[CELIA and GEORGIE are recording remotely, badly]
[The audio is lower quality, as though unedited, and starts unceremoniously without music or credits]
[CAPTAIN BARKER boofs in the background]
GEORGIE
Recording?
CELIA
Yup.
GEORGIE
Okay. Three, two, one… They both clap.
GEORGIE
Hello and welcome to Sheep–
(to Celia) Sorry, hang on.
(to dog) Hey, we talked about this. If you’re going to be in here when I’m recording, you’ve got to stay quiet.
[CAPTAIN BARKER settles]
CELIA
We good?
GEORGIE
Yeah, sorry.
[Beat]
[GEORGIE clears her throat and then:]
GEORGIE
Hello and welcome to Sheeple Chase, the conspiracy theory podcast one reviewer called “a great sleep aid on overnight flights.” I’m Georgie Barker –
CELIA
– and I’m Celia Ripley. So, Georgie, what deep conspiracy cuts do you have for us this week?
GEORGIE
Well, after giant hairdos and massive cocaine piles of New Coke last week, I thought I would change pace with something a little weirder.
(narrating) We’ve all heard tales about psychic children, mind control, and otherworldly beings – but what if they weren’t just stories, and what if there was an group dedicated to uncovering these mysteries, only to hoard their secrets right under our very noses?
CELIA
(wary) Georgie?
GEORGIE
Today we’re going to be talking about the enigmatic “Magnus Institute,” a supposed research centre for ancient philosophy and science, but which many people believe was up to something much more sinister…
[Beat]
GEORGIE
Celia?
CELIA
Oh, er, cool.
GEORGIE
Are you all right? Do you need to check on Jack?
CELIA
…no. No, I’m fine.
GEORGIE
You sure?
CELIA
(steadier) Yeah, I’m fine, let’s get this one done before he wakes up.
[GEORGIE claps into the mic]
GEORGIE
But before that, let’s hear a word from our sponsors.
[GEORGIE claps again]
GEORGIE
Good to go?
CELIA
(no) Yup.
GEORGIE
So, the first record I can find of the Institute is in a footnote of the minutes of a meeting of the Royal Society, which lists it as having been founded in 1818 Edinburgh by a guy called Jonah Magnus. After that it seems to disappear until 1826, where it turns up in a Manchester rate book owned by the Magnus family –
CELIA
Sorry, a rate book?
GEORGIE
Oh, it’s basically a log of every property in an area and how much tax needs to be paid on it. The Magnus Institute’s listed as owned by the Magnus family, who seemed to be mill magnates with more money than ethics, but it’s categorised under “Other.”
[Beat]
CELIA
Which means… something?
GEORGIE
Well, it’s not like there was a drop-down menu of categories. People would write in saying what it was for, but that means whoever did the survey asks Jonah Magnus, “What type of building is it?” And he just says, “Other.” Which is weird!
CELIA
Maybe the survey guy was just a bit of a jobsworth? I’ve definitely had days where I’d just write “Other” on a form rather than think about it.
GEORGIE
Maybe, but it’s also weird that the Institute was mentioned by the Royal Society but there’s no record of the Institute publishing anything or even hosting a lecture. What’s the point of a scientific institute that doesn’t do any science?
CELIA
Tax dodge?
GEORGIE
Maybe, but then why would Charles Babbage bother to name check Mr Magnus in Reflections on the Decline of Science in England, accusing him of “squandering his passable intellect on fancies of sorcery, alchemy and worse”?
CELIA
Sounds like he was jealous of all that tax-dodge money.
GEORGIE
Perhaps if it was just about the founder, but the weirdness lasts all the way into the 1990s with Daily Star headline: “BIG BANG THEORY: 12 BOFFINS DEAD IN RESEARCH, HQ BLOW-UP.”
CELIA
What’s that?
GEORGIE
The Manchester Evening News and The Times both reported on an explosion, which seems pretty weird for an institute dedicated to “other.”
CELIA
Sure, but from what I could gather it was just an old office building, all carpet tiles and faulty strip lighting that probably led to an electrical fire or something.
GEORGIE
You already know about this one?
CELIA
(reluctant) I… read something on it a while back, that’s all.
GEORGIE
Well, it sounds like you missed all the juicy bits! It seems the fire service took six hours to arrive! There was an inquiry but it never went anywhere as nobody from the Institute was ever heard from again!
CELIA
Because they’d died! Look, Georgie, I’ll grant you the historic stuff could be interesting, but focusing on the fire like this just seems a bit…
GEORGIE
What?
CELIA
I don’t know… ghoulish?
[Beat]
GEORGIE
Why don’t we have another word from our sponsor?
CELIA
Sure.
[GEORGIE claps]
GEORGIE
Something you want to talk about?
CELIA
Not really.
GEORGIE
Celia?
[Beat.]
CELIA
Look, I’m sorry I said it was ghoulish, but I’m not super comfortable with this one.
GEORGIE
Why not? We talk about deaths all the time. What about the dead celebrities episode you did?
CELIA
No, I know, but those were all just daft theories. This is… real.
GEORGIE
Okay, I get that, but if we’re going to speculate about what’s behind weird stuff, we’re going to have to at least mention some of the darker stuff.
CELIA
Fine, I get it.
GEORGIE
You sure?
CELIA
Yeah, let’s just get on with it before Jack wakes up.
GEORGIE
Okay.
[GEORGIE claps]
GEORGIE
Welcome back.
CELIA
(brusque) So we know the Magnus Institute starts and ends weirdly. What else you got?
GEORGIE
(pressing on) Well, the Institute remained very quiet – some would say secretive – from 1818 right through until Jonah Magnus’s death in 1848.
CELIA
Which I’m guessing you think was some big cover-up?
GEORGIE
Somehow I doubt that.
CELIA
Oh. How did he die?
GEORGIE
He was killed by a mob.
CELIA
I’m sorry, what?
GEORGIE
Yeah, he was a mill owner in Salford in 1848.
CELIA
Meaning…?
GEORGIE
Come on, Celia, the 1848 Chartist riots? The second Peterloo massacre? Petertwo?
CELIA
(restrained) Why don’t you explain it. For your listeners.
GEORGIE
Er, right. Well, the Chartists were a working-class movement in the 1830s and 40s who were involved in a bunch of riots, and it wasn’t unheard of for mill owners to find themselves and their families as targets.
CELIA
And you’re saying this happened to Jonah Magnus?
GEORGIE
Yeah, he was beaten to death pretty publicly. But the Institute survived and, without its founder, let’s just say it started to get a little weird with it.
CELIA
Weird… how?
GEORGIE
There’s not many records from those years, but by the mid-nineteenth century they had started putting out requests for people to bring in “objects believed to be arcane, occult or esoteric in nature.” Later they ask for people who claim to have supernatural abilities, and eventually anyone who thinks they’ve had any sort of paranormal experience at all.
CELIA
So they were into séances like just about every Victorian ever?
GEORGIE
Oh, almost certainly, but it does have a cameo in an early Sexton Blake story where he refrences –
CELIA
Sorry, what’s Sexton Blake?
GEORGIE
He’s pretty much like a knock-off Sherlock Holmes. He was a fictional detective popular with young working-class lads. There’s a reference in one of his stories to the 1884 burning man incident.
CELIA
The what?
GEORGIE
Ah, well, eyewitnesses claim they saw a flaming man running out of the Magnus Institute, but each description of the man is different: his height, age, even the colour of the flames.
CELIA
Who was he?
GEORGIE
No one knows, although one local paper mentions an “extensive twisting of the body” that left him unrecognisable.
CELIA
Jesus…
GEORGIE
Yeah, it actually prompted a mini moral panic.
CELIA
What, like the Magnus Institute was encouraging women to read, that kind of thing?
GEORGIE
Nothing so scandalous! Just a bit of devil-worship.
CELIA
Was there any evidence? Like ritual circles, that kind of thing?
GEORGIE
Not really. Mostly people just seemed to get a bad vibe. Oh, and Alastair Crowley worked there for a year, which didn’t help.
CELIA
You don’t sound particularly convinced?
GEORGIE
No. I want to be more convinced by this one because it’s so weird and fun, but secret, anti-worker devil-worshipping cults in Salford is just too far-fetched, even for me!
CELIA
So is there anyone who still believes any of this?
GEORGIE
Tough to say. It’s big on some online forums.
CELIA
What isn’t?
GEORGIE
True, but there are some other theories about it.
CELIA
Like what?
GEORGIE
I mean, some people believe it’s the Mancunian equivalent of the Men in Black –
CELIA
So aliens again. In Central Manchester. Really?
GEORGIE
Aliens can be anywhere, Celia, you should know that! But fans of the alien theory tend to be focused more on what the Institute was up to in 70s and 80s.
CELIA
And what was that?
GEORGIE
Well, that was the Institute’s second boom period. The new-age rise in the 60s and 70s and all the LSD that entails meant a lot of agencies became a lot more open-minded when it came to research, and the Magnus Institute was right in the thick of it.
CELIA
But like, what kind of research?
GEORGIE
Well, I’m not sure when it started, but right up until it burned down, the Magnus Institute ran what must have been the world’s most selective “gifted children” programme.
CELIA
What do you mean, selective?
GEORGIE
That’s the thing: they never really defined what “gifted” meant. They invited loads of kids to come and be tested for scholarships, but they never said what the criteria were, and there’s no record of them ever giving a single grant.
CELIA
Jesus, were the kids okay?
GEORGIE
I mean, mostly everyone just seemed disappointed. They interviewed kids from all over. Imagine flying all the way from Japan with your whole family, only to be told you aren’t special.
CELIA
And parents just went for this?
GEORGIE
I suspect when you dangle words like “scholarship,” a lot of parents just go with it.
CELIA
So what kind of tests were they being given?
GEORGIE
There’s nothing official, but according to accounts from the kids who got tested, they were straight out of a low-budget sci-fi: behavioural stuff, cognitive stuff, one person claimed they just handed her a series of items and asked how she felt when she was holding them.
CELIA
But they never gave any scholarships?
GEORGIE
Nope. I guess they never found anyone “gifted” enough.
CELIA
Or… there weren’t any scholarships to begin with.
GEORGIE
Ah, so you’ve stumbled onto another, and in my opinion more believable theory.
CELIA
And what’s that?
GEORGIE
Academic fraud. Specifically, laundering money for the mob, which would make a lot of sense given the Institute’s earlier focus on antiques.
CELIA
You think they were laundering money with the mob all the way back to Jonah Magnus?
GEORGIE
God no. Most people who believe the money laundering theory reckon Jonah Magnus was actually just a rich eccentric with an expensive pet project, but then the people who came in after used it as a front. Although it’s not really clear who they were, and that doesn’t really scan with how it ended so abruptly. Most real organisations don’t just… stop after a fire. No one even tried to claim on the insurance.
CELIA
So what, you think the mob were tying up a few loose ends?
GEORGIE
Could be, could be. So is that your conclusion? You’re planting your flag on money laundering?
CELIA
It’s certainly the more believable angle.
GEORGIE
I guess, but I still can’t help thinking it’s some shady government shit!
CELIA
As always.
GEORGIE
Look, governments were doing a lot of weird stuff in the 70s, looking into the paranormal and all that, and I can absolutely believe the British government would set up their own secretive agency to work with them on it.
CELIA
Doing what exactly?
GEORGIE
Remember in the contrails episode? That army base that was secretly experimenting on the public?
CELIA
Porton something?
GEORGIE
Porton Down, yeah! I think maybe the Magnus Institute was another one of those: a way for the government, or the military, to run experiments. Don’t forget – after the fire, it took the firefighters six hours to get to the scene, in the middle of central Manchester! By the time they got there, the building was completely annihilated, but the Greater Manchester Fire Service never released a statement, or apologised, or anything. In fact, the only official agency that did apparently bother to show up was this tiny civil service department called the Office of Incident Assessment and Response.
CELIA
(interested) The what?
GEORGIE
The Office of Incident Assessment and Response. I think they’re an arm of the Office for National Statistics or something, there’s not much public info about them.
CELIA
So what were they doing there?
GEORGIE
Assessing and Responding? Who knows?
CELIA
You said they’re civil service. That means there has to be some record of what they do?
GEORGIE
According to their website, they “assess incidents and formulate official responses,” and isn’t that the most British Men in Black thing you ever heard?
CELIA
(distracted) Sure.
GEORGIE
I mean, a shady government organisation turns up faster than the emergency services to deal with a fire at what is clearly a training facility for psychic children, and that doesn’t scream aliens to you?
CELIA
Yeah, probably.
GEORGIE
I was thinking of doing an episode about them at one point since they’ve cropped up in a few weird scenarios, but literally everything I could find about them was just incredibly boring. Just not good pod.
[Beat]
GEORGIE
Speaking of… I don’t think this one’s working.
CELIA
(coming back) What? What makes you say that?
GEORGIE
This episode. The energy’s been all over the place.
CELIA
I’m sure it’s fine –
GEORGIE
Are you okay? Everything alright with Jack?
CELIA
Oh yeah, it’s fine. You’re sure the episode isn’t working?
GEORGIE
I don’t know. I wanted to tie it all together, but it’s feeling choppy. I think we should call it.
CELIA
If you’re sure? I don’t have time to record another episode today.
GEORGIE
That’s okay. I could do a solo special on alien abductions and –
CELIA
Sounds great. Listen, I’ve got something I need to check up on before Jack wakes up, so drop me a text after, let me know how it goes and we’ll try and sort something next week, yeah?
GEORGIE
Oh, er, yeah, that sounds –
[CELIA hangs up.]
GEORGIE
– fun.
[She sighs]
[Captain Barker stirs]
GEORGIE
Come on, you.
[Recording ends without outro]
[Music]
ANNOUNCER
Sheeple Chase and The Magnus Protocol are podcasts distributed by Rusty Quill and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial Share-alike 4.0 International License.
Sheeple Chase was created by Sasha Sienna, directed by April Sumner, and based on the works of Jonathan Sims and Alexander J Newall.
This episode was written by Sasha Sienna and edited with additional materials by Jonathan Sims and Alexander J Newall, with audio edits by Nico Vettese, mastering by Meg McKellar, and music by Nico Vettese.
It featured Sasha Sienna as Georgie Barker and Lowri Ann Davies as Celia Ripley.
To subscribe, explore exclusive extras, and enjoy early access, ad-free episodes, visit members.rustyquill.com or join our Patreon. Rate and review us online, follow us on social media or email us at mail@rustyquill.com.
Thanks for listening.