After all, life is full of surprises. But if you spend a bit of time studying history, you quickly learn that life is also full of darkness. Darkness, and an irrefutable truth: things that are too good to be true can sometimes turn out to be deadly.

Witchcraft is one of the most popular subjects of the Lore podcast, but in the latest episode host Aaron Mahnke takes a different angle of approach. Traveling back to 17th Century England and Scotland, Mahnke focuses on the witch-hunters themselves–now-notorious figures such as Matthew Hopkins and John Kincaid. Along the way, listeners learn of the unusual practices employed to identify witches, such as cruentation and pricking with a bodkin. What ultimately emerges is a portrait of remorseless hucksterism, of deadly frauds capitalizing on the rampant panic of the public. The episode is very informative, and the concluding segment’s narrative features a terrific plot twist, but “Blood Money”–which determinedly documents the deeds of historical con artists–isn’t terribly lore-ish (at least by the standards of this podcast).