Brainwashed: Recent Episodes
CBC Podcasts
Brainwashed investigates the CIAâs covert mind control experiments â from the Cold War and MKULTRA to the so-called War on Terror. Itâs the story of how a renowned psychiatrist used his unwitting patients as human guinea pigs at a Montreal hospital, and the ripple effects on survivors, their families, and thousands of other people around the world. It also examines the cultural impact â how the CIA brought LSD to America and inadvertently created counterculture influencers such as author Ken Kesey and poet Allen Ginsberg. Itâs an exploration of what happens in times of fear, when the military and medicine collide. And what happens when the survivors fight back.
It was the biggest gold discovery in history...until it wasn’t. In 1995, Canadian mining company Bre-X announced to the world it had found a significant amount of gold deep in the jungles of Indonesia. Stock prices soared as investors worldwide fought to stake their claim. But when Bre-X’s chief geologist mysteriously fell from a helicopter over the jungle, the story of the billion dollar discovery began to unravel. Nearly three decades later, no one has ever been held accountable. In the new podcast, The Six Billion Dollar Gold Scam, host Suzanne Wilton takes you from the jungles of Indonesia to small town Alberta, Canada, to investigate what really happened and find out more about the man behind the biggest goldmine fraud of all time. Produced for the BBC World Service and CBC by BBC Scotland Productions. More episodes are available at: https://link.chtbl.com/zqv-qlG3
Avril Lavigne was a punk pop sensation who topped the charts in the early noughties, and she still performs to sold-out crowds today. But what if the Avril we’ve been following all these years is not the same Avril we fell in love with? What if — as a curious theory claims — Avril was replaced by a look-alike at the height of her fame? In ‘Who Replaced Avril Lavigne’ comedian Joanne McNally searches far and wide — from Avril’s hometown to the underbelly of the internet — to find out if the rumours are true. Along the way, she immerses herself in a mind-bending world of fake celebrity deaths, doppelgangers, conspiracy theories, and downright absurdity. Who Replaced Avril Lavigne? Joanne McNally Investigates is produced by What’s The Story Sounds – for BBC Sounds and CBC. More episodes are available at: https://link.chtbl.com/aaESCk5g
Fraud. Abduction. Murder. Every week, Crime Story host and investigative journalist Kathleen Goldhar goes deep into a tale of true crime with the storyteller who knows it best. From the reporter who exposed Bill Cosby, to the writer who solved one of Australia’s most chilling cold cases — Crime Story guests include: Gilbert King (Bone Valley), Eric Benson (Project Unabomb), Carole Fisher (The Girlfriends), and many more. In this episode, Michelle Shephard joins Kathleen to discuss her new and intensely personal documentary called The Perfect Story. More episodes are available at: https://link.chtbl.com/nCYHMiQi
Front Burner is your essential daily news podcast that takes you deep into the stories shaping Canada and the world. In this episode you’ll hear Daemon Fairless speaking with Lisa Ellenwood. Lisa was a writer and producer on Brainwashed, but she’s also a producer with CBC’s The Fifth Estate and co-author of the book Les cobayes oubliés: l’histoire du programme MKULTRA à Montréal that comes out next year. This episode of Front Burner dives into MKULTRA and the reasons why survivors and their families are still fighting for justice from the aftermath of those experiments. More episodes of Front Burner are available at: https://link.chtbl.com/AqAJjdk4
In 1985, at the height of the Black Power era, police dropped a bomb in a Philadelphia neighborhood. Their target? A family of Black radicals known as ‘MOVE,’ who found themselves ensnared in a city — and nation’s — domestic war on Black Liberation. Over seven episodes, host Matthew Amha investigates the events that culminated in the MOVE bombing, and the long afterlife of a forgotten American tragedy. More episodes are available at: https://link.chtbl.com/NFwOrVBw
John and Amanda have lived on the fringes their whole lives. They’re on welfare, living with John’s grandma, and struggling with addiction to opioids and Dungeons and Dragons. They’ve followed crooked paths to this point. John played in heavy metal bands and dabbled with Satanism. Amanda left home and discovered heroin before her 18th birthday. The couple converts to Islam in an attempt to turn their lives around. But things take a wild turn when a mysterious figure enters their lives and draws them into a web of conspiracy, deception and terror. More episodes are available at smarturl.it/pressurecookercbc
The new investigative series White Hot Hate follows the extraordinary case of young Canadian journalist Ryan Thorpe who infiltrated an international neo-Nazi extremist network. While host Michelle Shephard explores the rise of white supremacist accelerationism: the ultra-violent ideology that drives believers to create chaos, in order to seize ultimate control. More episodes are available at: hyperurl.co/whitehothate
The Flamethrowers captures the punch-you-in-the-mouth energy and sound of right-wing talk radio. Host Justin Ling takes us from the fringe preachers and conspiracy peddlers of the 1920s to the political firestorm that rages today. With humour and candour, Ling examines the appeal of broadcasters like Rush Limbaugh, who found a sleeping audience, radicalized it, and became an accidental kingmaker â culminating in the election of Donald Trump. More episodes are available at smarturl.it/theflamethrowers
Host Michelle Shephard speaks to Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson from the podcast Endless Thread about their series, Madness. Like Brainwashed, Madness focusses on the CIA-funded mind control experiments led by Dr. Ewen Cameron. The hosts swap stories, compare notes and reflect on the enduring legacy of MKULTRA.
MKULTRA has entered popular culture, becoming the butt of jokes, television plot points, and the darling of internet conspiracy theorists. At the very least, the secrecy that still surrounds MKULTRA, or the CIAâs post-9/11 programs, sows distrust of governments, and medical professionals. At worst, it gives credence to online conspiracies, like Pizzagate, that end up having real world consequences. Meanwhile, the families of the victims continue to suffer. And continue to fight for justice and recognition.
MKULTRA was supposed to have ended in the 1960s. The torturous experiments didnât work. So why did these techniques evolve and continue to be used by American trainers throughout Latin America, and then get revived once again in the era that followed the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks? The CIAâs Black Sites and a courtroom inside the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base may hold some of the answers.
After discovering that they were the unwitting victims of human experiments, nine of Dr. Cameronâs victims band together to take on a Herculean task â to make the CIA pay. How do you sue one of the most powerful intelligence agencies in the world?
Communist brainwashing, mind control experiments, a government cover up... MKULTRA sounds like the stuff of conspiracy theories or science fiction. But it was real. John Marks, author of The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, and Stephen Kinzer, author of Poisoner in Chief, reveal the shocking details of the bizarre and expansive secret CIA project.
Dr. Ewen Cameron, an internally renowned psychiatrist, was once the director of the World, American and Canadian Psychiatric Associations. So how did he come to develop his controversial treatments? And what was the real purpose behind his experiments?
The Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal was an innovative new hospital where patients sought cutting-edge psychiatric care. But instead of being helped, many were subjected to shockingly brutal experiments: massive doses of LSD or other drugs, electroshocks, and sensory deprivation. How â and why â could this be allowed to happen?
Brainwashed is an investigative series into the CIAâs covert experiments in mind control â from the Cold War and MKULTRA to the so-called War on Terror. Listen to the voices of the survivors and their families, the conscientious objectors and the lawyers and journalists who have fought to have this story come to light. Go into the hospital rooms where psychiatric patients became unwitting guinea pigs for such so-called treatments given Orwellian names like psychic driving and de-patterning. We look at what happens in times of fear, when the military and medicine collide and how without accountability, a torturous cycle continues.