The Jordan Harbinger Show

Trepanation, voluntary eunuchs, and other things to never try at home. Nick Pell cuts through the crackpot science here on Skeptical Sunday.
Welcome to Skeptical Sunday, a special edition of The Jordan Harbinger Show where Jordan and a guest break down a topic that you may have never thought about, open things up, and debunk common misconceptions. This time around, we’re joined by writer and researcher Nick Pell!
Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1369
On This Week's Skeptical Sunday:
The oldest surgery on Earth: How humans spent 7,000 to 10,000 years drilling holes in skulls — and why survival rates reached 40 percent, climbing as high as 78 percent in some pre-modern European populations, rivaling the best of early modern Europe.
When the ancients got it right: Why trepanation was sometimes sound medicine — relieving deadly pressure from a brain bleed — even as it was also used to release evil spirits, treat epilepsy and migraines, or mark warriors and shamans in rites of passage.
The modern movement's quack roots: What drives voluntary trepanation today traces to Dutch pseudo-doctor Bart Huges, who drilled his own skull chasing a "higher consciousness" — a theory with zero evidence and a mortality rate north of 25 percent.
DIY castration and the men behind it: How thousands of voluntary eunuchs and unlicensed "cutters" operate outside medicine, and why researchers tie the drive to body integrity dysphoria, sexual fetish, and the elusive pursuit of total "eunuch calm."
How separating crackpot theory from real science comes down to asking what the evidence actually shows, respecting bodily autonomy without romanticizing harm, and consulting a mental health professional before anything irreversible.
Connect with Jordan on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on Skeptical Sunday, drop Jordan a line at jordan@jordanharbinger.com and let him know!
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A massage therapist you vouched for turns out to be unlicensed and a predator. How can you make up for your lapse in judgment? It's Feedback Friday!
And in case you didn't already know it, Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Gabriel Mizrahi (@GabeMizrahi) banter and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday right here every week! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at friday@jordanharbinger.com. Now let's dive in!
Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1368
On This Week's Feedback Friday:
You're a massage therapist who vouched for a longtime colleague — then learned he'd never been licensed, was working under his wife's name, and had confessed to assaulting 15 women on the table. Despite this all being brought to light, he's still illegally working from an app. How do you protect your community from this creep and recover trust in your own judgment?
You're a therapist who has spent years building boundaries against an abusive mother — the one who moved her deadbeat, family-abandoning father into the house and drafted your brothers as his unpaid nurses. There may be a fortune stashed in his home. You just hung up on your dad. Is it finally time to go no-contact?
You're careful — only ever anonymous nudes, nothing identifiable. Then a cute stranger on Grindr coaxes out your number and Instagram, and by morning he's got your contact list, screenshots, and a 10-second ultimatum. You're blind with adrenaline, fumbling privacy settings. Do you cave, or call the bluff?
Recommendation of the Week: Squirrel Boxes — a subscription of squirrel-themed puzzle feeders that turns the rodents raiding your yard into the best low-stakes entertainment on your street; use code JORDAN for 15% off.
You're 27, and the thing you want most in life is to be a husband and father — but you've never had a real relationship. Then Sara, your roommate's ex (whom you cleared it with, like a mensch), started talking to you every day, and it finally felt different. Two months in, hopes sky-high, she ended it. Do you fight for the friendship, or walk?
Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at friday@jordanharbinger.com!
Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger.
Connect with Gabriel on Twitter at @GabeMizrahi and Instagram @gabrielmizrahi.
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Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course!
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Bioweapons are cheaper and deadlier than nukes — and we're not ready. Biological War author Annie Jacobsen breaks down how close we are to catastrophe.
Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1367
What We Discuss with Annie Jacobsen:
The Soviet bioweapons program was not dismantled after the Cold War — it was absorbed. The State Department says Russia and North Korea run active illegal programs; China and Iran are of concern.
Bioweapons have a low barrier to entry, needing no uranium or missiles. Experts say one could be made in a basement with basic biology and AI help. The Pentagon rates bio the greatest overall WMD threat.
Pneumonic plague is 100% fatal without antibiotics within 24 hours. The US has roughly 100 special-pathogen beds for 340 million people, so hospitals would be overwhelmed on day one.
Soviet scientists inserted a euphoria gene into plague so the infected feel good, stay social, and spread it widely instead of staying home in bed.
Annie Jacobsen's message is pressure, not panic — a human-made problem has a human solution. Pause risky gain-of-function research, depoliticize the threat, and communicate clearly so leaders can act in time.
And much more...
And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps!
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Probiotics, cleanses, leaky gut, worms — science or scam? Jessica Wynn digests the truth about your microbiome this Skeptical Sunday!
Welcome to Skeptical Sunday, a special edition of The Jordan Harbinger Show where Jordan and a guest break down a topic that you may have never thought about, open things up, and debunk common misconceptions. This time around, we’re joined by writer and researcher Jessica Wynn!
Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1366
On This Week's Skeptical Sunday:
Your gut is a genuine marvel, with 500 million neurons chattering up the vagus nerve to your brain. But "marvel" got rebranded as "malfunction" the second the wellness industry smelled money. The gut-brain axis is real science; the $62 kombucha is not.
"Scientists discover the sadness bacteria" sells. "We found a correlation we can't explain yet" doesn't. Depressed people do have different gut bacteria — but no one knows which is driving the bus. Correlation isn't causation, a lesson the internet forgets daily.
Those "parasites" in cleanse videos are mucus casts — your product coming back out, shaped like worms. "Leaky gut," "mucoid plaque," rope worms: catch-all diagnoses for being alive. The cleanse creates the problem, then sells you the repair kit. Perfect loop.
The pitch targets women for a reason: IBS hits them twice as often, and medicine spent decades calling their symptoms "just stress." Wellness says "your doctor won't listen, we will." That distrust is earned — but a real grievance doesn't make the $79 capsules work.
The good news is that your microbiome isn't broken, so stop trying to fix it. Eat a wide variety of real, whole and fermented foods, move your body, sleep, manage stress — and take real symptoms to a gastroenterologist, not TikTok. Boring, cheap, and it works.
Connect with Jordan on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on Skeptical Sunday, drop Jordan a line at jordan@jordanharbinger.com and let him know!
Connect with Jessica Wynn at Instagram (and Instagram!), and subscribe to her newsletters: Between the Lines and Where the Shadows Linger!
And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps!
Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course!
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Your brother-in-law cut off the family, can't hold a job, and asks his girlfriend what he's feeling. Hostage, or willing prisoner? It's Feedback Friday!
And in case you didn't already know it, Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Gabriel Mizrahi (@GabeMizrahi) banter and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday right here every week! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at friday@jordanharbinger.com. Now let's dive in!
Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1365
On This Week's Feedback Friday:
Your brother-in-law Tommy was the little brother you never had. Then a much older girlfriend rebranded herself as a "somatic trauma therapist," diagnosed him from a certificate mill, and helped him cut off everyone who loves him, all while living rent-free in his parents' basement. Can you free a hostage who keeps demanding pizza money?
You've got a hard-working husband, three kids, and zero doubt that he loves you, so why do you feel so lonely? He'll show up to any date night you plan, buy you flowers you don't even want, but what you crave is initiative: being thought about. You've said it for years and nothing changes. Are you asking too much, or is something sneakier hiding in the ask?
You and your ex split amicably, but somehow you became fluffy Frankie's full-time everything: vet, food, boarding, your whole life rearranged around her while he "borrows" your soul dog whenever it suits him, then rages that it's not 50/50. Now you want to end the sharing for good, but he turns scary when he's crossed. Do you even have the right, and how do you say it without lighting the fuse?
Recommendation of the Week: Wise — a money-transfer app Jordan leans on for sending cash across 80-plus countries and holding 40-plus currencies, with wire fees of a few bucks instead of the $30 to $50 a traditional bank charges. Clean UI, fast, and it does the exchange-rate math for you.
You're a finance-and-stats builder moonlighting on an algorithmic trading system — after shelving a therapy app that ate your sleep — and Jordan's own newsletter about nothing being "too far" has you spiraling on the real question: when is grit wisdom, and when is it just refusing to quit? How do you tell the last mile from a dead end?
Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at friday@jordanharbinger.com!
Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger.
Connect with Gabriel on Twitter at @GabeMizrahi and Instagram @gabrielmizrahi.
And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps!
Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course!
Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom!
Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!
This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors:
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DripDrop: 20% off: DripDrop.com, code JORDAN
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See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.