rogan 55:54 (laughs)

Banachek 55:54 ... I think it was BBC, if I'm not mistaken. He was doing a documentary for them, so yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:58 Well, he's fucking crazy, huh? He seems like he doesn't-

Banachek 56:01 Could be. He finished, he finished the documentary, so...

Joe Rogan 56:02 Oh, well-

Banachek 56:03 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:03 ... def- it wasn't crazy, then.

Banachek 56:04 But this-

Joe Rogan 56:05 As long as he finished that documentary-

Banachek 56:06 But this... He believed it... Well, he believed in psychic phenomena. He believed-

Joe Rogan 56:09 Well, he also believed-

Banachek 56:10 ... he was gonna be the one.

Joe Rogan 56:10 ... that a demon made him come in his pants.

Banachek 56:11 That is true, yes. As to whether he beli-

Joe Rogan 56:13 And he showed it to you.

Banachek 56:14 As to whether he believed it was a demon or not-

Joe Rogan 56:16 Uh...

Banachek 56:16 ... I don't know, but he-

Joe Rogan 56:17 If a demon did make you-

Banachek 56:17 ... called it a demonic ejaculation.

Joe Rogan 56:19 ... come in your pants, wouldn't you, like, pull your shirt down and, like-

Banachek 56:21 I-

Joe Rogan 56:21 ... get outta there and-

Banachek 56:22 I think I would-

Joe Rogan 56:23 ... run to the bathroom real quick?

Banachek 56:23 ... start dating that demon.

Joe Rogan 56:24 Pfft.

Banachek 56:25 (laughs) I mean, you know.

Joe Rogan 56:27 Probably a price to pay that you wouldn't want.

Banachek 56:29 D- Don't need a girlfriend, don't need a woman at that point, you know.

Joe Rogan 56:31 Just a demon that makes you-

Banachek 56:32 Just a demon.

Joe Rogan 56:32 ... nut in your pants-

Banachek 56:32 Just a demon.

Joe Rogan 56:32 ... when you're screaming and yelling.

Banachek 56:33 So long as it's a good-looking demon.

Joe Rogan 56:35 So he, he was saying that Randy was evil.

Banachek 56:37 Yes.

Joe Rogan 56:37 Because if it wasn't for Randy's rules, that guy... Wow.

Banachek 56:40 He would not... He would've got this on tape.

Joe Rogan 56:42 But how dumb does that guy have to be? I mean, that is so silly. Like, this is a person that's supposed to be discovering or at least investigating psychic phenomena, and he doesn't understand there might be some problems-

Banachek 56:52 He is not a true investigator, right?

Joe Rogan 56:54 Right.

Banachek 56:54 He's a producer. He's a producer who believes in this phenomena, hence he wants to do a documentary-

Joe Rogan 56:58 Uh-huh.

Banachek 56:58 ... on psychic phenomena. He has an interest in it, he already believes in it. So he's not, he's not as bad as the, the, uh, parapsychologists who are supposed to be using proper science, 'cause I'm often asked-

Joe Rogan 57:08 Right.

Banachek 57:09 ... is it right, is it ethical, that you fool scientists in the name of science, right? So this becomes this whole big question. Like, are we, were we unethical to do that? Um, and my answer to that-

Joe Rogan 57:20 W- wait a minute. Who the fuck asked you that question?

Banachek 57:22 A lot of scientists say that, that-

Joe Rogan 57:23 They're, they're fools.

Banachek 57:24 Well, uh, it's a thing, right?

Joe Rogan 57:26 L- listen.

Banachek 57:26 Because if you's... You're right.

Joe Rogan 57:26 Why do you think that they do?

Banachek 57:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:28 It's like if you, if you ask a guy who's a, a thief to break into your house, and then he breaks into your house in a method that... With a method that you didn't anticipate, is that unethical? It's no different than what you're doing. You're, you're a mentalist. You're, you're a person who is trying to trick them. They have all these rules set up to make sure that you don't trick them, so they know for a fact that what you're doing is psychic energy. But if you don't really have psychic powers, and you absolutely don't, of course you're gonna fucking trick them.

Banachek 57:55 Right.

Joe Rogan 57:55 The idea that you would trick them and that would somehow never be unethical, no. You just played the game better than them.

Banachek 58:01 Well, this was, this was the point, right? It was this thing of, like, uh, my thing was, should you be taking money to investigate these phenomena under false pretenses? Because you're not using proper science.

Joe Rogan 58:11 Right.

Banachek 58:11 If you're using proper science, I won't get away with any of this. Had you have followed Randy's rules, we would not have got away with any of this. I mean, we had very strict ethical rules. If you ask us if we're magicians, we have to say yes. If you ask us if we're working for the Amazing Randy, with him, you have to say yes, you know? So we had-

Joe Rogan 58:28 So it's like-

Banachek 58:28 ... all these rules.

Joe Rogan 58:29 ... those old TV shows where, like, if someone was an undercover cop, you say, "Are you a cop?" They have to tell you.

Banachek 58:34 That's, tha- that-

Joe Rogan 58:34 They don't really have to do that.

Banachek 58:36 That's, that- that's... They don't?

Joe Rogan 58:37 No. That's only a premise they use in TV shows.

Banachek 58:39 Oh, damn it.

Joe Rogan 58:40 If you ask a cop, "Are you a cop?" And they go, "No," and then you buy the heroin off them, you still go to jail.

Narrator 58:46 (laughs)

Banachek 58:46 Wow. Gotta remember that.

Joe Rogan 58:48 Yeah. Uh, uh, there's very few people-

Banachek 58:49 Not that I'm gonna go buy heroin or anything, but you know-

Joe Rogan 58:51 Yeah, I hear you.

Banachek 58:51 ... there may be something else, so yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:51 Well, we could say something about a gun.

Banachek 58:53 Yeah, prostitution.

Joe Rogan 58:54 There's very... Yeah. There's very few people that have told me a story where I go, "Damn, I wish I was there for that story." But the nutting in the pants and blaming it on a demon, I really do wish I was there.

Banachek 59:03 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 59:03 I really wish I was there for that guy. (laughs) I'd like to be in the room, and I'd be like, "Hold up. Everything else just gotta get put on the back burner here."

Banachek 59:11 N- nowadays, it'd be like, "Hold on, let me get my smartphone out."

Joe Rogan 59:14 How do you-

Banachek 59:14 "I gotta take a picture of this-"

Joe Rogan 59:15 How do you know-

Banachek 59:15 "... for my Instagram."

Joe Rogan 59:15 ... it was a demon? And why are you showing me your jizz-soaked pants?

Banachek 59:19 Well, we-

Joe Rogan 59:19 And how much do you have to come in your pants where it shows on the outside? I mean-

Banachek 59:22 W- (laughs)

Joe Rogan 59:23 ... Jesus Christ.

Banachek 59:25 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 59:25 You know? I mean-

Banachek 59:26 We, um, we were scared though. Like,