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Chapter 4: Mescaline

   2022    Medicine
The last episode explores Mescaline, the psychoactive molecule in San Pedro and peyote cacti, a sacred medicine that Native Americans have had to fight for the right to use. At the Indigenous practices there's always an elder, someone who knows the territory very well, who's presiding. There's usually a group, a community is involved, There's always an intention, a purpose to what you're doing, and you're treating it as sacred, in order to achieve altered states of consciousness, which contribute to worship in various ways, or celebration or healing.
But maybe all this is not so new to Western culture after all. In the old Greek histories of Eleusis, people who were initiated there got the drink, the kykeon, and then they had the illumination. The precise recipe is a mystery, but we know that the kykeon was a psychoactive brew that was used at the Eleusinian mysteries, a sacred annual ritual of enlightenment practiced by some of the world's greatest minds including Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. So why did this ritual come to an end more than 1,000 years ago? Was the possibility of illumination or achieving a higher consciousness considered threatening to the powers that be? Have the drug wars been merely an extension of that fear?
Psychedelics has a major part in how we can heal as a community, how we can heal as a city, and how we can heal as a country. The current renaissance of psychedelics could not come at a better time as the world confronts a crisis in mental health. But psychedelics have much to offer. The psychedelic experience changes the mind in ways that will help scientists better understand how it works. All these altered states allow us to probe what is the greatest mystery in all of nature. The emergence from mere matter of something as miraculous as consciousness. But an even bigger question is whether psychedelics might help us address the environmental crisis of how we think about our place in nature. One of the greatest gifts of psychedelics is how they reanimate the natural world, allowing us to perceive the subject, the spirit of all species, not just our own. And to feel a deeper sense of interconnectedness with nature.
Series: How to Change Your Mind

The Burial

   2017    Culture
Deep Throat comes forward with the orders of anonymity with the horror story of what happened in 1994 with the charges against Maskell. With the location of a secret grave of documents, Deep Throat’s story contradicts the story of the former state’s attorney Sharon A.H. May. The group begins to investigate Dr. Richter who worked with Maskell to groom girls and their families.
As the case prepares for a potential trial, the disappearance of Father Maskell causes problems as the prosecutors find themselves defending the idea of repressed memories. When things fall apart, victims still find themselves seeking justice. Abbie and Gemma seek the links between Jean and the killer... which leads to a man named Brother Bob.
Series: The Keepers

Doubt

   2022    Nature
Even as the science grew more certain, the oil industry continued to block action to tackle climate change in the new millennium. In a revelatory interview, Christine Todd Whitman, George W. Bush's former environment chief, tells the story of how the industry successfully lobbied President Bush to reverse course on his campaign promise to regulate carbon emissions.
Tensions grew between two of the world's biggest oil companies, ExxonMobil and BP, after the latter publicly called for action to tackle climate change. The election of Barack Obama provided hope for supporters of climate action, but the billionaire Koch brothers made an effort to block the new president's attempts to pass climate change legislation, and climate denialism became the mainstream position of the Republican Party. A lawyer who worked for Koch brothers through this period speaks on camera for the first time.
Series: Big Oil vs The World

Edge of Existence

   2022    Technology
The risk of human extinction has never been higher. Recent years have seen a global pandemic, a renewed nuclear threat and runaway climate change. New research predicts a 1 in 6 chance that life as we know it won't make it to the end of this century. This compelling science documentary looks at the greatest risks to humanity and what we can do about it. Are we all doomed?

Sweden: A Gangster Paradise

   2023    Culture
The once-quiet suburbs of Sweden's major cities are the epicenter of a vicious turf war between rival gangs competing for the drug trade. The fierce competition has resulted in a series of tit-for-tat killings with almost daily shootings and bombings. More than 45 people have been shot dead so far this year. Paraic O'Brien steps onto the frontline of Sweden's deadly gang war, as the country becomes one of the most lethal for gun crime in the whole of Europe.
From the front line of its lethal drug wars, a look at how Sweden has become one of Europe's deadliest hot spots for gun crime, with shootings often committed by children.

Navy of the Damned

       History
Recent archaeological sites in England offer a whole new perspective on the life and death of the seafarers and marines who built the British Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries. The bones of sailors reveal surprising and shocking facts. Apparently not only seasoned men but also half children did their service in the Royal Navy; according to the investigations, the youngest were no older than 13 years. A forensic archaeologist studies the injuries on bones discovered at the site of an battle and suggests how these people may have died.
Three-hundred-and-fifty skeletons, exhumed from Royal Navy graveyards from the age of Nelson's Navy, are throwing an extraordinary new light on how these sailors lived, fought, outwitted their enemy, and, from the oldest to youngest, suffered for victory. These men were the beating heart of the most victorious fleet in history and never have so many of these sailors' remains been available for forensic investigation.
Six remarkable stories stand out: the child sailor, the top man, the American gunner, the freed slave, the marine and the victim of the sailor's most dreaded disease: syphilis. Broken bones, amputations, injuries from blows with a saber or cutlass, sexually transmitted diseases, but also malnutrition - the list of causes of death is long. There is definitely no tale of seafaring romance. These fighters and sailors sailed the globe as cannon fodder, conquered an empire for the crown, and were themselves forgotten. No longer just bones in a box, the men of Nelson's Navy are back from the dead.
Series: Warrior Graveyard