This is a special episode recorded for the 2023 Big Rhetorical Podcast Carnival. The theme of this event is "Artificial Intelligence: Applications and Trajectories". In the special episode, Nic and Molly explore the idea of seeking out care or comfort from ChatGPT or other artificially 'intelligent' chatbots. In other words, we look at whether ChatGPT would make a good therapist or not. We draw on linguistics scholarship as well as our own personal experience using chatbots -- both ChatGPT and Em -- to inform our conversation.

In our first season, we go back in history in order to explore a world before modern psychiatry. We talk about demonic possession, exorcism, and other spiritual phenomena that might act as ways for people to try to improve their mental health. Our first episode begins with Ancient Greece, considering how Hippocratic physicians and the cult of Asclepius treated people suffering from mental illness or distress.

In this episode, Nic & Molly explore the exorcism stories found in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, specifically the Gospel of Mark. We discuss how the writer of Mark portrays Jesus Christ healing people afflicted by demons. We talk about how early Christianity sought to distinguish itself from the healing that took place at asclepiad sanctuaries. We also ask whether Hippocrates, or the author of On the Sacred Disease, would have thought Jesus was a quack.

In this episode, we talk about the theologian St. Jerome, who lived in the Roman empire from around 340 - 420 AD. Jerome's writings were influential during his time, and have remained so for over 1600 years. Among the many things he wrote was the story of his friend, St. Hilarion, who, according to Jerome, was an exorcist. We note how similar Jerome's exorcism stories are to the stories of Jesus exorcising demons in the Gospel of Mark. We also talk about how much Jerome hated Hippocrates and Asclepius. We hope you'll listen!

In this episode, Nic and Molly and discuss thunder magic rituals, which have a long history dating back at least to China's Song Dynasty (960 - 1279 AD). During the Song dynasty, thunder magic masters had significant power in the emperor's court, demonstrating how revered thunder magic was at the time. We discuss the life of Wang Wenqing, a thunder magic master who was later deified. Today, thunder magic masters still appeal to Wang to strengthen their craft. Check out this episode to hear how masters use magic to exorcise spirits and heal and strengthen themselves and others!

In our seventh episode, Nic and Molly look back over our first six episodes. We discuss some of the major ideas we've covered so far: (1) the role of communities in care, (2) the healing power of belief, and (3) the millennia-old conflict between medicine and spirituality. We also consider how practices still in use today by indigenous groups carry on millennia-old traditions of love, wonder, and healing that resist the individualizing and isolating forces found within contemporary psychiatry and capitalism.