God Is a Lightbulb (and Other Bright Ideas)

The Box of Oddities

John Elliott and Kat Walls

True Crime, Society & Culture, Comedy

4.9 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 10 November 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this mind-bending episode of The Box of Oddities, Jethro dives into Robert Temple’s electrifying theory that the universe might actually be alive—and trying to talk to us. Could plasma—the same substance that fills stars, powers lightning, and glows in neon lights—be a living intelligence? Temple suggests that the mysterious orbs, pillars of fire, and UFO-like lights seen throughout history might all be manifestations of the same cosmic consciousness reaching out across the galaxy. Kat and Jethro explore the parallels between deep-space structures and the human brain, the eerie beauty of ball lightning, and how ancient prophets may have witnessed plasma phenomena long before science had a name for it. Then, Kat switches gears to set fire to your curiosity—literally—by investigating the latest in fire science. From sound-wave extinguishers to DARPA’s plasma-bending experiments, she reveals how modern tech is rethinking the way we fight flames. Plus, we discover what happens when your upstairs neighbor doubles as a weight-lifting thunder god, why Kat owns a crystal vase for questionable reasons, and how chickens got arms for Christmas. This Box contains the following ingredients: Robert Temple, plasma intelligence, ball lightning, crop circles, afterlife physics, intelligent universe, sound-wave fire extinguisher, DARPA fire suppression, Box of Oddities podcast, Kat and Jethro, paranormal science, weird science, cosmic consciousness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	What follows may not be suitable for all audiences.
0:03.0	Listener discretion is advised.
0:06.1	The world is full of stories.
0:10.1	Stories of mysteries.
0:12.7	Of curiosities.
0:16.0	Of oddities.
0:18.7	Join Cat and Jethro Gilligan Toth for the strange, the bizarre, the unexpected,
0:27.2	as they lift the lid and cautiously peer inside the box of oddities.
0:34.9	So I'm using my new notebook, which I love very much. And, you know, someone gave it to me on the tour. And I love it. And I kind of feel like it's a birthday present. Well, it was your birthday on Thursday. So that makes sense. I keep thinking of it as a birthday present, though. And, you know, I don't know. It's kind of nice to have a little extra birthday present. I did have a lovely birthday, by the way. I'm 44, which is a palindrome, and I love that. She loves the fact that it's a repeating number. And I understand that. It's clean. It's efficient. Feels so good. It looks great. Yeah. As we've mentioned before, whenever cat pumps gas, she pumps it in palindromes.
1:15.5	We went to dinner for my birthday and had a glorious time.
1:20.4	One thing that I really enjoyed about dining with your family is that I ordered artichokes.
1:26.8	And everybody I offered artichoke to went,
1:31.3	uh, no thanks.
1:33.1	Or said, how do I eat it?
1:35.0	And I started to explain and went, nope, never mind too much.
1:37.6	Too complicated.
1:38.8	It's like you were trying to describe to them how to eat lobster for the first time.
1:44.0	You know, like, no, it's way too much effort for a vegetable. So I got the artichoke all to myself. That was nice. Although somebody ate all your Brussels sprouts. It was the person who ordered them. So I guess that's kind of good. It's only fair, I guess. Well, I'm glad you had a good birthday. and it is kind of fun sitting in this studio that we have, well, we've begun to cobble together.
2:04.3	Uh, I guess. Well, I'm glad you had a good birthday. And it is kind of fun sitting in this studio that we have, well, we've begun to cobble together,
2:04.5	surrounded by a lot of really thoughtful things that people have sent us,
2:09.0	either in the mail or brought to live shows.
2:12.3	And we are going to create a display cabinet for all of them.
	...

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