The Paranoid Strain

YAY! We've reached Jesuit's favorite part of this series--a sort of 4-part sub-series of inter-connected conspiracy theories that build on each other to trace a tale that we think is honestly one of the most interesting subjects we've ever covered. So we understand you might be surprised to learn that this tale starts with the Da Vinci Code, an extremely silly, yet thoroughly self-serious book fro...

I know that most of you woke up this morning and had that same thought you do every time you open your eyes. "How am I going to face the day without a podcast about a medieval French heresy, its violent persecution by the Church, and its eventual passage into legend and conspiracy?" Well, today is the day you've been waiting for. We're gettin' all Cathar up in this bitch, and it's gonna get toasty...

Yes, many of you, including notably the 40 Year Old Boy, Mike Schmidt, noticed that I made a typo in the numbering of the show last time. Regardless, we're back on track now, delivering the properly numbered 6th episode of our Secret Societies series, which bridges the gap between the Templars and the Cathars. On paper, the Knights of the Temple don't have much to do with the heretical Good Men, b...

And so we...nearly(?) come to the end of our coverage of the Knights Templar. I mean, there's a little bit that carries over to the next episode, but hardly any. And by the way, we know this one ends at kind of a weird point, at the end of a news clip. That's just the way the episode divided up--normally, we try to provide solid end-points for these things, but sometimes breaking into half-hour ch...

And so we move on to the fourth installment of our Secret Societies series, where we get to the heart of the historical story of the rise and fall of the Knights Templar. Thrill to tales of papal interrogation! Hiss at the dastardly Prince Philip IV, and his sinister plans for the holy knights! Unearth the whispered rumors of the Knights' strange initiation rituals! Be slightly confused by a quick...

Day late, but definitely no dollars short, we bring you the beginning of our in-depth analyses of historical secret societies with one of the most interesting and legendary of them all--the Knights Templar. Before we fill you in on these guys, though, we also provide a capsule biography of the conflict that brought them into existence, the Crusades. Oh, and we also used the term "weltanschauung" i...

When the new episode train starts runnin', you know you best get out of the way. And so we barrel down the tracks to episode 2, which is still technically part of the introduction to this monster of a topic, if you can believe it. Here, we cover a bit more of the Eleusinian mysteries, some additional weirdness involving Pythagoras, the ideas behind hermeticism, and of course the mysteries of Solom...

Holy shit, we're BACK, BAYBEE! This is the first of a projected we-have-no-real-idea-how-many shows we're doing on Secret Societies. All we do know is that from now until we wrap up the Illuminati, it's all new content for a long while. Thanks for sticking with us during our production hiatus. We couldn't be more excited to share what we've learned about all of the various real and imaginary group...

And now, the end is near, and Episode 17, Reality Show 1's archive presentation faces...the final curtain. The important thing to know is that this part, part seven--the final part...it did it seven's way. This is, indeed, the final part of our archive shows for now, and it deals with one incredibly silly book, which we enjoyed beating up once, and will probably have the opportunity to take some s...

Coming into the home stretch, it's part six and seven neck and neck. Seven surges ahead but NO! LOOK AT THAT! Six has come up behind and wins by a nose! And that's the story of how part six of our originally much larger Reality Show part 1 burst into your feed. Better luck next time, seven! This time, we cover some completely nonsensical conjectures about reality, like The Mandela Effect and the T...

Number Five...IS ALIVE! That joke meant nothing to the vast majority of you, but for a few middle-aged listeners, it brought the kind of smile that only a Fisher Stevens in brownface can induce. This piece of our shattered Reality Part 1 episode deals with more sciencey stuff, addressing the longstanding issue of why, exactly, there is anything at all, much less the grandeur of the universe we see...

Part 4 has nestled safely into your podcast feed, just as your horoscope predicted. Today's segment of what was originally Episode 17, Reality Part 1 deals in a snack-sized way with how our most brilliant scientific minds have tried to poke, prod, and analyze reality using every tool at their disposal, only to find it continuing to wriggle away every time. But it turns out the real reality was the...

Third time's the charm? Well, that's definitely the case here, as we settle into the third segment of our archive presentation of what was originally Episode 17, Reality Part 1. This segment features our full interview with Professor Martin Jay, a guy who has forgotten more about idealist philosophers than we will ever hope to learn. He offers some valuable insights on our topics, for which we are...

The time has come for the second part of our Archive presentation of Episode 17. This segment of our Reality Part 1 Episode is mostly concerned with the ideas of philosophers who are thought of as idealists, rather than materialists. These folks include Plato, Hume, Berkeley, Kant, and others who think that the mind is the primary thing we need to think about when we're dealing with reality, since...

It's a new year! And it's time for new content! But not quite yet. We're working hard on the new Secret Societies series, but to keep your feed full in the meantime, We've broken one of our longest episodes up into digestible chunks, each with a new intro. This is the first part of our 2019 episode questioning the whole concept of reality. Enjoy. And while you're at it, please check out our sister...

I know. I know. I've got to be kidding with another goddamned Qanon episode. But I'm not, because they keep doing dumber and dumber shit. Unfortunately, as we saw on January 6th, that includes destruction, insurrection, murder, and mayhem. In this QUICK HIT, we fill you in on everything that happened with Q since the summer. Well, not everything, because this shit keeps happening on a daily basis....

The prophecy is fulfilled--the oracle's glass has shattered. The darkness emerges from its stygian pit and crawls across the desert floor. The Stupid slouches toward Bethlehem--to be REBORN. In other words, the Stupidland guys are back. I know. How did we get so lucky? Wait--that's not the word. Cursed. How did we get so cursed? Just lucky, I guess. Those of you who have joined us in recent years...

Hi, everybody. This is our first show with our new hosting service, so hopefully you're receiving this the same way you did previously, and nothing wonky has happened with your feeds. If it has, all apologies. This, as promised, is the complete, full-length politics episode, with all six previous short episode stitched together into a giant Frankenstein's monster of an audio behemoth--three and a...

By the title of this super-short update, you can tell that we have decided to throw our lot in with the That's Not Canon podcast network out of Australia. What does this mean for you? Not a lot--except we're gonna mention some other shows you might like periodically, and there may be some short ads when you download the episodes. We're super-excited, and think this is a great way to introduce the...

Finally, we come to the end of our epic political conspiracy series, taking on the legacy of the happy conspiracist, Ronald Reagan. Not only is his name nearly synonymous with America in the '80s, but he's also the figure who, more than anything, overcame his conspiracist leanings to develop a persona and reputation that somehow ignores his longtime, deeply held paranoid fantasies of Commies and l...

VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE We're back after only 1 week with some piping hot content for you to listen to in your interminable voter lines on this historic Tuesday. This one's a QUICK HIT about the conspiracies of the Trump era--and some of them weren't even promulgated by Trump! (Spoiler--almost all of them were, though). We'll be back in your ears in two weeks, but fo...

Must we already say goodbye to Nixon? Yes, alas. But we're sending him off with a barnburner of an episode. More Rick Perlstein! Less Barry Goldwater! More CREEP, Plumbers and infamous D.C. luxury hotels. Thanks as always for coming along for the journey. We'll be back in your ears sooner than you expect, with an  extremely timely show. Thanks for listening, tell a friend, and feel free to drop us...

Finally, we've reached the moment we've all been waiting for. Well, the moment that  I've been waiting for: The Nixon portion of the proceedings. Here is where we begin sharing in earnest our interview with Rick Perlstein, preeminent chronicler of the rise of the conservative movement in the mid-20th century. We talk about the conspiracist lunacy that underpinned Goldwater's '64 campaign, and how...

Back for round three, we're taking on three quick topics this time--the early nineteenth century's obsessions with the nefarious doings of the Masons, the mid-nineteenth century panic about Catholics overrunning our precious, lily-white Protestant republic, and the pre-WWII anti-semitic fervor that frankly couldn't have come at a worse time. It's a cavalcade of ridiculous historical paranoid nonse...

We're back again, with the next installment of our historical review of American political conspiracy theories. This time, unfortunately, we have to talk about the hideous history of conspiracy theories centered around slavery, and the ways that they impacted both slaveowning, and even abolitionist societies prior to the Civil War. This one is, of course, upsetting. But, we hope, also super intere...