Why We're Secretly Drawn to Imposters

0:00The center of this fascination is a very simple truth. The imposter reveals not just deception, but the vulnerability of belief itself. How's that? Let's talk about the archetype of the imposter, the archetypical imposter, dare I say. Long before modern media, the imposter exhibited in myth and legend, so to speak. It was wonderful. That which was showed maybe perhaps in the literary myth and the legend was fascinating. The trickster figures appears across cultures. You know, characters who maybe deceive or manipulate or assume false identities or somebody claiming to be something that they are not. These figures were not always villain. Sometimes they were, well, they were clever survivors, bending reality, twisting reality

1:04to their own particular will. This, this archetype carries forward into history, where imposters became real and far more dangerous. If you look at the historical imposters and where we get the rudiments of our base from, one of the most famous literary examples is Tartouf, a religious fraud who presents himself as pious while exploiting a wealthy family. The story resonated because it captured a timeless fear, the hypocrite cloaked in virtue. When it comes to the notion of religious ledger domain, even more fascinating. Now moving into real history and you'll find figures like Rasputin. Oh, great one. Rasputin embedded himself in the Russian royal court, presenting himself

2:07remember as a holy man. Remember that while wielding enormous influence, whether a mystic or mystical or manipulative, he embodied the idea that belief can in fact be engineered. Then there was Gregory Rasputin again whose legend persists because he blurred the line between faith and fraud. So effectively that even today people debate what he truly was, truly unmistakably fascinating. Now when the modern era, imposters became more sophisticated. In a different vein, Clifford Irving famously faked at autobiography of Howard Hughes. Remember that one a little different but still important. He convinced publishers and the public that he had the exclusive access to the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes. And the deception worked for a while not because

3:10not because Irving was brilliant, but because people wanted to believe the story. That's the subtext of this. Much of what is allowed to occur is because we like the story. Remember in a similar vein, Yuri Geller, Yuri Geller captivated audiences by claiming psychic powers, bending spoons, and reading minds. And the amazing Randy took care of that. But whether entertainer or fraud who knows is appeal rested on the same foundation. Listen to me carefully. The human desire to believe in something beyond the origin.