Dark History: Where The Darkness See’s The Light28 Jan

S5 E2 The Glass Delusion: When People Believed Their Bodies Were Made of Glass

For centuries, people across Europe were gripped by a terrifying belief: that their bodies were made of glass.

In this episode of The Dark History Podcast, we uncover the forgotten psychological phenomenon known as The Glass Delusion — a historical mental illness that convinced kings, scholars, poets, and servants alike that a single touch could shatter them into pieces.

From Charles VI of France, the king who ruled an empire while terrified of sitting down, to a learned scholar who believed he had transformed into a fragile glass vessel, this episode explores how fear, culture, medicine, and metaphor fused into one of the strangest mass delusions in recorded history.

Set against the backdrop of the late Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Scientific Revolution, this story reveals:

Why glass became the ultimate symbol of human fragility
How early medicine failed those suffering from delusions
Why the Glass Delusion spread among intellectual and aristocratic circles
How cultural fears shape the way mental illness presents itself
And why this condition vanished almost entirely by the 18th century

This isn’t just a strange historical curiosity. It’s a deeply human story about anxiety, identity, and what happens when the mind turns the body into a prison.

If you’re fascinated by dark history, forgotten mental illnesses, historical psychology, medieval madness, and the unsettling ways culture influences fear — this episode is for you.

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Avsnitt(133)

Exhibit XV: The Roman Enigma

Before you step through those doors once more, allow me to offer a word of caution. Not every exhibit in this museum tells us what it was. Some simply refuse. Waiting beneath the glass tonight is an o...

5 Aug 15min

S5 E15 The World Before History – Did Humanity Rise and Fall Before Recorded Time?

For as long as we've studied history, we've believed civilization began around 5,000 years ago with the rise of Mesopotamia, Egypt and the first written records. But what if history didn't begin there...

29 Juli 43min

Exhibit XIV: The Mirror That Never Aged

The museum doors open once more, traveller, and tonight I invite you into a room where time itself refuses to behave. Behind a pane of darkened glass rests an elegant Venetian mirror. Its silver has n...

22 Juli 14min

S5 E14: The Dresden Firebombing – The Night the City Burned

In February 1945, as the Second World War neared its bloody conclusion, one of Europe's most beautiful cities became the centre of one of the most controversial bombing raids in history. Known as the ...

15 Juli 23min

Exhibit XIII: The Great Thunderstorm of Widecombe

The museum doors open once more, traveller, and tonight I invite you into a room where the sky itself became the killer. On an ordinary Sunday afternoon in 1638, the people of Widecombe-in-the-Moor ga...

8 Juli 11min

S5 E13 The Paraguayan War — The Nation That Bled to Death

The Paraguayan War | When an Entire Nation Was Destroyed The Paraguayan War (1864–1870) remains one of the deadliest and most devastating conflicts in modern history, yet few people have ever heard of...

1 Juli 44min

Exhibit XII: The Skin That Walked Away

The museum doors open once more, traveller, and tonight I invite you into a room filled with old warnings and older fears. Long before newspapers, police reports, and history books, stories were passe...

24 Juni 8min

S5 E12 Albert Fish — The Boogeyman

Albert Fish — The Boogeyman How does a human being become a monster? In this disturbing episode of The Dark History Podcast, Rob explores the life and crimes of Albert Fish, one of the most infamous s...

17 Juni 32min