Let’s dive into the dangerous, divine, and occasionally kinky history of trying to figure out who’s telling the truth.
Featured image: A demonstration of use of the polygraph at the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1970. (Image source)
Leonard Keeler demonstrates his polygraph machine. (Image source)
The polygraph is used in a security screening at Clinton Engineer Works in 1945. Even though the results of polygraph tests aren’t admissible in many court systems, they’re often used in security screenings for law enforcement jobs and careers at private companies. (Image source)
A suspect undergoes the ordeal by cold water (being thrown in the water to sink or float) in a 12th-century manuscript. (Image source)
An illustration of the ordeal of boiling water from a 1300s German manuscript. (Image source)
An illustration from the 13th century of Saint Cunigunde of Luxembourg walking over heated plowshares without being burned to prove that she was innocent of adultery. (Image source)
Although no one has successfully proved that a drug that forces someone to tell the truth exists, CIA experiments into truth serums continued much later than you might expect.
Sources
Trial by ordeal
- Kukatachi
ĀTAŠ
Ordeal by physical test
The Ordeal
The Salic law
Playing with Fire: The Medieval Judicial Ordeals and their Downfall
Why the trial by ordeal was actually an effective test of guilt
This Man Puts His Bare Hand Through Molten Metal Without Being Burned
Torture
Truth serums
- What is “Truth Serum?”
Psychotropic drugs research in Nazi Germany
Russia’s Lab X: poison factory that helped silence Soviets’ critics
The CIA’s Secret Quest For Mind Control: Torture, LSD And A ‘Poisoner In Chief’
Physiological monitoring
- Historical Techniques of Lie Detection
- Detecting Lies
Ancient Greek Scientist Erasistratus Was the King’s Lie Detector
The Pulse: A Medieval Lie-Detector? - Blood pressure chart: What your reading means
What is hypertension? A Mayo Clinic expert explains
The polygraph test
The Lie Detector Was Never Very Good at Telling the Truth
Lie Detectors Don’t Work as Advertised and They Never Did
The Polygraph Has Been Lying for 80 Years
Courtroom Status of the Polygraph
Are polygraphs admissible in U.S. courts? A Concise Overview
The Polygraph Has Been Lying for 80 Years
Leonarde Keeler and his Instruments
Truth in the Machine
Thank you so much for helping to debunk this dangerous BS!! It makes me angry when true crime people act like polygraphs are legitimate evidence of anything!
Can you please do one on body language analysis/experts? And how dangerous it is for neurodivergent people like autistic people, mentally disordered etc.. (phone changed illness to I’ll please don’t be a baby about it!) and how it just teaches people to be more judgmental etc.