In this episode we set the stage for the story of Joan of Arc, one of the most enigmatic and fascinating people in history.  To understand Joan we have to understand the Hundred Years' War, the festering quagmire into which she was born, and which she helped put an end to. Herein are dragons and whirlwinds, blood-soaked Vikings, slaughtered monks, broken treaties, lunatic kings, conquering dukes, glorious victories and crushing defeats, assassinations and treachery, conniving men and women, and war, war, war. In short, it was the last world you would expect a peasant girl to rise to greatness in.  But rise she would...  

Know Thyself History Podcast

HBH 28: The Life and Trials of Joan of Arc

They are one of the two most implicated groups in the history of conspiracy theories. But their real history is, if less mysterious and ominous, just as unsettling.  From a humble beginning, to becoming the richest order in Christendom, to being imprisoned, tortured, persecuted and executed. This is the story of the Knights Templar.

HBH 27: The Knights Templars' Humble Beginnings and Horrific End

We continue our series on the Inquisition with the campaigns to suppress the Waldensians. These "Poor Men (and Women!) of Lyon" were known for their sandals and their beards; but mostly for their Christian piety, humility, and charity.   So of course they had to die. And die they did, in the tens, hundreds, and thousands.     

HBH 26: Mother and Infant Down the Rocks

In this episode we begin a full immersion experience into that most infamous of offices, The Inqusition.  From the forces at play in the persecution society where it began, through a few early burnings, to the papal bull that started it all, we refuse to shrink from staring it in all its repressive sanctimony. We also cover some of the early heretical movements and groups that caught the -- very unwanted -- attention of the ecclesiastical inquisition.  Finally, the Albigensian Crusade gets off to a brutal and sadistic start, as the Pope calls another crusade, this time against the Cathars -- in what historians call the first ideological genocide in history. Artwork by Ian Armstrong

HBH 25: Kill Them All and God Will Know His Own

In this episode Steve Rathje, social psychologist specializing in social media and political polarization, explains to us why we are prone to conspiratorial thinking, and how we got into the state we find ourselves in Western societies.  Virality, engagement, fake news, motivated reasoning, negativity bias, and much more are covered the way only Steve can explain them. A long overdue episode 24 of HBH. But hey, it's summer, and we can finally travel, so it's better late than never.            

HBH 24: Polarization and Conspiracy Thinking

In this episode I speak to Professor Jan Bremer about human sacrifice. We touch on Greek, Roman, Maya, Indian, Aztec, Druid, Egyptian, Chinese, and other instantiations of this most intentionally terrifying of all practices. Who were the victims? How common was it? What motivated it? The answers, from Prof. Bremer, were suprising. I will not say he is a human sacrifice skeptic, but he believes it was less common and less costly than sensationalized accounts would lead us to believe.   Art by Ian Armstrong Music Icy Vindur by A. Himitsu    

HBH 23: Jan Bremer on Human Sacrifice

Conclusion (at last) of a three-part episode on the ways our perceptions and processing distort reality.  For the stalwart (and patient) seekers of knowledge only. 0:00  Groupthink 6:13   Halo Effect 10:41  Just World Fallacy 17:21  Negativity Bias 22:16  Optimism and Pessimism Bias 27:19   Reactance 31:44  Self-Serving Bias 34:41  Sunk Cost Fallacy 39:40  The Spotlight Effect 40:51  The Dunning-Krueger Effect as you never knew it   Art: Ian Armstrong          

HBH 22: Fallacies, Biases, and Warped Reality

Today I begin a pedantic journey into the tragicomic ways our perceptions and judgments are altered and distorted by our own cognitive processes -- goofy, heartbreaking, and humorous all at once,  Index of topics included: 0:00    Intro 04:52   Anchoring Bias 08:59   Availability Heuristic 13:25   Backfire Effect 16:05   Barnum Effect 19:45   Belief Bias 23:06   Bystander Effect 27:22  Confirmation Bias and Belief Perseverance                Including Wm. Flinders-Petrie vs the Pyramidologists 33:56   Curse of Knowledge 35:10   Declinism aka Old Fartism  36:49   Framing Effects 40:06   Fundamental Attribution Error (Salience of the Actor)            Empty Boats   I will finish the topic in a few weeks, but in order to not bore you to death with this laundry list, I will interject a few historical vignettes between now and then.      

HBH 21: Our Distorted Reality

In which we continue to Dumbest things in history series by looking at some of the glitches in us that make them possible.  And also that they are not the result of our lizard brain, because we don't have one. In this episode, we cover conspiracy thinking and theories and the  apophenia that makes them possible, including pareidolia, the gambler's fallacy, motivated reasoning, and of course our ability to talk ourselves into things through repetition.  

HBH 20: Conspiracy Theories and Cognitive Glitches

A bad decision for the ages--welcoming a pretentious narcissistic ignoramus into your family to weaken your already precarious hold on power, ignoring all warnings and thumbing your nose at the public outrage it engendered.   And worse, taking said lecher's advice on all matters, sacred and secular, because he claimed it came from God himself.  It sounds like a path to disaster, as indeed it was. In this episode we uncover what can be known about the life and strange death of Grigori Yefimovich Novykh, aka Rasputin, the so-called Mad Monk of Siberia and his tragic relationship to Tsar Nicolas II and his family.  Cover Art by Ian Armstrong    

HBH 19: Rasputin and the Romanovs

This is a release of an interview I did a year and a half ago, but have not released due to some technical -- and technique -- difficulties. Despite that, I have always wanted to clean it up as much as possible and release it, in large part because Dr. Tiesler is a world renowned expert on the topic and was very generous to grant the interview.          

HBH 18: Vera Tiesler on Mayan Human Sacrifice

Announcement of Great Import

We have a lot going for us, which is why we are currently a very successful species. But we have a lot of problems, defects, deficiencies, dysteleology, and outright glitches in our systems. This episode, the first in a two part series on our glitches, catalogues some of the maladaptive elements that make us who we are. This episode: anatomical, physiological, and genetic human defects.  HBH 18: Mental glitches that allow us to make very stupid decisions, thought distortions and cognitive biases.          

HBH 17: Human Glitches, Part 1

There are countless stupid events, decisions, policies, and people in history, so it was a great surprise to see how easy it was to decide on the dumbest thing ever. It was, to put it bluntly, no contest. The Great Leap Forward had it all -- poor planning, poor execution, newspeak, happy talk, brutal repression, and tens of millions of deaths.  And you couldn't think of a more perfectly ludicrous name. Today's episode is a little complicated, as the topic is VAST and I made a vain attempt to cover it all.  Listen to it twice if you have to -- or if you have a stomach for it! Better yet -- Read about the Great Leap Forward: Mao's Great Famine by Frank Dikotter Forgotten Voices of Mao's Great Famine by Xun Zhou        

HBH 16: The All-Time Dumbest Thing Ever

In this episode I get distracted while working on another topic.  Because of that failure to focus, we cover the origins of left and right political ideologies, the beginnings of fascism, its symbolism, and what special recipe makes a fascist regime fascist.  We also briefly discuss Antifa -- which is, depending on who you ask, either the most dangerous shadowy terrorist group in America with billionaire funding and extensive secret networks, or a total boogeyman invented by the right as a scapegoat. Cover art by Ian Armstrong

HBH 15: Fascism and Antifa

History, anatomy and physiology, philosophy, psychology, anthropology. The podcast that attempts to resurrect sense and meaning from the dust of a billion factoids.

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Know Thyself History Podcast

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