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Kicking off the neurodissent podcast

Together with my partner in life and thought, Molly Friesenborg, I’ve launched the neurodissent podcast. Both of us are neurodivergent, and, in the podcast, we will look for new (to us) ways to think about and discuss mental health.

We will start our search in the distant past. Our first season will focus on the history of demonic possession, exorcism, and other spiritual phenomena that might be somehow related to what we call “mental health”. I have chosen this topic because it allows us to talk about a time before the rise of modern psychiatry.

Our first episode focuses on Ancient Greece, exploring the Hippocratic tradition of medicine and the healing god Asclepius. It features epileptic goats, drugs that connect people to gods, a children’s choir to treat depression, and a whole lot more. We hope you’ll listen!

You can also listen and subscribe to our podcast on a variety of platforms including:

We will use Ko-fi to collect donations for our podcast. If you are able, please consider making a contribution to help us keep our work sustainable. We greatly appreciate any contributions!

I use open access sources in my scholarship, so that listeners and readers can engage with the texts I use. The sources used this episode are listed below.

References for Season 1, Episode 1: “The Hippocraposse“

  1. Boas, Alex Villa. 2020. Spirituality and Health in Pandemic Times: Lessons from the Ancient Wisdom. Religions.
  2. Foucault, Michel. 1965. Madness & Civilization: A History Of Insanity In The Age Of Reason. Random House.
  3. Guthrie, Shandon L. 2022. How Not to Object to Demonic Realism. Religions. 
  4. King, Helen. 2020. Hippocrates Now! Bloomsbury. 
  5. On the sacred disease. ~400 BC. Translated by Francis Adams. 
  6. Panagiotidou, Olympia. 2016. Religious Healing and the Asclepius Cult: A Case of Placebo Effects. Open Theology. 
  7. Stivala, Joan. 2020. Asclepius the healer. ELECTRA.
  8. White, Melanie. 2022. Connections Between Sleep and Medicine in Ancient Greece. CANTA.

Other credits

Music: “Grit” by Shaolin Dub, licensed use

Images: