Ep. 73 Dr. Fernando Espi Forcen, MD, PhD: Psychiatry, Magic, Witch-hunts, the Inquisition, and Entheogens

Dr. Espi teaches and practices medicine in the Psychiatry Department of Rush Medical College in Chicago.  He has more than 20 peer reviewed publications on many aspects of Psychiatry including:  akathisia due to drugs, metabolic syndrome, inflammation, dissociative symptoms, the cinema, and the history of Psychiatry.  He is the founding member of the Journal of Humanistic Psychiatry and the author of the book Monsters, Demons and Psychopaths:  Psychiatry and Horror Film.  In this book he studies society's perception of mental illness through horror film according to its historical context.  His major interests are philosophy, art history, rock music, gastronomy and cinema and has found Chicago a good niche to combine all these interests.  

In this episode, we discuss:  Magic, Witchcraft, Demons, the Devil, Magical Practices in the Catholic rituals, the Inquisition (and especially the Spanish Inquisition, which no-one expects:-)), the Trier trials, the Salem Witch trials, ergotism, Belladonna, Toad medicine (5MeO-Dmt), Jumilla wine, Grenache, Rioja, and Monastrell wines, the unreliability of evidence at the Witch-trials, especially "spectral evidence," scapegoating against women, and other marginalized groups, Stanislav Grof, spiritual emergence vs. psychosis, the roots of discrimination against mental illness and its continuation in modern psychiatry, the anti-psychiatry movement, Thomas Szasz, Michel Foucault, the silent movie "Haxan", werewolves, vampires, zombies, and other monsters, Horror movies, Psychedelics, hysteria and much more.

Dr. Espi's Professional Website can be found here:  

https://www.rushu.rush.edu/faculty/fernando-espi-forcen-md-phd

The Journal of Humanist Psychiatry can be found here:

http://www.humanisticpsychiatry.com/

Dr. Espi's YouTube channel can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJhYmcLASwBUBl7h4Yq6xyQ