Brainwashed

CBC

Brainwashed investigates the CIA’s covert mind control experiments – from the Cold War and MKULTRA to the so-called War on Terror. It’s 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 — how the CIA brought LSD to America and inadvertently created counterculture influencers such as author Ken Kesey and poet Allen Ginsberg. It’s an exploration of what happens in times of fear, when the military and medicine collide. And what happens when the survivors fight back. For the best in true crime from CBC, ad-free, visit apple.co/cbctruecrime.

  • 32 minutes 19 seconds
    Brainwashed Introduces: Agent Pale Horse

    FBI undercover agent Scott Payne’s job was to infiltrate the most dangerous gangs of our times: outlaw bikers, drug cartels and the international neo-Nazi networks hellbent on inciting a race war. 


    He was taking down these groups from within. And Scott was good at it — people confided in him their most audacious plans for mass violence and domestic terrorism.


    In the second season of White Hot Hate, host Michelle Shephard gives you an unvarnished view of a life undercover. Because after a 28-year-long career pretending to be somebody else, Agent Payne is ready to tell his side of the story. 


    This series was produced alongside a book co-written by Scott Payne and Michelle Shephard titled Code Name: Pale Horse: How I Went Undercover to Expose America's Nazis.


    More episodes of White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse are available at: https://link.mgln.ai/TF32Bs

    1 April 2025, 6:15 pm
  • 28 minutes 25 seconds
    Bonus: Front Burner | Canadian CIA MK-Ultra victims still fight for justice
    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
    11 October 2023, 4:10 am
  • 24 minutes 11 seconds
    Bonus: BRAINWASHED / MADNESS

    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. To find transcriptions for episodes of Brainwashed, please click here: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/brainwashed-transcripts-listen-1.5734335

    28 October 2020, 12:10 am
  • 34 minutes 9 seconds
    Episode 6: NEVER TOO LATE TO SAY SORRY
    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 CIA’s 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. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/brainwashed-transcripts-listen-1.5734335
    20 October 2020, 12:10 am
  • 39 minutes 40 seconds
    Episode 5: WE TORTURED SOME FOLKS
    MKULTRA was supposed to have ended in the 1960s. The torturous experiments didn’t 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 CIA’s Black Sites and a courtroom inside the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base may hold some of the answers. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/brainwashed-transcripts-listen-1.5734335
    13 October 2020, 12:10 am
  • 30 minutes 49 seconds
    Episode 4: SUING THE CIA
    After discovering that they were the unwitting victims of human experiments, nine of Dr. Cameron’s victims band together to take on a Herculean task – to make the CIA pay. How do you sue one of the most powerful intelligence agencies in the world? For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/brainwashed-transcripts-listen-1.5734335
    6 October 2020, 12:10 am
  • 29 minutes 43 seconds
    Episode 3: EXPOSING MKULTRA
    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. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/brainwashed-transcripts-listen-1.5734335
    30 September 2020, 12:10 am
  • 33 minutes 32 seconds
    Episode 2: PSYCHIC DRIVING
    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? For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/brainwashed-transcripts-listen-1.5734335
    23 September 2020, 12:09 am
  • 23 minutes 6 seconds
    Episode 1: RAVENSCRAG
    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 — and why — could this be allowed to happen? For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/brainwashed-transcripts-listen-1.5734335
    23 September 2020, 12:08 am
  • 3 minutes 5 seconds
    Trailer: Brainwashed
    Brainwashed is an investigative series into the CIA’s covert experiments in mind control – 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.
    2 September 2020, 4:10 am
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