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Brainwashed

Brainwashed

By: CBC
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About this listen

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.

Copyright © CBC 2025 True Crime
Episodes
  • Brainwashed Introduces: Agent Pale Horse

    Brainwashed Introduces: Agent Pale Horse
    Apr 1 2025

    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
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    32 mins
  • Bonus: Front Burner | Canadian CIA MK-Ultra victims still fight for justice

    Bonus: Front Burner | Canadian CIA MK-Ultra victims still fight for justice
    Oct 11 2023
    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
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    28 mins
  • Bonus: BRAINWASHED / MADNESS

    Bonus: BRAINWASHED / MADNESS
    Oct 28 2020

    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
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    24 mins

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