After a brief diversion about who slapped who at that big pop culture event recently, we look into a much, much different vein of show business. Get it? Vein? Seriously though, what makes people bleed from their hands and other places, allegedly spontaneously, in a replication of Christ's wounds? How many people have become known for this peculiar blessing, and how do they profit from it exactly? We'll discuss miracles versus Munchausen, fakery versus pious frauds, as well as other explanations for the affliction, and Ben recounts his visit with a bona fide stigmatic (as she was advertised, anyway).

After a few thoughts on Daylight Savings Time, we discuss a short list of purported deathbed confessions. The last words of a consequential figure can be hijacked or twisted to fit agenda -- or, sometimes, it's not just the words that are made up, it's the person too. From cautionary tales to urban legends, deathbed confessions are a peculiar branch of the folklore tree. There are also very real deathbed confessions that have solved mysteries, revealed crimes, or reversed a long-held position. Join us as we look into a few.

After a brief discussion on the recent jailbreak (rock break?) of a Japanese nine-tailed demon, and some thoughts on war rumors and viral stories coming out of Ukraine, we talk about people who think they can talk to animals. Or people who think their animal can talk to them -- psychically, of course. From a lost champion purebreed to a thoroughly tested terrier in the UK, we go over a few examples and our thoughts on the matter.

From superheroes to saints to trumpets, the idea of things seeming to float inexplicably in the air certainly captures our imagination. First Ben takes us through a history of levitation--as a sign of possession or piety, then as purported by Spiritualist mediums, and then as a side-effect of meditation. Celestia discusses some technological ways humans have found to levitate themselves or objects, using the magic of magnetism or air friction. And then Prof. Richard Wiseman joins us to delve into the mysterious Indian Rope Trick, which has a lot to teach us about psychology, memory, journalism, and much more!

First, all the way from New York City Skeptics, Russ Dobler drops in to tell us about AIPT Comic's skepticism month -- and we also chat about Joe Rogan and Ivermectin. Then our main topic is sex urban legends, a field so fertile it's a veritable cornucopia of naughty, forbidden, lurid, or merely humiliating tales that someone swears happened to a friend's cousin's boss's uncle. From Lemmiwinks the gerbil to the poor woman impregnated by a Civil War bullet, we dive into stories old and new about a topic people never seem to tire of.

As Oscar season approaches, we wanted to take some time to chat about movies we saw that either tripped our skeptical alarms or warmed our skeptical hearts. Some are major motion pictures like Don't Look Up, Nightmare Alley or even Disney's Encanto, but we discuss quite a few lesser known flicks on streaming services: Sasquatch, Seaspiracy, the The Lost Leonardo, and House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths. Tune in for our thoughts on these films and info on where you can see them. And boy do we have thoughts!

In this final installment of our moral panic series, as well as our final episode of 2021, we go into various banned books, fears about literature's effect on "weaker minds," the hearings on comic books and juvenile delinquency, and what makes a moral panic. Whether it's murders attributed to Catcher in the Rye or the big boss battle between Fredric Wertham and William Gaines, there's plenty of historical examples to draw from. Then Ben wraps up with some considerations (and criticisms) of moral panic theory and how it can be misapplied.

This penultimate episode in our moral panic series starts with a discussion of the TikTok worries that interrupted schools last week as authorities braced for possible gun violence. Then we talk cinema and television from old to new, and the themes in moral panicking that jump out repeatedly -- such as worrying about what the fragile minds of children or females might absorb, or copycat fears, or concerns about sex, violence, or low self-esteem.

In part 2 of our 4-part series, we talk about moral panics in music history. Some will seem quaint to our modern ears, while others are a bit more recent. From jaunty tunes interfering with factory work in the 1940s to rock artists in the 1980s defending their lyrics in congressional hearings, we look at a long history of how parent's just don't understand their kids' music. And what does the future hold in terms of musical panics? Can we even begin to predict that, when one of the key features of living through a moral panic is the uncertainty of whether something is, in fact, a moral panic?