All language subtitles for The.UnXplained.S01E05.WEBRip.x264-ION10

walking on red-hot coals.

Voodoo priests casting a spell.

-And ancient ceremonies
used to ward off...

-the Devil himself.

Can ancient rituals really
unleash incredible powers?

Physical powers?
Psychic powers?

There are many who believe
in the power of prayer.

So what about spells
used to conjure the dead?

Could they really work?

And if they do...

what does that say about
the physical laws

of the world we live in?

Well...

that is what we'll try
and find out.

SHATNER:
San Pedro Manrique, Spain.

June 23, 2018.

Here, as they have
for centuries,

villagers gather
for an evening festival

to celebrate
the summer solstice.

They engage in singing, dancing,

wearing elaborate costumes.

But for a select group
of villagers,

the festivities
aren't so... conventional.

Because their evening also
includes something

out of the ordinary:

a dangerous walk...

-over fire.

Now, I've seen many
fire walking rituals

in many different contexts
in a variety of countries.

They have this amphitheater
around the, the place where

the actual fire is,

and these men
walk on the embers.

It's five or six steps
from one side to the other.

And they do it barefoot

and usually carrying someone
on their shoulders.

People often wonder,
is the fire walk really hot?

And the answer is yes.

Once the wood is first laid out,
the overall temperature

is between a thousand
and 1,200 degrees.

That's really hot.

More than enough
to burn flesh, certainly.

MICHAEL DENNIN: If you look at
the temperatures involved,

you're typically
talking temperatures

over a thousand degrees
Fahrenheit, and skin burns

at a hundred,
160 degrees Fahrenheit.

XIMENEZ:
Walking on fire
is very, very dangerous.

I mean, you're barefoot.

Just one wrong move

and you can be severely burned.

SHATNER:
Walking on fire.

And at temperatures hot enough
to turn metal into liquid.

No one in their right mind
would do this

and expect to emerge
unharmed, right?

And yet, the people
of San Pedro Manrique

manage to do just that,
and on a yearly basis.

But how?

Walking across hot embers

is one of my favorite
physics problems.

The trick is making sure
the embers are hot enough

of water vapor between your skin
a very and the hot coals. layer

Some of these same firewalkers,

one day,
they walk across unscathed;

another time they try it,
they do burn their feet.

My experience tells me the
difference is in their mindset.

So at my fire walks, once we've
taken the group out to the fire,

and we're getting ready to walk,

first, I like to remind them
again about their intention.

And this helps motivate them
and get them across.

And then,
we raise people's energy

before a fire walk.

Firewalkers around the world,
regardless of tradition,

religion, they raise
the group's energy

before they walk.

So, this can be done with
meditation, chanting,

singing, dancing...

Whatever the case,
you want to get your group

into an excited, pumped-up state

before the fire walk.

There is absolutely
something about

being in an excited,
uplifted state

that helps you
get across safely.

So what actually happens
there psychologically

is there is this
emotional buildup.

There is this highly intense
arousal that's happening,

and so you have cortisol and
other sort of endocrine hormones

flooding the system,
which will help to block

some of the pain receptors.

SHATNER:
Water vapor?

Mind control?

But can fire walking
without pain or injury

really be just a simple matter
of will power?

Or does it require
something even more?

We know we have the capability
to redirect pain

or even to numb pain
just by putting ourselves

in the right mindset.

But many of these firewalkers
don't even have blisters

or burns on their feet.

So, when you look at physics,

that's impossible.

If you touch something
that's hot,

you're gonna get burned.

So the question is,
are we dealing with

the magical force that
we have yet to fully understand?

HOBSON:
So in one study with
the San Pedro

Spanish fire walking ritual,

a team of anthropologists
were curious what happens to

a person's heart rate
for the individual

who's actually walking,

and for any individual
who is close to them?

Like a relative
or a family member.

HOBSON:
The surprising part is that

you will still have
a state of physiology

that's similar
to the individual, as if...

youare walking over the coals,

when in fact, of course,
you're not.

AXTELL:
It is so much more than just
an individual ritual.

It is a community experience.

Yes, it is technically possible
to cross a coal bed unharmed

all by yourself.

But it is much easier
to experience a fire walk

surrounded by people
who are there to support you:

your family, your community.

Crossing barefoot over
thousand-degree coals

doesn't make
any practical sense.

And even though
I've personally crossed

hundreds and hundreds
of coal beds,

I still don't
perfectly understand

how and why it works
like it does.

So what about you?

Are you willing
to take your chances,

slip off your shoes
and walk barefoot over fire?

Well, if you are,
then perhaps you're also ready

to confront the unknown,
and see what happens

when you come face-to-face
with the power of voodoo.

JULIA BUCKLEY:
I was really pretty disabled
by the pain,

May 2012.

32-year-old author Julia Buckley

is writing in her office
when she experiences a pain

unlike any
she has ever felt before.

I was just at my desk one day
at work, typing away,

um, reached out
for a cup of coffee,

and suddenly, it was as if
my right arm was on fire,

as if someone had laid out
fireworks all the way

from my fingers up to my armpit,
and across to my neck.

I was really pretty disabled
by the pain,

'cause it was getting worse

day by day, week by week.

I couldn't do anything
with this right arm at all.

I saw three general doctors,
I saw eight specialists;

I was doing everything
that I was told to do.

So after two years, I was...

completely at my wit's end.

So I was pretty desperate,
and in quite a dark place.

SHATNER:
With her life virtually
in shambles,

Julia was willing to try
anything.

Turning away from
conventional medicine,

she began
to investigate alternatives,

and this led her down a,
shall we say, unusual path.

Voodoo healing.

I was reading a book
about voodoo.

And reading it, I hadn't seen
anything like it

in any of the other research
that I'd done.

I just got this impression
that the voodoo priests

were probably the people who had
the most, kind of, grasp of the,

the mind-body relationship.

And I just thought if anyone's
gonna be able to help me,

it's gonna be someone in Haiti.

SHATNER:
Still fighting
debilitating pain,

Julia Buckley flew to Haiti,

and once there, arranged to meet

with Richard Morse,
a voodoo practitioner.

BUCKLEY:
I had actually read
interviews and knew

that he was a voodoo priest
as well as a hotel owner,

and so I'd already thought,
"Oh, I need to try and ask him

whether he can, he can
do anything for me."

So, I checked
into the hotel, met him

and then we started talking
about voodoo

and its capacity for healing.

And so, I told him
exactly why I was there,

and I just said,
"Can you help me?"

I think he said, "Are you,
are you sure you want this?"

And I was like, "Absolutely."

MORSE: No one taught me
how to do this.

I didn't go to school
to do this,

but I have a certain capacity
for something of this sort.

My mom was a voodoo priestess,

and my father's family
goes back to the Puritans.

I like to call my thing
Puritan-voodoo,

because I'm a mix.

SHATNER:
After learning
about her symptoms,

Morse led her
into a dark room,

one meant to summon spirits

and extract
whatever was harming her.

BUCKLEY:
There were candles and bottles
all around the room.

There were strips of cloth,
different colored cloths

that now I know represent
the different Loa, the spirits,

all around the room.

There were these
terra-cotta pots

that he said were filled
with the souls of the dead.

And there were
these little bottles of

what I found out afterwards
were holy water

brought from shrines
all over the rest of the world.

He went around me
a couple of times.

Then he stopped at the back
of my neck and started feeling

from the bottom of my skull
down to my neck.

Kind of pressing on it,
almost like

what a chiropractor might do

before they really start
going for it.

I was scared, because that's
where all my problems were,

and I didn't want him
to hurt me, and I didn't want

my neck to be cracked
or anything like that.

I was terrified.

He told me that he had found

a demon in a shape
of a black cat on my neck.

So when he had been dragging
his fingers down my neck,

he was literally picking up
and detaching this black cat.

He said he didn't know
how I'd got it,

when I got it or how long
it had been there,

but he said it was nasty
and that he'd got rid of it.

It was only when
I got to the airport,

decided I needed
a cup of coffee,

and jumped up the stairs
to the coffee bar

carrying my little
carry-on suitcase.

I was standing with the coffee
and I kind of looked down

and thought, "Hang on,
I can't normally do that."

And I checked in with my body,
and I realized, actually,

nowhere is hurting right now.

This is really strange.

It was the first time
in nearly three years

that I hadn't been in pain.

SHATNER:
As far as Julia Buckley
was concerned,

voodoo had worked, after
everything else had failed.

But how?

TOK THOMPSON:
Voodoo is a fabulously
interesting tradition.

We see it in the Caribbean,

primarily perhaps in Haiti,
although certainly

in other places
around the Caribbean as well.

It's a part of a much larger
assemblage of religions

with a shared
sort of worldview.

This traces back to West Africa,
and to several groups

and several different
religions there.

The West African religious
tradition was brought over

via the slave trade
to the Caribbean,

to the Southern United States,
where it flourished

and took on different forms,

and blended somewhat easily
with the Catholic faith.

You can call it God
or you can call it, um,

how you, how you want...

DAVID WHITEHEAD:
So it could be

that when it comes
to these rituals,

that there's something
about the nature of the ritual

that actually activates

something within
the participant.

But the ritual needs
to be believed.

It needs to be true
to the participant

in order for it to work.

So the pageantry and the
theatricality that's associated

with these rituals,
that's where their power lies.

SHATNER:
Perhaps one of the reasons
voodoo's followers

believe in its incredible power
is because they know

it not only can be used to heal,
but also to harm.

We hear this phrase,
"voodoo death," you know,

that people may have cast
a spell or done

some kind of ritual that causes
the death of another person.

And if we're scientific,
"Well, that's ridiculous.

That has no
causal relationship here."

But if we dig a little deeper,

there have been cases of voodoo
deaths where someone has said

something or done something

that literally affects
another person.

HOBSON:
Most scientists,
doctors or researchers

would just call it an anomaly.

A physical
or psychological anomaly

that we can't quite explain
with the data

or the information
that are presented before us.

BUCKLEY:
I think there's a lot of value
in things being unexplained.

Something like voodoo,

you're never gonna be able to
have the proof of what happened.

I don't know what happened
in that room and I was there.

SHATNER:
Ancient rituals that can
not only cure disease,

but cause it?

It seems hard to fathom.

But then, why did Julia
Buckley's pain disappear?

Was it all in her head?

Or can the answer be found
by examining another ritual,

one that is a ritual form
of brutality?

WHITEHEAD:
There's something about watching

SHATNER:
What is it about the ritual

of watching violent, sometimes
bloody sports combat

that fascinates us?

Is it merely because it fulfills
a human desire

to witness
organized competition?

Or, does it satisfy

a much darker,
more primal need in us

than we like to admit?

HOBSON: There's much less
killing now in modern humans

than there were in the past,

but there still is
that little bit left within us,

that when you go to a sporting
event and all of the rituals

and all that mob mentality
is pushing

an individual
to act out violently,

well, it turns on
that little spark of violence

that still exists within us.

L.A. JENNINGS:
You may not realize it,

but an MMA fight
is very ritualistic.

The participation in the event
and the spectacle of it

is part of a long history
of rituals.

FRANK TRIGG:
When people get to the arena
for a fight,

there is a specific procedure
that happens every single time.

This procedure is set
specifically to get

not only the fighters ready,
but to get the fans amped up

so they can be the most hyped
that they can possibly be

for this particular fight
when that fight starts.

The song comes on, that starts
at about a level three.

"Oh, fight's about to happen."

Then both guys walk in, the
announcements are being made.

ANNOUNCER:
Ladies and gentlemen,
let's have a nice round...

TRIGG:
Now you're coming up
to a nine, a ten.

"Oh, it's about to happen."
The ring card girl comes in.

The first round is gonna get
started for this fight.

The referee asks
if both fighters are ready.

I want you guys
to have a clean fight.

Follow my orders at all times.

TRIGG:
Now you are amped up.
This is about to happen.

The fight is getting ready
to go.

You're so invested in this guy
that when he's fighting,

you feel like it's actually
happening to you.

This is an assault
on you and your person

when this is happening,
so this is why the crowd

gets so into it,
because they follow the hype.

And the ritual portion of that
happens every single time.

SHATNER:
Las Vegas, Nevada.

October 6, 2018.

Mixed martial arts fighters
Khabib Nurmagomedov

and Conor McGregor
face off in what is touted

as the bout of the year.

20,000 fans watch
as Khabib locks Conor

in a brutal chokehold
and emerges victorious,

retaining the title
of lightweight champ.

But before the closing ceremony,
Khabib gets enraged

by the endless barrage
of trash talk

from his opponent's entourage.

That's when
the real fight begins.

WHITEHEAD: Khabib Nurmagomedov
jumps up on the cage,

jumps into the crowd

and starts fighting
with Conor McGregor's corner.

TRIGG:
Most fights have a closure.

You have a winner,
you have a closing ceremony.

None of that happened.

It all got stopped
because the fight broke out.

There's no closure.
The fight's not over, like,

now they get to go out
in the streets,

and everyone's been drinking all
night, and so you add alcohol,

you add testosterone,
you add a blood sport...

So people started fighting
out in the streets.

And in that kind of situation,

those kind of things
are gonna happen.

WHITEHEAD:
If you go to an ice-skating
competition or a tennis match,

you rarely hear about people
breaking out

into fistfights in the crowd.

So when we look
at what happened in Las Vegas,

could it be that there's
something about the act

of watching violent blood sports

that brings us into some kind
of ritual in a way?

TRIGG:
Everybody wants to see

the most violent thing
that can happen to somebody.

Everybody cheers
for the knockout.

They don't even realize that
they're there for the violence.

The don't understand
why they're actually there

to watch this fight
until the knockout happens.

We love watching violence when
it's happening to somebody else.

And we've been doing it since
the gladiator times.

JENNINGS:
Ancient Romans also loved

fighting sports,
and gladiator events

were unique in that
it wasn't trained,

skilled athletes fighting
against each other,

but it was often people who had

committed a crime that made them
eligible for the death penalty.

And the death penalty
in this case

was fighting against a gladiator
in the Colosseum.

The Colosseum could fit up to
50,000 people, and they went

for the pleasure,
the cathartic experience

of watching humans being killed.

WHITEHEAD:
We think of this life-or-death

type of sport as being something
that's only in the ancient past,

but there is still a sport

where life and death
is involved,

and this would be the sport
of bullfighting.

XIMENEZ:
Bullfighting in Spain
is not only a tradition

or a show,

it's, uh, actually
part of the culture,

and it's the last part in which

a very, very strict, uh,
dance happens around the bull,

and this man, this matador,

actually is risking his life
in front of you.

THOMPSON:
The danger and the bloodiness
is a part of it.

If the matador wins,
the bull bleeds to death

in front of the spectators.

Now, of course if the bull wins,
uh, the-the matador gets gored.

XIMENEZ:
In 2016, everybody was reminded

about how dangerous
bullfighting is

when Víctor Barrio
got gored to death by a bull

in the middle
of a bullfighting season.

This was just another
bullfighting festival.

Uh, one of the hundreds
that are in Spain in the summer.

And Víctor Barrio
was a experienced matador,

and he was gored to death
right there.

It was a shocking event
for the nation.

It was a-a reminder of
how dangerous this practice is.

The possibility

of a man dying before your eyes,

it adds a layer of thrill to it.

It's undeniable

that it's just
part of the attraction.

Think of it as rodeos.
Think of it as

NASCAR races.
They have a layer of danger,

of live danger.

WHITEHEAD:
It's not just

witnessing winning and losing
and some friendly competition.

This takes it to the next level.

And the question is,
what is it about human nature

that would have thousands
of people wanting to gather

in some Colosseum
or some modern stadium

to watch this ritualistic form
of combat,

and why they would actually want
to be involved

in witnessing a ritualized form
of death?

TRIGG:
It's really interesting
to watch the fans.

People actually get
to a space where

they lose social graces.

They kind of lose themselves
in the event,

which is why going to
a live event is so important

for somebody that loves MMA.

You'll see normal guys,
and it could be

even someone
that you know personally.

"Oh, he's a great guy.
He's a Christian.

He's a super family man, doesn't
swear, hardly ever drinks,"

but he gets to the fight
and he is cursing and swearing

and throwing stuff down
at everybody.

You're like,
"What? What happened?

Oh, he's... That's his guy.
That's his fighter."

SHATNER:
When we watch two men
fight each other

for sport, or watch a matador

stare down a raging bull,

is there a "spark of violence"

that gets unleashed
within all of us?

A streak of barbarism that
becomes somehow satisfied

by what is, in effect,
a ritual form of brutality?

Perhaps the answer
can be found by examining

another ancient ritual,

one designed to cure,
not just a diseased body...

-...but a diseased soul

-by casting out...

...the Devil himself.

Gary, Indiana.THOMPSON:
In 2018,R:

April 2012.

Father Michael Maginot,

the pastor of Saint Stephen,
Martyr Catholic Church,

meets with Latoya Ammons
in her home.

But this is not a common
pastoral house call

because Father Mike, as he
is known by his parishioners,

is also an exorcist,

and he has been asked

to rid this home of a demon.

Latoya moved into
this particular house

in Gary in November of 2011.

She was the mother
of three children.

And once the family moved in,

they were noticing
all kinds of phenomena

happening in the house.

Flies were swarming

in the middle of winter.

They would hear noises
through the house.

-Footsteps coming up the stairs

from the basement.

They would see shadow figures
pacing back and forth

in the living room
and turn on the light

and see muddy footprints

left on the floor.

Her children, uh,
were also exhibiting

some really odd behavior.

One of the boys was seen
talking to an imaginary friend

that resided somewhere
within the house.

And reports also suggest that
the daughter was seen levitating

several feet
above her bed at night.

MAGINOT:
And so, Latoya was convinced

something beyond explanation
was happening to her family,

but no one would
really believe her.

During that time, the children,
they were getting sick.

And then
Child Protective Services

were getting reports that they
were missing a lot of school,

so they actually were
investigating, um, Latoya.

She was saying that
it was demonic possession,

and so they were giving her
psychiatric examinations,

but they couldn't find any
psychological illness with her.

SHATNER:
Not only did the authorities
fail to find

any trace of mental illness
in Latoya's behavior,

or any inconsistencies
in her story,

they also witnessed an event
involving her son

that made them realize
that something

really was happening
to this family,

something unexplained.

During the family's
psychiatric evaluations,

the youngest child began rolling
eyes in the back of his head,

growling.

And then the case worker,
as well as several members

of hospital staff, witnessed the
boy walk backwards up a wall.

MAGINOT:
When they witnessed the boy
walk up the wall backwards,

yeah, they were believers.

They knew there was
no explanation for that.

And so, I got called
to investigate this case

by the hospital chaplain,

and I went to visit Latoya.

It was a four-hour interview,

and it was in the midst of that

that I placed the crucifix

on her forehead
and she began to convulse.

Then I took it off
and she stopped convulsing.

And that's one of
the main things that fits

the signs of demonic possession.

After considering the evidence,

I was convinced that
the only way to get rid of it

was a church-sanctioned
exorcism.

And so I reported that, uh,
to the bishop

and he gave permission.

An exorcism is a ritual,
a spiritual battle,

and so you need to somehow
upset the demon.

One of the instruments
that I would use

would be a blessed crucifix

to put on the person's forehead.

A second thing
is sprinkling holy water.

There are three sections
of the rite

where you're addressing
the demon

and a second place
where you're addressing God,

and you could do it in English,

or else, you could
also do it in Latin.

-In Latoya's case,

when we were addressing
the demon in Latin,

Latoya would be convulsing,

but when we were addressing God,
she would stop convulsing.

I'm the only one there
that knew the Latin,

and-and I found that
kind of amazing.

A demonic entity will fight
for the territory

that they have gained,

but then, eventually,
it starts to lessen.

With Latoya,
finally she fell asleep,

and that was kind of
an indication that it left.

Once she got cleared, um,

then the children were also fine
after that as well.

SHATNER:
What saved Latoya Ammons
and her children

from their deep physical
and emotional torment?

Was it really the spiritual
power of the ritual

that Father Michael performed?

Or was it the psychological
or psychosomatic effect

that simply performing a ritual
had on Latoya and her family?

Latoya's case
is really interesting

because it's a case that
actually made national news.

Herself and her children
were exhibiting symptoms

that could not
be explained rationally

by modern medical science,
but in the end,

after all of their attempts,

it was the exorcism itself

that actually produced
the positive effect.

We have evidence
of exorcism rituals

dating back 3,000 years ago
in ancient Babylon.

CHAVEZ:
To those that say that exorcism

shouldn't exist
in modern society,

they really need to appreciate
just how successful

exorcism can be as a ritual,
how it's able to help people.

TZADOK:
Exorcisms are not just performed
by one religion

or another, they're performed
by all the different religions.

It happens everywhere
because we're dealing with

the commonality of human souls.

We recognize that the nature
of a possession

is an earthbound soul
which is unable to

or afraid to move forward
in its spiritual progression.

And we perform rituals because
the nature of ritual

is being an expression
of inner psychological

ideas and beliefs.

And therefore, as such,
exorcisms become

a required practice.

Can ritual really be used
to fight off evil spirits?

You may say that notion sounds
too outlandish to even consider,

until you realize that,
at one time or another,

even you...

have probably used a ritual
to connect with a higher power.

It's called prayer.

And there are billions of people
all over the world

who believe that prayer

is the most powerful
ritual of all.

SHATNER:
Israel.TZADOK:
You can have a gathering
of literally

January 2018.

Here, in what is known
as the Holy Land,

the average temperature
is almost 90 degrees Fahrenheit,

and water
is a precious commodity.

But this is no average year.

It's been almost five years

since more than
a few drops of rain

fell upon Israel's
thirsty sands,

and the people
are beginning to panic.

TZADOK:
The spring season
in the Middle East

is the time
for the rains to come.

As such, if the rains
are not there,

you don't have your agriculture,

which is a life-and-death type
of experience.

Even in modern times,

with all of our
modern technology,

rain makes the crops grow.

No crops, no food;
no food, no life.

So when we have a drought,

this creates crisis.

SHATNER:
Israel is one of the wealthiest

and most technologically
advanced countries in the world.

It is also one
of the most religious.

So when facing its worst drought
in close to 100 years,

with the fate of the entire
country hanging in the balance,

what is their solution?

-Prayer.

TZADOK:
In our Judaic tradition,

we have had
a long-standing history

that when there is drought,

the chief rabbi of the country

can call the entire nation
to prayer.

And you can have a gathering
in Jerusalem

of literally thousands
or tens of thousands of minds,

souls, that will come together

and pour out
their collective energy,

calling upon God in heaven
to literally manipulate

the forces of nature
and bring rain.

THOMPSON:
In 2018, Israel was
in a major drought,

and this was really beginning
to cause problems.

At this point,
uh, Chief Rabbi David Lau

organized a massive ritual,

put out a call
for believers to ce

to one of the most sacred sites
in Judaism,

-the Wailing Wall.

They went to the Wailing Wall,

and you had thousands of Jews
praying for rain to come.

TZADOK:
When the individual
Torah-observant

Jewish man wraps himself
in his tallit prayer shawl

and puts on the boxes
of the tefillin,

he creates for himself
a psychic bubble of energy,

which unites the individual
mind and heart

with the collective power
of the word of God,

literally materialized
before him in the form

of the fringes
of the prayer shawl,

and literally in the form
of the scrolls

that are upon his arm
next to his heart

and on his head,
close to his mind.

SHATNER:
It is one thing for us to
believe the ritual of prayer

has the ability
to affect our world.

But can the act
of praying actually

connect us to a higher power?

A ritual is a very predictable
sequence of, of events.

But the interesting thing is,
if you have two things,

you have a boundary
between them.

And prayer and prayer rituals
might be a way

of influencing that boundary
between the physical

and the nonphysical in a way
that the nonphysical

then interacts again
with the physical world.

SHATNER:
To those more secular
and cynical-minded,

praying is a rather quaint,
if not irrelevant pastime.

There's no reason
it should work, right?

-Except that in the case

of ending
Israel's drought in 2018,

many believe it did.

AMIR HUSSAIN:
You can say that it's just
simply correlation--

yes, you prayed and yes,
three days later there was rain,

but the one thing
didn't cause the other.

I mean, that's
the scientific approach.

The religious approach
is a little bit different

to say, well, maybe we did,
maybe we did influence this,

maybe God listened
to these prayers.

TZADOK:
In Judaism, there are rituals
that augment the power

of the individual--

the passion, the desire,
the thought, the idea,

creating, if you will,
a psychic field,

which combines to give
great psychic spiritual energy

for the fulfillment of that
which the individuals seek.

But when we come together
as a collective,

we find that it does have
the power to influence change.

They prayed for rain.
And the prayers were answered.

SHATNER:
Of course, there's always the
chance that it wasn't prayer,

but coincidence that saved
the Israeli people.

The drought would have ended
at some point.

But then, why take chances?

Perhaps the faithful
know something

that nonbelievers don't.

And this could also help
to explain the rituals

associated with the event
that, for all of us,

really is the final frontier...

...death.

SHATNER:
Indonesia.

High in the mountains
of the island of Sulawesi,

the residents of a small Torajan
village gather for a funeral.

But are funeral rites a sign

that mankind has difficulty in
accepting the finality of death?

Or is it because our
subconscious minds

know that death is not really
an end, but a beginning?

THOMPSON:
Every culture in the world

has some sort of death ritual,
and studying those will tell you

a lot about
what those people think

of the afterlife,
about the soul, about society.

So, in the Toraja communities,
when somebody dies,

they preserve the corpse
so it doesn't rot, and then

they treat it
as if it were alive.

Even the term they use
for a recently deceased person

in this state is,
actually, means sick,

so they don't acknowledge that
the person has really died yet.

They will talk to them,
they will fill them in,

in what's happening
in the world...

WHITEHEAD:
They do mock dancing sessions

with them,
they parade them around.

It's as if they're trying
to stay in touch with the dead

or, or somehow
relate to the dead.

THOMPSON:
What is the relationship

between your body and your soul
and what happens at death?

These are
the elemental questions

that studying different funerary
traditions can tell us.

So, all these different
traditions seem

very, very focused

on maintaining strong links
with the dead.

Some cultures, like,
for example, Indonesia,

you may do things with the body

that to us may seem
very strange.

But it's no different than
a funeral, where the person

has been dead for ten days,
and the mortician

makes them look like they're
alive and they're just sleeping.

There's this amazing connection
that we have for the deceased.

I can never call up my best
friend again who passed away,

but I'm still in connection
with that person.

I still think about that person.

Sometimes I still talk to them.

And I think these rituals
help us to understand

that we're still informed
by these people.

We're still in relationship
with those who have passed.

It's just a different
kind of relationship.

So, do rituals really work?

Well, many of us certainly
believe they do,

even if we don't know how.

Whether it's to acquire
superhuman abilities

or to ward off evil,
rituals help to connect us

to a world
very different from our own.

It's a world of the spiritual.

It's a world
of the supernatural.

It's a world of The UnXplained.

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