Witchcraft, Divination, Alchemy, Satanism, occult practices take many forms and historian Dr. Brian Regal studies them all. We talk the history of the occult, how occult practices have influenced different aspects of society and the real difference between the occult and religion. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Fictional Witches.
Brian Regal: 01:28
Pointless: 42:36
Top 5: 01:03:37
Interview with Occult Historian Dr. Brian Regal
Nick VinZant 0:12
Welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant. Coming up in this episode the occult, and witches,
Dr. Brian Regal 0:21
it can turn deadly. We have, we have a number of cases where, where young people get into this. And the next thing you know, they're out killing people, all of our modern cookbooks basically evolve out of these occult witches spell books, this has got to be part of a much wider conspiracy of people doing terrible things. And next thing you know, you have, you know, researchers, journalists, who are taking every single weird murder case, and looking at Oh, they were part of this grand conspiracy you,
Nick VinZant 0:58
I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, subscribe, leave us a rating or review, we really appreciate it, it really helps us out. If you're a new listener, welcome to the show. If you're a longtime listener, thank you so much for all of your support. So our first guest studies the occult, its history, its influence and where it's going. This is a cult historian, Dr. Brian regal. What is the occult? Like what makes something of the occult versus not of the occult?
Dr. Brian Regal 1:33
Oh, well, that's not an easy question to answer. The word occult simply means hidden. Everybody thinks it has some sort of mystical, magical meaning to it, it just simply means something that's not hidden, or is hidden. If you consider religion and occult practice, then there's tons of it. But, you know, most religions have sort of aspects to them, belief systems to them, that we could call a cult, they, of course, would get very upset. If you say it's a cult, if I'm just if I just say, without any details. Here's an organization that venerates a dead person who was killed and came back to life. And then we venerate all these other people who died, and we can talk to them. And if you talk to them in just the right way, they will then go to the great deity, and will bring your ideas to the great deity. And everybody goes, Oh, yeah, okay, that sounds like the occult. And then I say, well, that's Christianity. Oh, no, that's not the occult, you know. So it all depends upon kind of our, our position here now, in the Americas and North America, you don't really get the embracing of this thing we vaguely call the occult, in a way that happens in other places. The thing the sort of occult practice, that catches on first, in what is then known as British North America, is astrology. Astrology comes over with those early settlers, early immigrants, one of the things that it gets involved in back in Europe is medical astrology. You go to a doctor, the first thing they ask you is what's your birthday. And then they cast your horoscope. And by casting your horoscope, this is a little convoluted, so you got to stick with me. By casting your horoscope they can figure out what's wrong with you, and how to fix it. And the fixing, didn't involve like blood transfusions or anything like that. It involves figuring out the right, Crystal talisman to give you to where, because illness was seen as something that came from the spheres that is outside the earth. And these emanations came down and came down to the earth and got into you got into me gets into everybody. And if you get bad emanations, that's what makes you sick. So the medical astrologer would try to figure out, you know, what's your star sign, all that sort of thing. And you you sort of do this sort of algorithm, as it were, and you come up with being okay, you should be carrying a piece of turquoise. And that would theoretically at least, prevent the bad emanations from reaching you. So you could block the bad emanations through the use of astrology. And conversely, you could bring in the good emanations to make you healthy and keep you healthy. And so that sort of thing continues to this day. I mean, The crystal healing is still a thing.
Nick VinZant 5:02
What would you say kind of so okay so we have astrology What would you say is kind of the next biggest occult practice or idea or whatever you want to call it that kind of comes into society.
Dr. Brian Regal 5:14
I would argue that that spiritualism, spiritualism, hits here in the US, the US by now in the 1840s. In Hyattsville, New York, we can actually find a spot. This is where it begins. And with the fox family, the fox sisters, there's three flock sisters, and they live in this tiny little house. Hyattsville, New York, upstate New York. And the sisters kind of little house with like, one main floor, Ridge, the big room, and then like an attic space, and the sisters live in the attic space. And the dad starts getting upset, because in the middle of the night, he starts hearing these sort of, like knocking on wood sounds. And he climbs up the ladder and he looks and they're asleep. So it goes back down next night. Knocking wood sounds clients back what was going on? Nothing. So finally he confronts his his daughters. Why are you making those banging sounds and now you're keeping me and your mother up? We're not doing that. That's been done by Mr. Split foot. And so it turns out that they think they have contacted a spirit. Now, who might miss their split foot be? Have no idea? The devil the devil,
Nick VinZant 6:51
or the guy that the clove and who's the COVID? Who
Dr. Brian Regal 6:56
people start freaking out because you know, these wacky Hyde sisters, they're talking to the devil? Because eventually what happens is they say, Well, Mr. Split foot talks to us by making rapping sounds, and we figured out how to make rapping sounds back to speak to him. And this spreads like wildfire. local pastor comes over, you know, at the, the the fox house is haunted. But they start getting followers, and people start saying, wait a minute, if you can do this, can you teach me how to do it? I want to contact my dead relatives. And so they start so yeah, okay, well, you just do this, and you do that. And you, you work out a code system, and you can talk to your dead relatives. And it becomes hugely popular. And eventually, years later, the fox sisters will admit that they were just making the whole thing up, you know, they weren't actually talking to a spirit but by then it doesn't matter. The genies out of the bottle. This becomes a huge thing. It's very popular throughout America, and you even get practitioners mediums that tour, they actually go on like a rock and roll band touring. And so these, these traveling, seance people mediums start making tons of money. There's an example a woman named chorus, Scott, chorus got hatch, very attractive, very cuddly, and she starts doing this and she is usually popular, because you take this ability to talk to spirits and stick it in a hot baby. And you know, all bets are off. You have this spread of spiritualism and one of the things that comes out of that is the Ouija board. astrologist kind of astrology and spiritualism. They're so the high end occult practices. But then you have a lot of these little people running around. Individual people who never get famous, we never know who they are. But they're running around doing occult things, in particular stuff like divination and dowsing. Dowsing is another very popular in URL in colonial America or early America. Dowsing is this idea. That if you are if you as an individual, if you are attuned to the spirit world, you can take a stick. And if you hold in just the right way, and you walk around, you can find water. You have witchcraft, which also was extremely difficult to define. You have witches you don't have huge numbers of witches like supposedly there were in Europe. We do have to The infamous witch trials the witch craze of the 1700s going on around Boston. But the issue there is, as far as we know, none of the people who were put on trial for witchcraft were actually witches.
Nick VinZant 10:15
They weren't witches in the sense that like, No, they weren't witches, or like they weren't even claiming to be witches,
Dr. Brian Regal 10:20
right? They weren't even claiming. So any sort of folk medicine, folk practice was automatically labeled witchcraft. So if you again, remember that this is a time in American history where people don't live in cities, there's very few doctors around there are certain medical schools in the US at this time. So if you wanted to really become a doctor, go to medical school, you had to go overseas. So most, most doctors in North America were self taught women, mostly because this, this seems to have been mostly a women's profession, if you will. And they start writing this stuff down. And so they start creating what we call today spell books. Back then, they were called grim law, you have to say, with an outrageous French accent. And this, these books, they would write stuff down, and does it take care of this? Oh, and this is how you make a really delicious cake. And so you start to get these spellbooks that are part of a cult, medicine, part, astrology, part cookbook, all of our modern cookbooks basically evolve out of these occult witches spell books. And we don't think of a cookbook today as a, you know, as some sort of sorcery. But that's where it all comes from. And so it's, it's in that way, that occult practice spreads throughout US culture. But the witch trials that in the 1790s in Boston are not really I'm sorry, 1760s are not really about witches. It's about stealing land. Because if you don't like your neighbor, right, and your neighbor has a nice piece of land, and you want to buy it and your neighbor won't sell it to you, all you got to do is go to the authorities and say my neighbor is a witch, I've seen them flying around on a broom, they get arrested, they get put in jail, they get put on trial. And even if they don't get executed by the state, by the time they come back, you have bought their land. So by making accusations you get it's it's no different today. Then accusing someone of being woke. It's not about the stuff. It's about labeling someone you don't like as a bad person. But luckily, the Witch craze here in America doesn't really reach the kind of homicidal genocidal levels it does in Europe. Hundreds of 1000s of people are executed in Europe for being witches and werewolves to most people don't realize there were actually werewolf trials, in in medieval and early modern Europe now jumped forward. Throughout most of the 19th century, a coats, buckle practices were done very privately, but into the 20th century, specially post World War Two, you start to get a kind of resurgence. Particularly in California, you have Anton LaVey, who is the guy who creates the the Church of Satan, the modern church of Satan. And he's a great self promoter. And he's in California. And this is the 1960s. And he had the love movement. And people are running around they want to they want to experiment with new things. Drug use is on the rise. And so he starts this thing that becomes very popular because people think, Oh, absolutely. This is a way I can show rebellion. I'll be a Satan worshiper. The problem is Anton LaVey and his people, they don't really think Satan is real. To them, Satan or the Devil, whatever you want to call is a metaphor for rebellion against conformity as a way of expanding your consciousness. But people who don't understand that they think they're really actually
Nick VinZant 14:46
worshipping Satan
Dr. Brian Regal 14:47
worshipping the devil. What what most people today most people what they think is the occult isn't really they've gained most of most of our modern understanding or thought to be understanding of occult practices of witchcraft. devil worship is all from the movies.
Nick VinZant 15:11
Yeah, that's what kind of the impression that I got right was a lot of this stuff is more a creation of the media than what is actually being practiced. Right? Of course. What What would you say that occultism kind of in practice, like, what does that look like today?
Dr. Brian Regal 15:27
Well, it doesn't really look like most people think it does. They're not not sacrificing virgins on an altar, you know, in some hidden dungeon, the vast majority of occult practitioners today you wouldn't even recognize them, because they're, they look like everybody else. There's a lot of spirit belief that you can achieve a kind of oneness with the universe by by chanting certain prayers. And again, the the, the crystal healing thing is is a major holdover from those early days. And so that's why if you go into you know, a witch store, what do they sell and mostly in the in the window crystals, because it's still believed that the crystal can be something to sort of focus energy, pulling the good emanations chase the bad emanations away. Today's modern occult practitioners don't really fit the stereotype, the movie TV stereotype, and anybody who does is faking?
Nick VinZant 16:41
Yeah, they're they're putting on an act, right? Like it's more for the attention aspect,
Dr. Brian Regal 16:45
right? That's why you get these groups. You know, they're usually teenagers who start to you know, oh, we're going to become Satan worshipers and we found an old house somewhere in the woods, and we're gonna go in there, we're gonna paint pentagrams on the wall and do all this stuff. And it's about self empowerment. The people who often do that fake sort of Satanists witchcraft stuff. They're people who feel they have no power in the world. How do I get it? If I be if I worship Satan, I can get power. If I become a witch, I can get power. Real, real witches. Don't do that. You know, because that's not what they're about. And the problem with that is unfortunately, like, we can sit here and sort of laugh at it a little bit. Oh, Satan worship or, you know, tell Satan, I said, Hi. And next time you're talking to him, it can turn deadly. We have we have a number of cases where, where young people get into this. And the next thing, you know, they're out killing people. Because well, Satan wanted me to do this. If you remember, some years ago, there was the infamous Son of Sam. Yeah, yeah, New York. And they caught the catch the guy and you know, I was talking to a dog. And you know, I'm a Satanist. And we're doing all this stuff. It turns out, and people looked at this list, and oh, my God, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are these satanic groups. We even call it the Satanic Panic. It happens here in America, and it happens in England as well. This has got to be part of a much wider conspiracy of people doing terrible things. And next thing you know, you have, you know, researchers, journalists, who are taking every single weird murder case, and looking at Oh, they were part of this grand conspiracy, you know, Charles Manson is part of his thing. And you know, every every weird, disturbing murder they could find, they somehow hook it up to this.
Nick VinZant 18:52
Why do you think though that some things right, okay, even if it kind of sounds like a very similar thing between the occult and religion, why does some things get classified as the cult and some things get classified as religion?
Dr. Brian Regal 19:05
Because we do religion, you do the occult.
Nick VinZant 19:10
It's that simple, right? It's not who's doing it. It's not what they're doing. It's who's doing it.
Dr. Brian Regal 19:14
If we do it, it's okay. If they do it, it's wrong.
Nick VinZant 19:19
Is there any kind of fundamental difference? They would say, okay, these two things seemed the same on the surface. But underneath there's there is something that people just feel differently about,
Dr. Brian Regal 19:30
you know, I, I'm a historian, I'm not a psychologist, so I don't really have the, the training or the skills to really explain that, but take any religion. Take the names off of it. And just say, here's the fundamental structure of what this religion does. And compare it to, you know, compare them. You can't tell the difference between you know, even a main Stream religion and, and the occult practice, witchcraft practice. It's all fundamentally the same. The practitioners are trying to gain some connection to the divine. One of the things you notice about religions in general, whether it's the Western Abrahamic religions, you know, Judaism, Christianity, or, or Islam, or or Eastern religions, like Buddhism, or Hinduism, or Shinto ism, or Jainism, it's all about knowing that we humans are until we meet real space aliens, and we haven't yet. Sorry, I had to break that to you. But there's no evidence space aliens have ever come here. That doesn't mean they're not out there, they just haven't come here. Until we find out that there are really space aliens, where it and we are we humans, we are the worst creatures in the universe. And when we're not doing horrible things, we're trying to figure out how to clean ourselves up so that we can contact the divine. That's what most religions are about. That's what witchcraft is about. And, you know, we want to somehow shed this horrible, awful mortal live life of ours, and find something better in the spirit world and heaven in Nirvana. You know, wherever, wherever you think the place to be is. That's what we're trying to do. And they all basically take the same approach, clean yourself up, get right with the spirit world, and you get to go to heaven or whatever.
Nick VinZant 21:46
There is, I think it would be really difficult to explain to somebody what, like, what's the difference between a spell and a prayer? Right? I guess is it more based on right? Like, I always kind of go back to the metaphor of high school, right? Like the cool kids in high school are religious, and the weird kids are a cold. There you go. Is it that simple?
Dr. Brian Regal 22:08
I think it is, you know, it's that stupidly, idiotically simple.
Nick VinZant 22:13
If one is the lowest and 10 is the highest. What do you think is like the influence of the occult on American society? Like, where would you put it on that scale?
Dr. Brian Regal 22:25
I'd say five or six.
Nick VinZant 22:27
Is there any evidence, though, that following the occult path, takes people to a place that following the religious path does not? I don't think so. I would say mainstream religions, at least like I was raised in a mainstream religion, but there's a hope there. Is there the same kind of hope in occult practices?
Dr. Brian Regal 22:48
Yeah, I think there is. That's why they do it.
Nick VinZant 22:51
It really isn't any different than I don't
Dr. Brian Regal 22:55
I don't think so. I mean, there's probably a lot of very devout religions, listening to them right now screaming at me, on on their computer, but I I study this stuff for a living. And I teach this stuff for a living. And, again, I would love to be able to say, Look, don't worry, when no matter what happens in this life, when you die, if you've been a good person, you'll get to go to this nice place. Or you'll see these people that in your life that you've loved, that you've lost, you'll be able to see them again. I have no evidence that that happens. I wish it did. I would be so happy. If when I die, I open my eyes. And there's all these people I would love for that to happen. The spiritual is cold, it's summer land. That's where all the spirits were. And you could go to summer land. Because it was always nice. The weather was always nice. Everybody was dressed in like bitch and Victorian outfits, you know. And you could speak to Ben Franklin, or you could speak to George Washington. Or you could speak to Siddhartha, or you could meet Jesus. And you you'd have these sort of endless Garden Parties, where you could say the weather was always wonderful, and everybody's in great outfits. It would be great that that was a real thing. I just don't think I just don't think there is.
Nick VinZant 24:36
I hope that's what I would hope right? Like if something happens, and whatever it is, is like, I just hope whoever's like, you want to go again. Like yeah, go again.
Dr. Brian Regal 24:45
Try it. Well, you know, Hindus and Buddhists believe in reincarnation. Yeah. Because they believe that you are so awful. You are so you're such a filthy human being that you can't clean yourself up and just one Lifetime. Why don't we so you need multiple lifetimes. The western Abrahamic religion in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, their thinking is very linear, you have a beginning, a middle and an end. And that's it. If you can find that you get one shot at finding salvation, if you don't get it, you're done. But many polytheistic religions like Hinduism or Buddhism, they recognize that human beings are awful. And you can't achieve this thing in one lifetime. So you get a bunch of goes at it.
Nick VinZant 25:38
What's what's the reason, though, that we always have to be awful? Like, are there any occult practices or like, you know what, maybe we're not that bad?
Dr. Brian Regal 25:45
Well, that's, you know, that's a great philosophical issue. I can use the example in, in, in the Western experience, we have this thing that we call the enlightenment, this period, sort of like the middle of the 1600s, through about, you know, 1800 or so. And you get all these famous philosophers. Well, those guys, they make your read in, you know, in intro to philosophy in college. And you have these two guys, you have John Locke, and you have Thomas Hobbes. And they're often held up as kind of the poster children for this question. Locke said, human beings are born basically good. And if people are left to them their own devices, they will behave well. Hobbes said, No, people are basically awful. And they will stab you shoot you, Rob, they will kill their mothers for 50 cents. And so Locke said, well, we should have less government because people are adult enough to live their lives in a decent way. And POB said, No, we have to have a leviathan, a huge government, that forces you to be good with the threat of punishment, whether it's, you know, ball, or Santa Lucia, and they will, they will sort of fix me, you know, they'll take my, my problems to a sort of a higher authority, and then everything will get, I don't see a difference between that the idea is the same, the end game is the same.
Nick VinZant 27:34
Why do you think then some people have such a harsh reaction to it, right? Like, you're doing what, you know, they get the right, like, Why do you think that there's such a reaction, even though these two concepts may be pretty similar?
Dr. Brian Regal 27:47
Because what I do is okay, what you do is wrong.
Nick VinZant 27:51
Kind of looking back at some of the more like, I guess, historical or societal, or whatever kind of definitions you want to give on that one? Like, are there some occult ideas that have kind of crept into the mainstream? Like you would say, like, oh, that's kind of an occult idea that is now more in the mainstream society?
Dr. Brian Regal 28:09
Well, astrology is that easy example that spirit mediums are still everywhere, you know, you can go to you can go to a spirit medium and they'll they'll cast your horoscope and has it
Nick VinZant 28:20
has it crept into like government at all?
Dr. Brian Regal 28:22
Well, Ronald Reagan had a personal astrologer
Nick VinZant 28:27
Yeah, that's pretty high up there. Right. When you got the President of the United States, okay, much
Dr. Brian Regal 28:30
higher than President United States. And so if the president can can believe in this, I'm willing to bet I don't have any evidence. I can't say a name. Only because I don't know. But I would not be surprised if we find out that there's there's a number of current elected officials in our government who believe this stuff is real.
Nick VinZant 28:53
Um, do you have some time for some listeners submitted questions? Sure, most unique occult concept like oh, that's an occult practice that is pretty different from anything else.
Dr. Brian Regal 29:05
I can't think of anything that's like really, you know, this the mainstream of Wicca let's say they do this. And then you have this Oh, off shoe that does something very different. I can't think of anything like that.
Nick VinZant 29:19
Is there anything even kind of close to like, Oh, that's a little different.
Dr. Brian Regal 29:22
Yeah. And, and like I said before, most most practices that that the average person thinks, oh, that's a witchcraft thing, or that's a Satan thing or whatever. aren't really a thing. Because it comes out of there. They're all ideas invented for movies and TV.
Nick VinZant 29:41
That leads us into the next question like movie with the best description the best movie or TV show with the best depiction of the occult movie or TV show with the worst depiction.
Dr. Brian Regal 29:53
You I might fall back on an old faithful and mentioned the exorcist but you That's not I'm not sure if that's really a cult movie, as it were. Because Kath, the Catholic Church believes that people can get taken over by evil spirits. But I don't think there's really, maybe the viewers would know this better, I don't think is really a movie or TV show that that a practicing witch would look at and say, Wow, that's really like what I do. And I think that's because the reality is most witchcraft is kind of boring.
Nick VinZant 30:34
This one just I don't know if this is a thing, like, it just says, what's up with the dollar bill? I hate this question. And I hate this question. It's
Dr. Brian Regal 30:49
I, you know, it makes me crazy. The minute I hear the name, Freemason, or Illuminati, I just want to kill the person who's asking me the question. Oh, man, Founding Fathers man. They were all Masons man, they were in the Illuminati man knew him out, he controls the world. The reason why this is a pet peeve, for me, the reason why Ben Franklin and George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and all those guys, the guys are called founding fathers. The reason they were Freemasons is because when modern Masonry is put together, because people always try to connect this somehow to ancient Egypt. But modern masonry begins, as a way, a reaction against monarchy, and against government repression. Because remember, until the US is created, every country in the world is some kind of monarchy. And the people who start Freemasonry are the Illuminati. And the reason why they start as secret societies, is because if, let's say if you're in early modern France, and you have a monarchy, that is using the police using the military to crack down on anybody who gets even a whiff of anti monarchy, they send the troops in. So you're not going to want to discuss this stuff out in the open. You want to discuss it with like minded people who you know, won't rat you out to the authorities. And so both the Masons and the Illuminati start as he's kind of pro democracy, pro freedom organizations, that we will, we have to keep it secret. But while it's similar, we're going to work to try to put together political structures that will help us get rid of the monarchy and, and bring in freedom and democracy and all those things we like. That's why the that's why the the founding fathers are all into this, because what's the revolute American Revolution is all about is about kicking out the the British Empire kicking out the monarchy. And so you wouldn't say that out loud in the open, because you would never know who's listening. And so they create these things as, as secret societies, and the dollar bill. The dollar, the dollar bill we know and love today is a modern institution. It's basically a 20th century invention. And so you have all these people running around, who want to tell you about, oh, man, there's all this stuff. It's secret coded stuff and the dollar bill, man, you know, if you've, if you fold $1 bill up just the right way, you know, it's show Solomon's temple, and that's where the Ark of the Covenant was. And it makes you crazy, because it's all nonsense.
Nick VinZant 34:08
That's exactly what the Illuminati wants you to think, though, isn't it?
Dr. Brian Regal 34:13
Your crafted dude.
Nick VinZant 34:15
can't fool me.
Dr. Brian Regal 34:17
I'm no sheeple.
Nick VinZant 34:19
It's kind of the last question we got. But basically, like, where do you think that the occult goes from here? Does it fundamentally change? Does it like start incorporating robots and AI? Or is it same? Same thing?
Dr. Brian Regal 34:34
I don't know. There's there's a in my late partner, she was also a historian. Her area of of especially was the history of robotics. And within the world of robotics, there's this concept of the singularity. And the singularity is the idea that technology will the way technology is progressing. It will get to a point in the not that distant future where we can take depending upon who you who you talk to about this, take your brain and stick in a robot. And so, you the, you know, who you are as an individual as a person will be in this machine. And so the machine will last. And if the machine breaks down, it can change parts and things. But humans and machines will essentially kind of merge together. And there are some roboticists who think this is a real thing, or can be a real thing. There are some who say, No, that's crazy, you know, you're never going to really be able to do that. But that might that might be the the next phase of it
Nick VinZant 35:53
is the practice of the call, would you say that is more popular now than it has been in years past? Going up Going down staying the same?
Dr. Brian Regal 36:02
It's probably staying the same. You know, it's, it's sort of has a level, sometimes it goes up a little bit, sometimes it goes down a little bit. And I like, oh, oh, no, I was just gonna say, you know, I know, I'm not an occult practitioner. I'm not a witch. I'm not a sorcerer, of any kind. But I've known and still know, some people who actively engage in this in this behavior. And of all the people I know, then the nicest,
Nick VinZant 36:33
at what time period? Would you say that the occult was biggest. And like, countries where it is the biggest, since the
Dr. Brian Regal 36:43
fall of communism, for example, I think sort of a cult ideas are seeing a little bit of a resurgence in, in Russia in some of the Slavic countries. In Africa, there has there's been this kind of surge throughout the 20th century, and unfortunately, has taken on some really awful aspects. Several years ago, there were a series of murders in Africa of albino people. Because the idea of spread that albino people are somehow, you know, wizards and sorcerers. And so these poor people are, you know, be chased around hacked to death, because of some idiotic belief system that isn't, you know, meat, that doesn't mean anything. And so there are places like that around. I think, probably that kind of stuff currently sees most of its popularity in Africa. And, you know, it's like the teenagers getting into Satanism. They have no power. They've been, you know, spit on their whole lives. Here's a way I can gain some little bit of power for myself. And I think that's a similar thing going on, in places in Africa and not everywhere. But there are these kind of pockets. Where people have come to believe these these things that, you know, okay, if you believe in Bigfoot, I don't believe in Bigfoot. I wrote a book about Bigfoot. There's no Bigfoot. But if you believe in Bigfoot, so what, you know, it's not the end of the world. But there are some of these practices, some of these occult practices that that lead to violence lead to homicide. In no greater numbers, no greater numbers than Christianity does, or Islam does, or, or Hinduism does. But we tend to focus on you know, the when when a guy walks into a Burger King, and shoots every buddy with a machine gun and says, Jesus told me to do this. That's horrible. And it's awful. But if somebody walked in and did the same thing said, The devil made me do this. I'm a Satan worshiper, that's gonna get all the headlines.
Nick VinZant 39:05
Um, is there anything that we kind of think that we missed, or what's kind of coming up next for you, if people want to learn more, more?
Dr. Brian Regal 39:12
Well, you can go to my my web page. Just google my name, you'll get my Kane University webpage. You can see the classes I teach. You can see the books I've written the book that I just had come out is about myths and legends about who, you know, really discovered America. And there's a lot of wacky occult stuff in there. And, you know, I've written books on Bigfoot and on the Jersey Devil, and the Cyclopedia of pseudoscience has got a lot of occult stuff in it. And you can read my I've done over the years, I've done a bunch of Op Ed pieces on various different topics, too. and articles that you can download for free. There's an article in there that I wrote a few years ago about werewolves, which cause the, the werewolf community of Brooklyn to threaten me.
Nick VinZant 40:10
You got to watch it like even if it's,
Dr. Brian Regal 40:14
that give you a little insight view of my life.
Nick VinZant 40:18
Wait, what's the occult thing about who discovered America?
Dr. Brian Regal 40:22
There are people who believe that that witches came to America before Columbus, that ancient Greek code practitioners found their way here. It all before Columbus is, these are all stories about people came to America before Columbus, and Carthaginians who came to Oklahoma, you know, and that there's there's evidence there and that Vikings came here, not the Vikings that we know came here because there were Vikings who did come here, up in Nova Scotia. But there are sort of the other Viking belief system about Leif Erickson and his homicidal sister fritas. Who goes around hacking people up with an axe and you know, so there's there's some interesting stuff there. Columbus even said he saw manatees that's that talked Leif Erickson said he's, there are these creatures at of of European tradition, called the skip ODI. These are people with one giant foot as a two little feet in one huge and they hop around on ones. And Leif Erickson. According to the Finland sagas, he saw one of these things hopping around, you know, New England somewhere. And so, you know, it's, it's my, the focus of my work is on the relationship between amateur speculators and professional scholars. And so there's tons of that in the discovery American discovery myths.
Nick VinZant 42:10
I want to thank Dr. Regal, so much for joining us if you want to connect with him, we have linked to him on our social media sites. We're Profoundly Pointless on tik, Tok, Instagram, and YouTube. And we've also included his information in the episode description. The YouTube version of this interview will be live on October 12, at 4:30pm Pacific. Okay, now, let's bring in John Shaw, and get to the pointless part of the show. So if you had your wish, like what do you hope happens after you die?
John Shull 42:45
Oh, I mean, what I want to have happen is everything that I didn't have in reality I would want in the afterlife. That's it. That's it. I mean, yeah. I mean, I mean, I'd have to see what's happening. Like if I died, right, like, I wouldn't want to make that determination. Until I found out what the afterlife was going to be like. It is, you know, it is scary to think about though, however. Like, what if you do pass on? And it's just your soul? Like, that's it like you're not even you? You're just like this floating ball of you. Like, it's kind of it is kind of interesting to think about what really happens when you do pass on.
Nick VinZant 43:29
What if you're just stuck in the coffin forever? Heavy, terrible, man. That'd be the worst.
John Shull 43:36
Yeah, I mean, obviously, eventually you Well, I guess if you're already dead, then you're just no, that sounds terrible.
Nick VinZant 43:43
That's that'd be the worst thing. Right? That would be the worst thing just to be there forever.
John Shull 43:49
Yeah, I forever for whatever reason, I just immediately started just wanting to eat fruit now, and go work out tonight. So thank you, you gotta
Nick VinZant 43:57
delay that as long as possible.
John Shull 44:00
Right, but, but I'm also you know, I tried to be a realist and there probably isn't anything. When you pass on right? There's probably not a whole lot. But what what does happen? That's it is a it's an incredible question. But I, I just I fail to see the light, so to speak. I don't know if there is something beyond just death.
Nick VinZant 44:24
The only thing that I would really want besides like, the ability to see my friends and family again, I would like like a review of my life. Like, oh, if you would have made this decision here, you could have done this. Or if you would have made this decision here. You would have been here like a post mortem of my own life where we just go over like all of the different things that could have happened to me.
John Shull 44:48
I mean, it's I guess it all goes into the Do you believe in? Is fate real? Is there a predetermined order of your life before you even get out of The vagina?
Nick VinZant 45:01
I think so in the sense that you're much of your life is predetermined by your genetics and where you are born. I think that there's fate in that sense, you're really kind of not changing that, right? Like, you and I are never going to be pro basketball players.
John Shull 45:16
Yeah, man. It's, I mean, listen, we don't we don't usually go down this path very often with, you know, life and things. But it is interesting to think I, I don't know, if you have everything when you're born, I feel the same way you do that I think you're born into it. But I don't think you're born with an already predetermined, you know, disposition, I guess.
Nick VinZant 45:40
I kind of think that you are, I kind of think that you're born in a general direction. And then maybe you can make some choices that can change that. But I don't think that people for the most part, are really super responsible for either their success or their failure, that you are always kind of gonna be in that one place. And maybe a twist of fate or a twist of luck. Got You Here and got you there. But for the most part, I think that most of the formative decisions of your life are pretty much all decided by your genetics at birth in your environment at home.
John Shull 46:18
Well, I mean, like, like us meeting, if I never took the job if you never took the job. What if we had just stayed in our hometowns? There would have never been Nick and John, can you imagine that the world would have been left without r us as a team,
Nick VinZant 46:33
there would be at least five people who would be disappointed by that.
John Shull 46:39
Everyone who voted for the signal awards, there had to be at least
Nick VinZant 46:42
five of them. We didn't get last. I know that we didn't get last, which is a major achievement, considering that we're up against like Kevin Hart, and the lady from Seinfeld, and somebody on Netflix. And Jon Stewart, like I when I was when I saw that we didn't get last in voting. I was shocked.
John Shull 46:59
I actually think the last I checked, we were actually tied for second to last. We weren't even like second to last alone. Oh, so we
Nick VinZant 47:07
could have been as high as third from the bottom.
John Shull 47:10
Yeah, technically, we were because there was a podcast below us. And then we were tied with another podcast for you know, whatever that position you want to call it.
Nick VinZant 47:20
So out of six, so we could have been third out of six. That's not that bad.
John Shull 47:25
Not that bad. Especially when, how many votes were casted, like, 200,000?
Nick VinZant 47:32
I don't think it was all in our category. I mean, if then we're
John Shull 47:36
going, we're going that we're going 200,000
Nick VinZant 47:39
Okay, all right. Well, then probably anybody who voted for us was probably thinking of something else. Or they were just ironic voting which will take Yeah, I'll take that nice, big deep sigh out.
John Shull 47:51
Yeah, you got to breathe. You know, I'm learning that as you get older, you got to breathe.
Nick VinZant 47:55
How long? How long do you think you could hold your breath?
John Shull 48:00
Like if I if I'm trying to, like, challenge myself,
Nick VinZant 48:04
try it right now at all time it
John Shull 48:08
okay, I mean, well, I got I gotta, I gotta get a good breath in. So okay, go
Nick VinZant 48:15
pinch your nose. No breathing out of your nose. Don't like hurts yourself. Like go until you kind of start to lose your breath. Because we don't have that much time. I've already forgotten 20 seconds. You. This 20 seconds
John Shull 48:34
made me laugh? No. I mean, I challenged myself before just randomly. I've done a minute. I think the most I've ever done is a minute. 15 dry. So
Nick VinZant 48:42
wait a minute, how old are you?
John Shull 48:45
And this is what this is. sometime within the pandemic. I don't remember exactly when but
Nick VinZant 48:49
were you around other people? Or were you just like one day? I'm going to see how long
John Shull 48:54
story but I don't really want to tell where I was in why I did it.
Nick VinZant 49:00
Why not? What were you doing? Cuz it's
John Shull 49:03
lame. And it's not that great. It's actually kind of pathetic. Okay,
Nick VinZant 49:07
well then go ahead and tell us.
John Shull 49:10
I was laying in bed. And I was trying to fall asleep. And I was like, I was like, Man, I'll try. I don't know if people count sheet. Maybe I'll see. You know, maybe the less oxygen to my brain will cause me to go to sleep. I don't know. So
Nick VinZant 49:27
you timed it though?
John Shull 49:28
I did. Yeah. Yep.
Nick VinZant 49:31
Did you fall asleep afterwards? Did it work?
John Shull 49:33
I mean, I'm guessing because I yeah, I mean, I woke up the next morning. I do find it you know, speaking of that, I do find it interesting that your body is so reactive and smart that it will not let you you know choke yourself out or like not breathe like it will eventually your body will force you to breathe.
Nick VinZant 49:55
Yeah, I mean if he does that what happened to you?
John Shull 49:59
Know, and I I think I know where you might be going with this. And no, it was not a fixation erotica or whatever. That's not where I
Nick VinZant 50:05
was going at all. But apparently you've been down that road before. No, I would turn trip.
John Shull 50:12
First off, I've actually had this conversation before. And I mean, you better get a big ol knot, and a very sturdy doorframe to hold me up because I'm taking whatever down and listen, I'm not making fun of people who have died that way. I've that's unfortunate, but I'm just saying, as a joke to myself that I better be a pretty sturdy something where I'm taking the whole wall down.
Nick VinZant 50:32
Yeah, you're not going to do it on a clothes rack. It's got to be like an IV
John Shull 50:36
clothes, right.
Nick VinZant 50:38
It's got to be structured. It's got to be structural.
John Shull 50:40
I will. I will. I will say this. I did feel a little better about myself. Just this past weekend. We had a birthday party for my oldest daughter, she turned five. And we had like a huge bounce house. And I got in the bounce house and I could actually bouncing it. So
Nick VinZant 50:55
man, did you launch somebody?
John Shull 50:59
I did Technically, yes. But I more or less through them. Because I've learned this. This was our first like big birthday party. We had like 30 kids at my house. And once they once they get one parent in the bouncy house that's in I became the bouncy house parent. So this one little kid he kept like getting on me is shocked them
Nick VinZant 51:22
out of it. He threw a child out of the bounce house.
John Shull 51:25
I did don't come into my bones Hans kid.
Nick VinZant 51:27
Don't. Yeah. My dad has been my father has been known to throw children. He's thrown multiple children, which is an odd thing. Not even including me. Like other relatives. I've seen him throw them at a doctor too. Yeah, I guess he knows they're gonna be okay when they land. Right. That'd be all right.
John Shull 51:46
All right, let's give some shout outs here. We'll start with Dwayne Blau.
Nick VinZant 51:51
What if you get there and he's just like I just don't like your face
John Shull 51:59
I don't it that's the thing with with with God, though, right? He's supposed to be all encompassing. You know, it doesn't matter your appearances if you live the good life or not.
Nick VinZant 52:07
Yeah, but what if they're just like,
John Shull 52:11
whatever you're like that one poor bastard a day where they're like, we're just gonna, you know, we're just gonna say Nope, that guy has an ugly face, right like
Nick VinZant 52:17
that. They got a limit for that day and you can you're just not quite good enough on that day. Like you might have made it in on Tuesday, but you're not making it on Wednesday.
John Shull 52:27
It's a BOGO. Two for one.
Nick VinZant 52:29
Right? Right, right because nobody else is. Like you gotta wait and you gotta wait your turn. Okay.
John Shull 52:35
All right, I'll see Dwayne Blau re your true mood Khalif Zhao Apollo Chow Apollo. Alright. Carlo min Toronto. Pedro Sarita Kelvin Shah, Stella Gibbons Stella.
Nick VinZant 52:58
No, nothing from nothing for me.
John Shull 53:00
Doesn't surprise me. Seth Thorson and Don Johnson but not the Don Johnson. I don't think Hi Betsy hates
Nick VinZant 53:08
that. Also, not enough Calvin's I could do more with some Calvin's in the world. I think there should be a few more Calvin's around.
John Shull 53:18
Um, whatever it's, is whether we actually have a college here in Michigan not too far from Metro Detroit. That's named Calvin College so I get plenty of Calvin. Okay,
Nick VinZant 53:29
but there are people who go named Calvin Do you know a lot of people named Calvin then go to Calvin.
John Shull 53:34
I know to Calvin's actually.
Nick VinZant 53:37
I don't know any personally. Well,
John Shull 53:41
that's not your problem. Alright, so we're gonna try something a little different here. Okay, I haven't actually I didn't actually come up with a name for the segment because I didn't I don't know. But we're gonna try it out. Okay. So I'm not really sure what you're gonna think of that. So if you hate it, we'll stop but so I wrote down on my iPhone here, like five or six things that I want to know as an adult one if you can do them and two, if you should know how to do them as an Oh,
Nick VinZant 54:08
okay. All right. Sounds promising so far. Yeah, well,
John Shull 54:13
we'll see here all right. So I already know what you're gonna say to this but remember, it's not about you. It's about other adults. So first one here and once again, I want to know if you if you can do it, and then adults should be able to so first one here pair wine to a meal.
Nick VinZant 54:30
Oh, I don't think that most people should be able to do that. I think that you should have a basic knowledge as of what is red, what is white, what is whatever. But I don't necessarily think that you should have an in depth knowledge of what goes with what? I'm perfectly okay with somebody not knowing that.
John Shull 54:47
Can you do it? No,
Nick VinZant 54:48
I don't like the taste of wine. Every time I've ever had wine. It's been disgusting to me truly disgusting to me. I can't stand the taste of it. Not like I don't like it like no, I don't want any of that.
John Shull 55:00
Okay, all right. So but October you're in full swing, I guess. Stupid.
Nick VinZant 55:06
You wait for a laugh and you didn't get it? Is that what happened?
John Shull 55:09
While I was waiting for you to either shit on it or say like that's a good joke, but you didn't do either. So I just
Nick VinZant 55:15
left you completely hanging, he had nothing nowhere to do nothing to do it. Okay, listen, if
John Shull 55:20
you're doing sober, October Good on you. I am not alright. Second one here, be able to change a tire. Yeah, if
Nick VinZant 55:28
you're a guy, you should probably be able to change a tire. It's one of those things, it's really actually not very difficult, but you need to be able to change a tire. I would almost argue like men, definitely you should be able to kind of step in that at least for your reputation. But I think everybody should be able to change a tire suddenly you kind of need to know how to do.
John Shull 55:47
Okay, can you do it? Yeah. Okay. All right. I actually believe that. And I probably wouldn't have believed it six years ago.
Nick VinZant 55:55
No, I haven't I have no mechanical ability or any kind of DIY stability, but I can change a tire.
John Shull 56:02
Alright, the third one here. Tie a Tie.
Nick VinZant 56:06
Yeah, I can do that. But I worked in a career where you had to wear a tie for some part of the day pretty much every day. I don't think that that's essential anymore.
John Shull 56:18
So you don't think adults nowadays should know how to tie a tie?
Nick VinZant 56:23
I think that that's something that you should know how to just in case. You don't want to be a 45 year old man coming up and being like, Hey, can you help me tie this tie? Like you need to be able to do that.
John Shull 56:36
Alright, number four, brew coffee.
Nick VinZant 56:38
No, I don't even know what that is. What is brew coffee? What does that mean? Like make your own coffee or just like, put it in and start it?
John Shull 56:46
Do you know how to operate a coffee machine? I
Nick VinZant 56:48
don't I don't like coffee to me is like wine. I can't stand the taste of it. So I don't know how to operate a coffee machine at all. If somebody asked me hey, can you make the coffee but I can't actually.
John Shull 56:58
Okay, all right. I I don't know what to say to that other than there's another person in my life that we that I asked to make coffee and they also didn't know how to do it. So it doesn't surprise me.
Nick VinZant 57:09
But do they drink coffee?
John Shull 57:12
Yes, not regularly. But yes. Okay,
Nick VinZant 57:16
how often do they drink coffee?
John Shull 57:18
If really once once a week, I mean enough to know how to operate it. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 57:22
if you drink coffee once a week, or even once a month, you should know how to make a coffee. All right. It's not that hard, right? Like you take the thing out and you put the thing in and you press start like this isn't rocket science.
John Shull 57:36
I mean, it sounds like you already know how to do it. So there
Nick VinZant 57:38
you go there. It's it doesn't seem like it'd be that difficult. Like if somebody asked me, Hey, we really need you to make the coffee. I'm going to perform surgery on this dying person. Can you make coffee? Like I'll figure it out?
John Shull 57:48
I think you could. All right. Let's see here. Swim.
Nick VinZant 57:55
Yeah, you need to be able to know how to swim. I think that everybody needs to be able to know how to swim. I know there's some people, I've met a couple of adults who didn't know how to swim, but you should be able to do it. And even as an adult, like I don't understand that concept of that, like you're an adult, you couldn't learn how to swim in five minutes, like move your arms like this. That's the thing is, as an adult, haven't you moved your arms in any every possible way, by the time that you are an adult? Like what movement of your arms would be so unusual to you as an adult that you wouldn't be able to figure it out like movement, a circle, I've never done that. I've only gone forwards and out like, you should be able to teach an adult to swim in five minutes.
John Shull 58:40
This warms my heart because I don't know why. But this segment I think is going well. So thank you for that.
Nick VinZant 58:45
I'm upset about the fact that you need to know how to swim. I've always had a huge fear about people around water. I don't like people around water don't know how to swim. You gotta know what you're doing. You don't get a second chance of water.
John Shull 58:58
So you don't so sub question just because I'm curious. At what point do you feel uncomfortable when you're swimming? Is it like would you feel comfortable jumping off a boat in the middle of a lake? Is it in the ocean? Are you comfortable? Wherever you're swimming?
Nick VinZant 59:17
Like totally comfortable in my ability to swim?
John Shull 59:20
Yeah, like if you were to I don't know if like I said if you were to jump in the middle of a lake. Do you feel confident that you could tread water and swim to say a boat or something?
Nick VinZant 59:32
Depends if the water is not really cold yeah, that's the other thing for people who don't know you don't fuck around with cold water. Because every getting you ever getting like a cold shower or something like that. Your body like will immediately take a breath like you know it sounds really cold to get that water on you. Well, if you jump into cold water you do that and then your lungs fill up with water and you die. Don't Don't mess with water man.
John Shull 59:59
All right, well, let's I'm gonna end it here on something that's a little lighter, I think parallel parking.
Nick VinZant 1:00:06
You should be able to do that. You I live in a big city. I live in Seattle, I should say, well, Seattle is kind of a big city. You need to be able to parallel park, I probably do it three times a month. I think that you should be able to, I think that you should be able to do it. I don't think that you necessarily have to be good at it. But you need to understand the concept of it.
John Shull 1:00:33
Is it is it more stressful to parallel park or navigate a grocery store parking lot to park?
Nick VinZant 1:00:41
Oh, well. I would almost rather parallel park on a street then have to like kind of squeeze in in an underground parking garage. I don't like parking in parking garages because that they've made that like that's a pretty close fit now.
John Shull 1:01:00
Yeah, I mean, a decade ago was close enough. And then if you're a bigger person, you're for sure dinging the car next to you. The cars are getting bigger brah it's not even fair. Not even fair. I think you should be able to parallel park. However, I feel like EVs and well, not necessarily V's but these cars that have these systems that do it for you are going to take that away from the next generation.
Nick VinZant 1:01:22
Do you think that in the next 50 years, we're going to be complete idiots? Because computers will do everything for us?
John Shull 1:01:30
Yeah, I mean, I think and I'm as guilty as the next person. I mean, there are some things I don't remember last time, I had to do real math. Like I just bust out my phone, and I just Oh, what's 20% on this tip? Right? Like, I don't? I don't I don't think about it.
Nick VinZant 1:01:46
I don't think it's a problem if people can't do math, but I think that you'd have to learn how to think that would be the thing that worries me right is like us, we're going to start to forget how to think like, oh, how do you figure that out? And nobody is used to it? If the computer can't answer the question for you. You could
John Shull 1:02:03
argue that the generation below us or generations already don't know how to think all they do is communicate with their text messages.
Nick VinZant 1:02:12
I'm okay with that. That's just a different way of communication, right? Like we didn't write letters. Do you write letters? It's not like grandma and grandpa over here complaining like these kids today? Don't don't write letters to each other about everything. No, because I can call you. Maybe I do like to write letters. That's fine. But don't judge the new generation because they're not writing letters anymore. adapt to the technology.
John Shull 1:02:32
It's not what is it doesn't take anything. It doesn't even matter.
Nick VinZant 1:02:36
Back in my day. We didn't even have air to breathe. Had to hold your breath for 40 years.
John Shull 1:02:42
Can we move on before I snap you into a tote or something? Only if you acknowledge
Nick VinZant 1:02:47
the fact that I just had a good joke about back in my day, we didn't even have air had to hold your breath for 40 years. I thought that was pretty good.
John Shull 1:02:57
It was fine. It was
Nick VinZant 1:02:58
better than fine. It's like a six at least at a seven.
John Shull 1:03:03
It was good. There. It was. It was good. It was a fine. Good.
Nick VinZant 1:03:06
Um, are you ready for our top five?
John Shull 1:03:08
Yes.
Nick VinZant 1:03:11
All right. So our top five is top five fictional witches? Sure. Number five.
John Shull 1:03:17
Fictional? Are there any actual witches?
Nick VinZant 1:03:21
Yeah, there have been people throughout history who have claimed to be witches. Whether or not they are right, in the eye of the beholder, but these are fixed, purely fictional witches.
John Shull 1:03:32
All right, my number five. I'm gonna go with Ursula from The Little Mermaid.
Nick VinZant 1:03:37
I thought about that, but I just don't think of her as a witch.
John Shull 1:03:42
Have you ever seen the movie
Nick VinZant 1:03:44
I have. But that's not my first thought of her as a witch. I just thought she was like an evil person.
John Shull 1:03:50
Who, who did the live? The live action movie who just played her Christie McCarthy? What's her name? Anyways, she did a fantastic job. And I feel like Ursula is unknown, which like so. Okay, unknown character. So that is why Melissa McCarthy that's her name by the way. Melissa McCarthy?
Nick VinZant 1:04:12
Oh, I was like Who the hell's that? That makes a lot more sense to now it's Melissa McCarthy. My number five is Mila Sandra from Game of Thrones.
John Shull 1:04:22
Okay, I mean, you know, once again, I don't as you kind of said about Ursula, I don't think people it's not that I don't think people don't know she's a witch. I just don't think that she is known outside of that community.
Nick VinZant 1:04:34
Outside of Game of Thrones, everybody knows about the Red Priestess. I think if you showed a lot of people a picture of her they'd be like, they might not know the name. Because Mila Sandra is not a name that's easily remembered. But they will be like, Oh, I know who that person is. She was a big character in there a good character. A lot of potential left on the table.
John Shull 1:04:54
Yeah, I don't know. I'm not not sure not sure about that one. Okay. All right, number four. It's a homework Pick, just because this is the only movie that I remember having a nightmare because the first time I watched it, it literally scared the shit out of me. And that is the Blair Witch.
Nick VinZant 1:05:12
But is that a person? Is that a real was the I'd never seen that movie. Was the witch supposed to be with real?
John Shull 1:05:20
I yeah, I mean she. Yeah, I don't know. Watch Blair Witch too. There's an actual witch and that one, so I presume it was a real witch. Or a fake, real witch.
Nick VinZant 1:05:31
But did they show the witch in the Blair Witch? And then they like and that's the witch there?
John Shull 1:05:36
No, because that's the whole aura is that she was such an entity that you didn't have to see her.
Nick VinZant 1:05:43
Oh, so you're numb. That's the concept of the Blair Witch. Even though the is the Blair Witch ever actually shown in any movie? I've never seen it. Like you can see on screen like, Oh, there's the Blair Witch.
John Shull 1:05:54
Not in the first one. No, but that's what makes it so fucking creepy. Is all this stuff happening? And you don't know where this little scraggly old lady is?
Nick VinZant 1:06:04
Yeah, that's too scary for me, man. I don't like those kinds of things.
John Shull 1:06:08
Well, I had to put her on. I had to put it on how to put it on. My number
Nick VinZant 1:06:12
four is Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service. Basically the exact opposite of your Blair Witch with her meanness so nice. Which, good which?
John Shull 1:06:21
I don't. I don't even know what this is Kiki's Delivery Service
Nick VinZant 1:06:25
Delivery Service. Probably one of the greatest movies of all time. It's up there. It's one of the best animated movies of All Time. Why would you know about it?
John Shull 1:06:32
Yeah, I honestly have no idea what you're referring to.
Nick VinZant 1:06:35
It's a great movie. You should watch it. It's actually great with children too. It's a happy story about coming of age and learning about who you are as a person and becoming okay with your own talents and your abilities.
John Shull 1:06:45
Okay, are you done? Yeah. My number three Hermione Granger from Harry Potter. Okay. Okay.
Nick VinZant 1:06:54
I have Hermione is my number two. Hermione Granger is my number two, but I could see her at number three. That'd be okay. She's definitely in the top three, I think because she's the main which out of all the witches in the Harry Potter series.
John Shull 1:07:08
I thought there was a for sure. Like, lock up number one and two. So I'm curious to know where you go with one. My number
Nick VinZant 1:07:18
two do I get to say what my number three is? Or
John Shull 1:07:21
do you just Oh, yeah. Number three. Sorry. Yeah. Number three.
Nick VinZant 1:07:23
My number three is a tie between like all the witch trios, Hocus Pocus, charmed. Whatever any of those other kinds of trio of which shows are that's that's about where I'm going to go ahead and put them although I would put the hocus pocus which is above the charmed witches.
John Shull 1:07:41
Well, those are my number two. The Sanderson Sisters. That's who they are focus.
Nick VinZant 1:07:46
Which one is your number one though, out of the Sanderson sisters?
John Shull 1:07:50
I mean, I think you have to go that MEDLARS character,
Nick VinZant 1:07:53
you have to go with Benton Miller's character, she is the best, which three of them?
John Shull 1:07:58
I actually don't even remember the actress that plays the really crazy one. At this moment. Which one's
Nick VinZant 1:08:04
the really crazy one, the one that I know is like bet Millers would be the number one which out of that. And then the lady from Sex in the City would be the second one. And then there's the third one that you can't remember who it is.
John Shull 1:08:15
No, that's let's see. So it's winter. Fred, Sara and Mary.
Nick VinZant 1:08:21
Give it who are the actors playing that because that means nothing to me.
John Shull 1:08:25
Jesus. I was hoping that that bought me a little bit of time here. Oh, you were trying to stall? I was trying to but you know. I should have known better. Let's see. So that meddler plays winner Fred. Okay. Okay. Sarah. Jessica. Parker plays Sarah. That's the kind of the crazy when I was talking about. And then Kathy and the Jimmy plays Mary. She's kind of kind of the bigger set one, but But yeah, so if you're trying to visualize them, because we apparently don't know what we're talking about.
Nick VinZant 1:08:58
No, but I would say that Bette Midler steals the show. She's the biggest which of them, then it's probably Sarah Jessica Parker and then the other lady.
John Shull 1:09:06
Do you know, probably don't care, but I'm going to tell you anyways, Bette Midler is 77 years old.
Nick VinZant 1:09:13
I would have thought that she was older than that, to be honest. She's one of those people that's been old the entire time I've ever known who she was. I don't know about that. But okay. I can't think of a young bet. And there's some people that like they've always been old, even though they were probably like in their 30s When you first heard of them, but they've always been old.
John Shull 1:09:34
That's a good top five list for another day. I
Nick VinZant 1:09:36
think Alan Alda. Leslie Nielsen just always been old.
John Shull 1:09:41
No, he's dead. I think they're both that's a really Oh, it's terrible. Yeah. All right. So we have the same number one, then I presume?
Nick VinZant 1:09:49
I'm going to assume So is it the Wicked Witch of the West? Yes. Yeah.
John Shull 1:09:54
I mean, it's, it's hard not to say she's, you know, she'd probably be number one. I'm Most people's top five lists I would think.
Nick VinZant 1:10:02
I don't think that there's anybody that even comes close to the Wicked Witch of the West. No, that has to be number one.
John Shull 1:10:10
Though I do have Glenda the Goodwitch on my honorable mention
Nick VinZant 1:10:14
who was the one that got crushed by the house? What was she the witch of been crushed by House pink.
John Shull 1:10:25
The witch that get crushed by a house.
Nick VinZant 1:10:28
Let's say go in your honorable mention why look it up.
John Shull 1:10:30
So I have Alexandra Jane and Sookie from an underrated movie called Witches of Eastwick. That's a good one. The White Witch from Lyon in the wardrobe. Let's see going on down the list Nancy downs from the craft. You've never seen it because it's a scary movie craft is
Nick VinZant 1:10:51
one that I think that I have heard of, but I'm not entirely sure which one that one is. Was she the main one? Was she the friend that was kind of like the outcast? And then she became okay.
John Shull 1:11:04
Yeah, and who was the main who was the main character of that of that movie? Alicia Silverstone right?
Nick VinZant 1:11:13
washy.
John Shull 1:11:15
No, I lied to you. Was it will not Campbell was in that movie to Firoozeh book is the person I'm thinking of. I can't remember who else is on it. Anyways, I'm
Nick VinZant 1:11:28
always the witch of the week. The witches Wicked Witch of the East is the one that got crushed by a house.
John Shull 1:11:32
Well, she now coming back. Nicole Kidman Sandra Bullock from Practical Magic. That's a nice little movie if you're looking for a date night with the wife. And then I have Willow, played by Alyson Hannigan from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Nick VinZant 1:11:49
Hmm. I don't have any of those people. Anybody else really? That was mentioned? I mean, you could go down the list with Harry Potter, which is I think, but that's about it. Right? Like you could go with I can't think of any of their names. Right. But there's a lot of Harry Potter witches, but I don't think any of them get in the top five. McGonagle maybe?
John Shull 1:12:08
Yeah, but I mean, once again, I like any movie franchise, right? You have the main five characters? And then it's I do I mean, do you really know the others? Unless you're a huge supporter? Probably not.
Nick VinZant 1:12:20
I don't think I generally ever know more than three to five characters in any movie.
John Shull 1:12:27
Well, you know with the all the kids movies you watch, that's really all you need to know. Probably.
Nick VinZant 1:12:31
But even with Avengers, I can't. Like I can only follow like two or three people. Like okay, there's too many things going on here. I don't watch a lot of kids movies. We watch YouTube mountain biking videos now.
John Shull 1:12:45
Oh, that's cute.
Nick VinZant 1:12:47
Yeah, it is kinda enjoy it. Okay, that's gonna go ahead and do it for this episode of Profoundly Pointless. I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, leave us a quick review. We really appreciate it. It really does help out the show. And I want to say a special thank you. Because we found out right after John and I recorded this that we actually won. We actually won the award for best interview podcast. It's shocking. Like take that Kevin Hart. Right. I can't I could not believe it. I thought we had absolutely no chance of winning. So I want to thank I really want to thank everybody who voted. Thank you for taking your time. We really appreciate it. It really does keep the show going. Let us know who you think are the best witches. I think you do have to put the Wicked Witch of the West. On is number one. Like she's the iconic witch. But any of that. I wonder if Hermione Granger would actually be number one. If it wasn't like so spread out like if she was the only witch in that series if she would have been number one.