Scott Carney Investigates

Have you ever woken up while you were dreaming, only to find that you couldn't move a muscle? Or, perhaps even more terrifying: have you woken up and felt a deep weight on your chest and sensed that an evil creature was pushing down on your chest? That, my friend, is the night hag--another name for sleep paralysis. I recently had a chance to chat with Kate Kavanaugh  @katekavanaughmbs  --a wor...

In 2011 the journalist Michael Scott Moore was on assignment in Somalia on an assignment to document the spread of piracy in the Gulf of Aden. Just before he took a flight home, gunman stopped his car and forced him to get out. This was the beginning of 977 days in captivity. I had the opportunity to speak with Moore before he left for Somalia on his initial trip, and once he was freed. This is a...

When Willoughby Britton set out to study the potential negative side effects of meditation she never expected that the community would want to hound her out of her job. But that's what happened after her study on the "Varieties of Contemplative Experience" came out and she documented how one out of every ten people who start meditating have a clinically significant negative side effects. Clinical...

Bigger storms, receding coastlines, and unlivable heat: climate change is coming and sometimes it feels like there's nothing we can do to stop it. This week I talk with Stephen Miller who has combed the history of humankind's attempts to control nature. He has some ideas about what adaptation will look like and how big tech projects have faired over generations. Read his new book: Over the Sea Wal...

Most people seem to age in a predictable direction, but Eric Hinman seems to be an exception. In this video I dive deep into how Eric quit his corporate job selling life insurance and decided to dedicate himself full time to health and happiness. In this podcast he gives us his tips on what it means to be fit in your 40's, how to make friends at any age and how much money a person can make on...

This week I spoke to Casey Fiesler, a tech ethicist, professor and rather famous TikTokker about the parallel universe of copyright litigation, fair use arguments, revenge pornography and so much more. Find more out about Fiesler's academic work here: Website | YouTube TikTok

I'd never heard about Dahn Yoga until Chris Flanders reached out to me. When I started digging in I learned how seriously dangerous this organization really is. Support this show on Patreon and get exclusive EARLY ACCESS and access to a private discord server:  Subscribe to my newsletter Scott Carney Investigates Podcast Books: ⁠The Wedge⁠  ⁠What Doesn't Kill Us⁠ ⁠The Enlightenment Trap⁠ T...

This is the full and unedited interview with Dan Ariely where we talk about the fraud allegations against him, the meaning of truth and so much more. Make up your own mind about what happened. Get Dan's new Book "Misbelief" here: https://amzn.to/3ZXxoLw #danariely #fraud #science

The one question that Emergency Room Doctors get more than any other is "what sorts of objects have you pilled out of people's rectums." I've known Dr. Rob Orman for several years now and he has stories galore: from the proper technique to remove rectal foreign bodies without damaging his patients, to how to keep up his bedside manner when operating on a known criminal with a hor...

Before I interviewed a well-known hitman in Bangalore in 2008 I told my editor at WIRED that if I didn't report back in 12 hours that he needed to call a cop that was known to shoot first and ask questions later because I was already probably dead. This story is not only about the risks that reporters take in the field, but how the changing distribution of journalism is going to fundamentally...

The largest and most successful empire in history wasn't Rome: it was the Mongols. This week I interview Jack Weatherford the New York Times bestselling author of " Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World " about what made the Mongolian Empire so successful. . . and what is REALLY hidden in Genghis Khan's grave. Support this show on Patreon and get exclusive EARLY ACCESS...

The filmmaker Vikram Gandhi wanted to expose the fake spirituality of the American wellness movement by impersonating the Hindu priests he grew up around. He invented a fake yoga, intoned Sanskrit chants that were translated from the marketing materials of Nike Sneakers, the US Army and G.I. Joe and told people to trust their intuition. What he didn't expect was that some of his followers star...

How do we reconcile the fact that lying is an incredibly effective strategy with our shared desire for truth? In the natural world all sort of creatures lie about how dangerous they are in order to survive. The Allied command lied in WW2 to confuse the Nazis before D-day, and most of us would say that the lying was justified. But lying also erodes the social fabric in general. Support this show on...

What is an expert? For that matter, why don't we trust them? In this week's episiode I interview Jamie Carlin Watson, a bioethicist and professor with a whole host of academic credentials at the end of his name who also happens to be an expert on the very notion of expertise. We discuss the madness that gripped the world during the COVID-19 epidemic, the fall of credenitalism and why both...

How does the barbaric history of medicine shed light on the future of artificial intelligence? How will computers transform the way doctors think? Will patients benefit from the placebo effect if they're talking to a robot? Adam Rodman M.D. http://bedside-rounds.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/AdamRodmanM D Bedside Rounds https://open.spotify.com/show/6GcbCZtWqmggsH70qlhaUU Books Mentioned:...

The father of the first atom bomb quoted an ancient Hindu scripture when he saw the mushroom cloud exploding over the New Mexico desert. His immortal quote "I am Become Death, destroyer of worlds," framed the dawning of the age we live in today. I recently saw the Chirstopher Nolan's film on Robert Oppenheimer and it got me wondering about the famous passage. It's not just a bada...

In 2004 I was invited to join in sexual union with a room full of beautiful people in robes at the Osho compound in Pune. When I arrived there a few days earlier I saw hundreds of people speak in tongues together as they accessed their own spiritual truths. This was my first, by hardly my last, experience from the inside of cultic thinking and practices. This month a new TV show appeared Netflix s...

Do psychedelics actually make you a better person, or do they just make you feel like you're a better person. In this show I begin with the notion that spaceflight fundamentally transforms the consciousness of astronauts who blast off the surface of earth, the tendency for space tourists to snap selfies with the planet, and the marginal utility of getting 1% better every time you take a cup of...

Josiah Hesse memorized his bible, let the Holy Ghost into his heart, and tithed 10% of everything to his evangelical church. It was only later when he realized how wrong it all had been. Now a pioneer of the EXvangelical movement, Denver-Journalist Josiah Hesse explains how it all went down, and what it means for the rest of christian America. More about Josiah Here: Josiah Hesse's Website Run...

Electric illumination changed humanity's relationship with darkness. Clark Strand, author of Waking Up to The Dark wants us to reclaim lost human states of consciousness by turning off the lights. Find out more about Clark Strand . Support this show on Patreon and get exclusive EARLY ACCESS and access to a private discord server:  Subscribe to my newsletter Scott Carney Investigates Podcast Bo...

What is it about being famous that turns people into shadows of their former-selves? And what does that mean for the rest of us who seek micro-levels of fame on social media platforms? Support this show on Patreon and get exclusive EARLY ACCESS and access to a private discord server:  Subscribe to my newsletter Scott Carney Investigates Podcast Books: ⁠The Wedge⁠  ⁠What Doesn't Kill Us⁠ ⁠The E...

Joshua Kappel helped lead the effort to legalize psychadelic drugs in Colorado, and what happened here might be a model for what happens in the rest of the country. Are we ready for mail order MDMA? Support this show on Patreon and get exclusive EARLY ACCESS and access to a private discord server:  Subscribe to my newsletter Scott Carney Investigates Podcast Books: ⁠The Wedge⁠  ⁠What Doesn't K...

This week I talk with Patrick Mckeown, the best selling author of The Oxygen Advantage and The Breathing Cure about looming problems in the broader breathwork community as the global movement gains in popularity. Mckeown has studied the Buteyko method for 21 years and worries that some of the more dramatic breathing practices that have gained popularity around the world can lead to serious consequ...

Thirteen deaths; a $67 million lawsuit; lies, cover-ups and a near-fatal enema. After being Wim Hof's most public proponent and doing his method for ten years, investigative journalist Scott Carney reveals the story he never wanted to tell about what he thinks might be the impending demise of the Wim Hof method. Get Exclusive Updates, Behind the Scenes Peeks and Advanced Content on Patreon Subscri...

What does it mean to live in a simulation? Is it a simulated universe that lives on the silicone chips of an alien computer (or a future computer invented by humanity itself)? Is it a simulated universe that runs on the karmic seeds described in ancient Hindu and Buddhist texts? Or are we a Blotzman Brain floating through the ether long after the heat-death of the universe? I think those are all f...