John Armstrong's Harvey and Lee

[Jan Klimkowski]

I'm not going to derail this thread.

However, for the record, Albert Doyle and I had an extensive discussion about Chapman and Manchurians around a year ago. Here is an excerpt:

You don't know how glad I am you wrote that because it is perfectly in line with what we know. My first thoughts were Bresler makes a strong case but it is still possible Chapman "programmed" himself in a way that was identically similar to covert mind control. It is possible Chapman had a borderline personality prone to schizophrenic tendencies and the extreme traumatic experience of boyhood drug use and LSD exacerbated this into a disturbed condition. Let's just say that such personalities are doing to themselves exactly what the MK-ULTRA controllers were doing to their subjects. You could make a very good argument that Mark Chapman created this huge psychological rift between high school drug use and born again christianity, which were at such opposite extremes that they created a mental schism that caused Chapman to become unstable. The reason the MK-ULTRA group used LSD was because it had such bizarre effects of the mind. A person who has his psyche influenced by this pseudo-schizophrenic aspect of LSD could enter a bizarre world where things take on the extreme illumination and magically-interpreted meanings of the schizophrenic state. In light of this it is very possible Chapman had managed to MK-ULTRA program himself and had tuned himself to irrational wavelengths of schizophrenic notions imparted to him by this LSD altered state where things take on magical or even divinely-inspired meaning.

Albert - I agree with you that LSD creates a mental state in which epiphanies are possible. Some of these epiphanies are inevitably faux, but do not appear false to the person who has experienced the "deep insight". So, yes, LSD can create a state of inspired, or religiously inspired, conviction in the rightness of one's course.

However, I'm not sure what you mean by a person "MK-ULTRA programming himself". Fundamentally, the mind control programmes such as MK-ULTRA are framed around a controller attempting to shape, frame and control the behaviour of his subject. It takes two...

I agree with you that Bresler's book, which I last read many years ago, has some interesting evidence. Chapman's presence in Hawaii is provocative. There's circumstantial evidence that there's an "MK-ULTRA" hospital wing in Hawaii, and that the Revd Jim Jones was sent there to have his programming renewed at the time his doppelganger was running round Cuba causing trouble.....

------------------------

Albert - the terminology matters.

With respect, in my judgement the phrase "MK-ULTRA programmed himself" mixes oranges and apples in a deeply unhelpful way.

If your argument is that a young person with a pre-existing borderline psychiatric condition could develop a full blown psychosis through exposure to LSD whilst surrounded by extreme religious types who considered rock and roll stars such as John Lennon more Antichrist than Guru, then I'm part of the way with you.

However, describing this as "MK-ULTRA self programming" does not aid our understanding of this process. The common cultural phrase for such a person is Acid Casualty.

With hallucinogens, set and setting is fundamentally important.

A Siberian adolescent entering the spirit world with a knowedgeable shaman from their own tribe, and a cauldron bubbling with Siberia's native hallucinogens, undertakes their journey in a constructive set and setting.

A fragile American teenager bussed to a military laboratory to be prodded by a spooky shrink who has no intuitive understanding of Acidland, but is trained to use electrodes and demand a response to Pain Trauma Death movies whilst the subject is trapped in a box, undertakes a journey in a destructive set and setting.

Most scientific discoveries can be used for Good or Evil.

The Good Rocket to travel to the Stars, the Bad Rocket for the World's Destruction.

Tragically, very early on, hallucinogens were co-opted and manufactured by the Man whose intention - not always successful - was to exploit their Evil potential.

LSD may have been one of the tools used to open up and programme Mark David Chapman.

--------------------------

Albert - the terminology matters.

With respect, in my judgement the phrase "MK-ULTRA programmed himself" mixes oranges and apples in a deeply unhelpful way.

I don't see what the big deal is. The example was obviously figurative. Besides, in the MK-ULTRA LSD world apples can very easily morph into oranges. It's a very indeterminate place.

Because mind control programming involves, at the very least, a programmer and a subject.

If someone takes drugs and becomes psychotic, that person has not "MK-ULTRA programmed himself". Your statement is highly misleading.

The main point being the point Chapman's mind had reached was similar to that induced by the MK Mengele's.

Albert - the fundamental point is whether Chapman was programmed by another person. Or not. If not, then "MK Mengeles" (whatever that phrase may mean) have nothing to do with it.

However, describing this as "MK-ULTRA self programming" does not aid our understanding of this process. The common cultural phrase for such a person is Acid Casualty.

Would not an MK-ULTRA victim also be an "acid casualty" of sorts?

No.

Syd Barrett was an acid casulty.

Syd Barrett was not, in the absence of new evidence, an MK-ULTRA casualty.

This is splitting hairs. The real business here is evidence Bresler found of typical CIA involvement in Chapman's being set-up as a Sirhan-like lunatic. What I find most telling about it is no one ever challenged Bresler's evidence.

It's absolutely not splitting hairs. Your argument is muddying the waters, rather than making the waters clearer.