At last: Shickshinny Knights of Malta linked to the Draper/Vonsiatsky Condon ManCand crowds

[Jan Klimkowski]

My own judgement of American and British "MK-ULTRA" style research is that its attempts to harness, control and programme dissociative states are derived primarily from medical observation of the effects of extreme trauma on the human psyche (shellshock), early schizophrenia research, and occult knowledge of "splitting" from traditions represented by the likes of the Golden Dawn, Scottish Rite Freemasonry and the OTO.

Two of these factors - shellshock and schizophrenia - are universal, and Japanese military/spook doctors may well have made the same observations as some of their western equivalents. As for the third factor, secrets of the psyche preserved and taught in an occult tradition, Japan has its own secret societies, and many are influenced by Buddhist conceptions of the powers of the subconscious mind.

I agree with Jan here, except that shell shock was or is universal. First, there had to be shelling, which is recent. The first cases are supposed to have been from the Russo-Japanese War, followed by WWI, but from my own conversations with veterans, my firm impression is that "shell shock" only became a household word in America during the Korean War, when a very large number of soldiers simply couldn't fight.

What is universal is dissociation during extreme torture. I can't comment on OTO, mesmerism or Buddhist techniques except to say that the idea of "Chinese water torture" was very much part of the American milieu before and after Manchurian Candidate and most likely is one of those things intimately related to the experience of captivity by American soldiers in the Korean conflict.

"Shell shock" is what we now call "combat stress reaction" or "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" in a battlefield context. It was probably called "Da Costa's Syndrome" or "soldier's heart" during the American Civil War. And, of relevance to this thread, it was certainly identified during the Russo-Japanese War.

According to my understanding, the psychological trauma leading to phenomena such as "splitting" does not require shells. It does require the extreme emotional responses produced by combat. So, for clarity, what I'm actually claiming is a universal factor which provided potential insights for "MK-ULTRA"-type doctors is combat stress/trauma reaction, and its implications for the manipulating the human mind.

In addition, the visible head of Britain's "MK-ULTRA" programme, Dr William Sargant, obtained many of his insights into how to manipulate the psyche from his treatment of soldiers with what was then called "shell shock".

Eg:

William Walters Sargant (24 April 1907 - 27 August 1988), was a British psychiatrist who is now famous for his work with shell-shocked servicemen during World War Two, and later for his book entitled Battle for the Mind in which he discusses the nature of the process by which our minds are subject to influence by others. Sargant was also heavily involved to the end of his career with the Intelligence Services, including the CIA Project MKULTRA.

Trained at the Maudsley Hospital, South London. Sargant established a unit at Belmont Hospital during World War Two for the treatment of shell-shocked servicemen. There, along with Eliot Slater, he was a pioneer and advocate of physical methods of treatment in psychiatry such as ECT, continuous narcosis, insulin coma therapy and psychosurgery. His enthusiasm for such methods grew partly out of contempt for psychoanalysis,which was hugely popular among British psychiatrists between the wars.[citation needed] As an exponent of biological psychiatry, he regarded psychoanalysis as worse than useless in treating severe mental illness.

Founder and Director of the Department of Psychological Medicine at St Thomas' Hospital in London, where he promoted physical treatments in psychiatry, and had his in-patients referred by consultants from all over the UK at the adjacent Royal Waterloo Hospital. He was also a consultant to the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI5/MI6). In 1953 he associated with Frank Olson, Deputy Acting Head of Special Operations for the CIA, investigating the use of mind-bending drugs at the Biological Warfare Centre at Porton Down.[1]

In 1944 he collaborated with Slater in writing An Introduction to Physical Methods of Treatment in Psychiatry, a textbook on biological psychiatry that included lobotomy and shock therapy and remained in print for three decades.

In 1957 William Sargant published one of the first books on the psychology of brainwashing, Battle for the Mind. While this book is often referred to as a work on 'brainwashing', and indeed it is subtitled a Physiology of Conversion and Brainwashing, Sargant emphasises that his aim is to elucidate the processes involved rather than advocate uses. In the book he refers particularly to religious phenomena and in particular Christian methodism, emphasising the apparent need for those who would change people's minds to first excite them, as did the founder of Methodism, John Wesley.

Sargant connected Pavlov’s findings to the ways people learned and internalized belief systems. Conditioned behavior patterns could be changed by stimulated stresses beyond a dog’s capacity for response, in essence causing a breakdown. This could also be caused by intense signals, longer than normal waiting periods, rotating positive and negative signals and changing a dog’s physical condition, as through illness. Depending on the dog’s initial personality, this could possibly cause a new belief system to be held tenaciously. Sargant also connected Pavlov’s findings to the mechanisms of brain-washing in religion and politics.[2]

William Sargant was a pioneer in methods of placing false memories into patients. He attested at the 1977 U.S. Senate hearing, "that the therapist should deliberately distort the facts of the patient's life-experience to achieve heightened emotional response and abreaction. In the drunken state of narcoanalysis patients are prone to accept the therapist's false constructions."

Sargant and Dr Ewen Cameron of Project MKULTRA notoriety, were friends and colleagues who shared and exchanged views and information on brainwashing and de-patterning techniques and their mutual researches in this area. Both men had extensive CIA and British Secret Intelligence Service connections.[3]

The aim of Cameron, Sargant and the CIA’s researches was to find a way to obliterate the memories of an allied spy ('de-patterning') and implant false memories at a deep level so that if that spy was captured in his adoptive country, he would be incapable under duress or even torture of revealing his true American/British allegiance. He would only be able to reveal the falsely implanted memories that supported his assumed persona. This concept became termed 'The Manchurian Candidate' after the novel. The extensive use of 'heroic' doses of ECT combined with Deep Sleep Treatment (narcosis), anti-depressants, tape-loops, insulin coma therapy, and other drugs in this context, was designed to induce catastrophic memory loss which would then supposedly be replaced with false memories and ideas (via tape loops, hypnosis, LSD or conversations while the person was drugged).

The CIA eventually became disillusioned with the research, saying it produced only 'amnesiacs and vegetables', but not until Cameron and Sargant between them had destroyed the health, memories and lives of countless patients.[4]

The author and psychiatrist Harvey Weinstein has established a direct link between Sargant's research on brainwashing and political conversion, and the research aspect of Cameron's work for MKULTRA. Cameron wrote in a paper on 'The Transition Neurosis': 'Sargant has described what little we know of the dynamics of these political and religious conversions and has attempted to duplicate them but from what we gather, with somewhat limited success. He used depleting emetics. We have explored this procedure in one case, using sleeplessness, disinhibiting agents, and hypnosis.'[5] Cameron often sought Sargant's advice and on one occasion Sargant sent Cameron a note saying 'Whatever you manage in this field, I thought of it first.' [6]

In addition to LSD, Cameron also experimented with various paralytic drugs, as well as electroconvulsive therapy at 30 to 40 times the normal power. His "driving" experiments consisted of putting subjects into drug-induced coma for months on end (up to three in one case) while playing tape loops of noise or simple repetitive statements. His experiments were typically carried out on patients who had entered the institute for minor problems such as anxiety disorders and post-partum depression, many of whom suffered permanently from his actions.
[edit] Sargant's Covert Research at St. Thomas'

In St. Thomas' Hospital Sargant had a a 'Sleep Room' modelled on the one Cameron had created at the Allan Memorial Institute for the MKULTRA programme. Here he treated many British citizens – mainly women - over the years, experimenting usually without their consent (see below) using ECT combined with Deep Sleep Treatment (narcosis), drugs, insulin coma therapy and tape loops – the same techniques as Cameron employed in Canada.[7]

Scores of English patients were involved in illegal, unethical and dangerous experiments for which they almost certainly never gave their consent. Sargant was one of the dominant figures in psychiatry in his day, the 1970s. No one would dare to challenge him. Patients were'incarcerated in the 'Sleep Room' and subjected to horrendous experimental treatments for which no consent forms were signed. Patients were kept in a drug-induced sleep. This was part of what Sargant called 'depatterning'. They were only briefly awoken to receive electroshocks. Sargant would wheel into the 'Sleep Room' a portable electroshock machine. The normal procedure would have been to deliver a single 110 volt shock. Sargant used shocks 20 to 40 times more intense, two or three times daily, with the power turned up to 150 volts. Some patients received multiple electro shocks over a period of 65 days. Patients were put to sleep for long periods and received all kinds of drugs. They were in no condition to question him.

In direct parallel with Cameron's techniques, Sargant used tape loops played through a recorder placed under the patient’s pillow to implant false memories or ideas. Leonard Rubenstein, a technician who had created the tape loops for Cameron was flown to England to advise Sargant on how the tape loops were made.[7]

Possibly going even further than Cameron, both at Belmont Hospital in Surrey and St.Thomas' in London, Sargant subjected patients to up to three months' combined ECT, deep sleep treatment, insulin coma therapy and drugs. He said in a talk delivered in Leeds: 'For several years past we have been treating severe resistant depression with long periods of sleep treatment. We can now keep patients asleep or very drowsy for up to 3 months if necessary. During sleep treatment we also give them ECT and anti-depressant drugs'.[8]

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1 ^ http://www.frankolsonproject.org/stateme...homas.html.
2 ^ a b Sargant, W. (1997). Battle for the Mind; A physiology of conversion and brain-washing (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: Malor Books. p. 300. ISBN 1-883536-06-5. http://www.amazon.com/Battle-Mind-Physio...1883536065.
3 ^ Anne Collins, In the Sleep Room (Toronto: Lester and Orpen Dennys, 1988, ISBN 0-88619-198-X), p. 39, pp. 42-3, p. 133.
4 ^ John Marks, The Search for The Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control (New York, W.W. Norton, 1979, ISBN 0-393-30794-8); Gordon Thomas, Journey Into Madness (London: Bantam Press, 1988, ISBN 0-593-011-42-2).
5 ^ Harvey Weinstein, A Father, A Son and the CIA (Toronto, James Lorimer & Co., 1988, ISBN 1-55028-116-X), p. 138.
6 ^ Gordon Thomas, Journey Into Madness (London: Bantam Press, 1988, ISBN 0-593-011-42-2), pp. 189-190.
7 ^ a b Gordon Thomas, Mindfield pp. 273-274.
8 ^ William Sargant, Paper to the Samaritans, 11 September 1971.