History of Lights On! and ‘Brain Massage’
The
LIGHTS ON and LIGHTS OFF response has an interesting history. In the early years of our broadcast, I did the show live. Once I got enthusiastic about a point I was making, and said, “that should get the LIGHTS ON out there.” The station received several phone calls over the next ten minutes with people saying THE LIGHTS ARE ON, and more than one informing us they were turning their car lights on to signal they were LIGHTS ON. I picked up on this, of course, and began the tradition of having people call and say lights on if they agree and lights off if they disagree.
The Brain Massage motif came from my days as a college professor. When walking to class I overheard a group of my students say, “Here comes Pastor Scheidbach, it’s time for our brain massage.” As class began, I asked about the expression, and after some lively, and friendly banter about the effect my lectures had on their minds—I decided brain massage was an apt way to describe the experience. From then on I would regularly begin my lectures with — “okay, boys, it’s time for your brain massage.”
The Science of a Brain Massage
The brain masseur uses words like fingers to massage your gray matter forming insights in the mind that stimulate the pituitary to signal the adrenal to release norepinephrine neurotransmitters and to fire these neurons through the sympathetic nervous system affecting the heart. The skilled brain masseur uses incisive logic to arrest our attention, and nuanced razor-sharp rhetoric to cut away the tangled knots in our brains. When these knots are removed, electrical impulses of stimulating insights fire the neurotransmitters so they can leap the synapse gaps. This generates a sort of sparkling effect in the brain that sometimes causes the countenance of a Brain Massage listener to glow. Additionally, sudden bursts of energy, caused by the release of glucose from energy stores throughout your body, increases the heart rate, while the pituitary gland in the brain releases all five types of dopamine at once and this creates that sense of euphoria experienced by many Brain Massage listeners.
Pastor Scheidbach presents social/political commentary on current events from a conservative Christian perspective that is informed by the Bible. He thrusts the Sword of the Spirit into the belly of the Dragon of deceit with every show, exposing the lies that are blinding men’s minds to the Truth that would set them free, and keep them free. His show reaches an estimated 100,000 plus listeners each week.
