DREADNOUGHT TALE 1: THE MUSIC OF ERICH ZANN

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We may be living in strange times, but we can’t let Halloween pass without a spooky tale.

We are bringing you the first story in our eerie new series, the Dreadnought Tales, named for a quarantine ship that housed the sick for four years off the coast of England in the early 19th century — but also as a reminder to us all not to dwell too much in fear.   

Psychologia presents “The Music of Erich Zann,” by H. P. Lovecraft.

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THE PSYCHOLOGIA MIXTAPE

It’s the beginning of a new year, and we’ve been reflecting on the work we’ve put together and how the scripts and music weave themselves together. What we’ve never explored, however, is how the soundscapes relate to one another. This weird mixtape is an amalgamation of the sonic worlds of several episodes from the last three seasons. So find yourself a comfy chair in a quiet corner, lean back with your eyes closed, and be fully enveloped in the sounds of Psychologia.

SOUND SOURCES

  • EPISODE 4: Soldier’s Heart

  • EPISODE 6: Your Brain on Music

  • EPISODE 10: Persuasion

  • EPISODE 12: American Asylums & The Kirkbride Plan

  • EPISODE 13: The Strange History of the Vibrator

  • EPISODE 19: The Doppelgänger Delusion

  • EPISODE 22: The Gruesome Case of the Killer Maids

  • EPISODE 24: Death Penalty

  • RECAST: Whose Memory Is This Anyway?

  • RECAST: Devil Town

EPISODE 26: FALSE CONFESSIONS

Innocent people are locked up and convicted of crimes more often than you may think. One of the most mysterious reasons this happens is that people confess to things they didn’t do. This may seem incomprehensible, but the fact is that law enforcement has gotten better and better at using psychological methods combined with false evidence to elicit confessions — even though many studies show that this method leads to false confessions. This deception is incredibly coercive, and, as we will see, wildly dangerous, both to the suspect and to the investigation itself.

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EPISODE 25: NAKED PSYCHOPATHS ON LSD

On the morning of February 21st, 1933, a brand-new structure opened on the grounds of the Ontario Hospital in Penetanguishene. It was known as the “Criminal Insane Building,” although its official name would be Oak Ridge. It was designed as a maximum-security forensic mental healthcare unit for criminally insane men – many of whom were psychopaths – and the attempts to treat them would famously prove to do just the opposite.

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EPISODE 24: THE DEATH PENALTY

There are few topics that bring on as much emotional outrage and heated argument as the death penalty. It’s the kind of debate that divides friends, families and nations, and it falls on a short list of subjects about which nearly everyone has a strong, inflexible opinion. This episode will bring you some facts, some history and some research about the death penalty in the United States, and examine where we are now and how we got here.

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EPISODE 22: THE GRUESOME CASE OF THE KILLER MAIDS

February 2nd, 1933 was a frosty evening in Le Mans, France. When Monsieur René Lancelin got to his front door, he found it locked and dark. Neither his wife nor his daughter appeared to be home, but a dim light flickered in the maids’ attic room. He ran for the police, and the violent mystery of the events inside the house began to unfold, leading from a gruesome crime scene and a pair of disturbed sisters to a bizarre delusional disorder — folie à deux. Join us for the story of Christine and Léa Papin.

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EPISODE 21: MASS HYSTERIA

How is it possible that huge groups of people can all fall ill or be incapacitated by a physical sickness no doctor can diagnose? How can hundreds of citizens across a city be moved to perform some odd repeated behavior for days or even weeks on end with no biological cause? Today’s episode will explore some famous instances of mass hysteria, and then try to answer just these questions.

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EPISODE 20: THE FIRST WOMEN

Before the second-wave feminist movement of the 1960s, psychological study was largely the study of (mostly white) men, by (mostly white) men. To say, however, that men have always been the only ones in the lab is a huge mistake. This episode is a tiny overview of four groundbreaking American psychologists – who just happen to have been women.

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EPISODE 19: THE DOPPELGÄNGER DELUSION

Capgras Syndrome is a psychiatric disorder in which a person believes that people around them have been replaced with doubles. Sufferers of this condition truly think that the people they know and love are imposters. This episode breaks down this mysterious delusion to delve into its history, etiology, and whether or not it can be treated.

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RECAST: DEVIL TOWN

A remastered version of our second-ever episode:
Many people are familiar with the term "Satanic Panic," but most have no idea about the bizarre role that psychology played in the widespread mayhem that erupted in the 1980s and 90s.


(The second part of our two-part false memory suite) 

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(See Season 1, Episode 2)

RECAST: WHOSE MEMORY IS THIS, ANYWAY?

A remastered version of our first-ever episode:
We rely on our memories to orient ourselves in time and space. But what if your memories are unreliable? Or worse, what if it is possible for someone else to implant false memories in your mind?


(The first part of our two-part false memory suite) 

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(See Season 1, Episode 1)

EPISODE 18: THE REAL DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE

The Old Tolbooth stood for over 400 years just off the Royal Mile in Edinburgh and housed all manner of torture, torment, and even public execution. One of these deaths was that of a man whose bizarre and duplicitous life would become the inspiration for one of fiction’s most well-known horror stories, and whose hanging was the most well-attended in Scotland’s history. The man was Deacon William Brodie, but you may know him as “the real Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

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EPISODE 17: THE MEN WHO DIED IN THEIR SLEEP

At first, there were 18 dead. All members of the Hmong tribe, all from a mountainous province of Laos. They fled their homeland at the end of the Vietnam War and made their way to the United States as refugees. They shared a difficult life – and they shared a terrifying death. Each of them was found in their beds, killed in their sleep by a mysterious affliction that looked like nothing at all.

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EPISODE 16: THE YELLOW WALLPAPER

In honor of Halloween, this episode is a bit different. We’re reading a wonderful, chilling short story, a perfect combination of some of this podcast’s favorite subjects: psychology, feminism, and horror.

Psychologia presents “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

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EPISODE 15: SIX VANISHED DISORDERS

Throughout history, there have been many mental illnesses that have spread widely only to disappear years later because they are problematic or discriminatory, laughable or preposterous, or simply no longer relevant. This episode explores six disorders that were once considered real threats to people’s sanity, but have now vanished from modern psychology.

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EPISODE 14: THE PSYCHOPATHY CHECKLIST

Psychopaths fascinate us. They commit extreme violence, but can mask it with a smile. They preying on the weakest among us, and take advantage of every situation to get what they want. They don’t seem to belong in society, and yet they often excel. But what is a psychopath? How do you recognize one and how do you diagnose one? Have you ever been in the presence of a psychopath? And, if you so, then what?

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EPISODE 13: THE STRANGE HISTORY OF THE VIBRATOR

Once upon a time, women’s bodies were considered so mysterious and inexplicable that their wombs were believed to move around their bodies. The medical name for this condition was “hysteria,” and the cure for it was...a sex toy. Enter the strange and fantastical history of the vibrator.

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EPISODE 12: AMERICAN ASYLUMS & THE KIRKBRIDE PLAN

There are many terrifying stories about the misery endured by patients in 19th century asylums, and while they seem too horrific to be true, the real history of psychiatric hospitals may be even worse than you imagine – and in some places, the nightmare is still happening today.

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