BROADCASTS.com

b'For our season finale, I am going to step into the unknown recesses of the mind, especially my own. I\\u2019ll share my upsetting brush with a self-actualization program that taught me that life is empty and meaning when I was ten-years-old. I\\u2019ll give a partial history of psychology\\u2019s changing ideas about how we think about thinking. Then we\\u2019ll look at the Cold War beginnings of this concept called brainwashing when American POWs suddenly became communist sympathizers, and how the US government tried their hand at the same thing. After that, we\\u2019ll check out the human potential movement and the new age philosophies that helped influence the Manson Family\\u2019s murders. Moving into the 1970s, we\\u2019ll follow a kidnapped heiress turned domestic terrorist, and see how the mass deaths at Jonestown influenced her fate. We\\u2019ll meet the man who invented cult deprogramming, paid for by families to abduct their wayward loved ones back. At the close, I\\u2019ll share more about my modern-era spiritual journey and how it\\u2019s informed my own mental health. Does life have meaning? Who knows, and who cares. Come hang out for more more special episode, and let\\u2019s get weird, man.\\n\\nAmerican Hysteria is written, produced, and hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith\\nProduced and edited by Clear Commo Studios\\nResearch and cowriting assisted by Riley Smith\\nCo-Produced by Miranda Zickler\\nShow art by Roache\\nVoice Acting by Will Rogers\\n\\nBecome a Patron for extra episodes, interviews, and videos monthly!\\nFollow American Hysteria on social media:\\nTwitter: @AmerHysteria\\nInstagram: @AmericanHysteriaPodcast\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices'