The sixties saw a lot of really radical changes: tie-dye, hallucinogenic drugs, general unkemptness—but it also ushered in an era of severe paranoia centered on the continuous conflict between the USSR and the good old USA. While this largely imagined competition for the biggest badass in business taught us a lot about overreacting, bomb threats (duck and cover!), and general suspicion, it also ushered in a very weird trend in government research—specifically, in how to create a psychic super weapon equal to or better than what the other guys supposedly had.
Essentially, the clash of the paranoiac titans began in the Korean War (1950-1953). This brought American soldiers into direct contact with the Chinese, and the practice of hsi nao (literally, wash brain, precursor to the modern brainwashing), which was used to redirect feudal, capitalistic attitudes to the new, Communist regime (and also to seriously screw up captured American soldiers in wartime). The tactics utilized to reform thoughts included keeping them in filth, sleep deprivation, partial sensory deprivation, psychological harassment, and otherwise making them feel totally guilty and lame for not conforming to the new standard of living. Apparently, this plan of attack really appealed to Americans once their soldiers started coming back as commies, and they decided they had to get in on this great new trend.
Thus began the inculcation of the infamous Project MKUltra, headed by the CIA, and based on this question: “Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature, such as self preservation?” (as recorded in an internal memo, January 1952) Surprisingly, with such an honest and well-meaning mission statement, Project MKUltra, along with the closely correlated Projects Artichoke and Chatter, turned into one of the most morally reprehensible and expensive illegal activities ever undergone in American governmental history. Using Nazi scientists recruited under Project Paperclip (many of whom had been convicted in the Nuremberg trials…although this probably helped on their resumes), the CIA began seriously working on this problem of how to catch up to the Chinese mind control technology.
The only problem was that (again, surprisingly) people were not exactly lined up to volunteer to be the test subjects for these psychic experiments. So, the CIA completely sidestepped the minor “volunteer” issue and began working on unwitting civilians, military personnel, and bizarrely, Canadians to test for the best agent (chemical or otherwise) for inducing the mindless state, especially truth-telling and conformity in captured spies (and most especially, Russians). The CIA, headed by druggie/kinky sex fiend/law enforcement legend George Hunter White, targeted people who would be unlikely to take action against the government, such as prisoners, prostitutes, college students, and in one case, men in a brothel (who, in theory, would be too embarrassed by their situation to talk about it later). Actual volunteers were subjected to extremely severe situations: in one case, consensual participants were subjected to high dosages of LSD for 72 consecutive days. The torture methods of choice spanned across the chemical spectrum, from mescaline and marijuana to sodium pentothal, temazepam, and of course, LSD. However, the most bizarre of the methods used were pioneered by Donald Ewen Cameron, a psychiatrist. He proposed the usage of “psychic driving”, creating an essential clean-slate zombie to do the government’s bidding. Through hypnosis, drug-induced prolonged comas and extremely excessive use of electroconvulsive therapy, Cameron managed to induce incontinence, amnesia, forgetting how to talk, forgetting their parents, and thinking their interrogators were their parents.
MKUltra Victim, shooting heroin in White’s “pad” to study mind control effects ca. 1955
Of course, in the midst of all this exploitation and general depravity on US soil, the KGB was not far behind. In 1960, the French magazine “Science and Life” reported that the United States had developed a method of highly advanced psychic espionage. The KGB then underwent a huge undertaking of how they could also cash in on this extremely valid fear mongering campaign. The idea of psychic weapons, or “psychotronics”, was by no means a new one to the USSR. In the early 1930’s, Russia was heavily involved, like the United States, in recruiting the Nazi scientist refugees/ criminals. However, the extensive studies into psi was brought to an abrupt halt when Stalin came to power in the late thirties, as he saw the paranormal studies as undermining the doctrines of the state. The fairly unethical reporting of the French quickly reconciled the two, as Stalin and Russia saw that psychic warfare could obviously benefit military operations. Thus, the country began a longtime, complicated love affair with the idea of the psychic weapon. Their field of study quickly expanded far beyond that of the sadistic bludgeoning of involuntary civilians, spanning telekinetic, clairvoyant, bionic, dowsing, and hypnotic psi. This study, and the resultant creepy psychic (mis)information, became one of the most prime propaganda mediums (no pun intended) for the remainder of the Cold War.
Examples of psychotronic studies and “experiments” abound in the flurry of published material arising from the KGB. Nina Kalagina was a Russian housewife/ telekinetic who could speed up, slow down, and stop the hearts of frogs at will. The USSR (and America not too far behind) attempted to use psychic communication to speak to cosmonauts in space (I suppose it was a lot cheaper). Karl Nikolayev also managed to communicate with his mind, but used his “power” to speak to nuclear missile submarines. V. Lopatin, a renowned researcher, eerily echoed Project MKUltra in his claim that he could “cause the blocking of the freedom of will of a human being on a subliminal level”. Wolf Messing allegedly robbed a bank, solely by practicing his psychic influence on the teller.
The forerunner of KGB parapsychological studies in the 60s was Dr. Milan Ryzl , a Czechoslovakian biochemist. His mind control experiments initially began as a means to indoctrinate and re-educate “antisocial” citizens (in socialism, it doesn’t take too much—read, unemployed). Through his work at the Institute of Psychology of the Moscow Institute of Control Problem, he supposedly “activated” people’s psychic powers through hypnosis, eventually teaching them to take control of their powers and use them for their own good, through a three year intensive training program. The group he gauged, of about 500 people, using psychic detectors (or whatever), only yielded three testable, apparently very driven clairvoyants, including his star student, a thirty year old man named Pavel Stepanek, who was apparently rather good at guessing whether or not a card was white or green (and, in all probability, an above average con-artist; in 1990, he was tested again without Ryzl and found to be no better than chance at predictions). These studies quickly caught the eye of the Russian government, who then forced Ryzl to make his students attempt to negatively influence foreign political leaders by watching them on the television, and generally exploit Team Psi. Fed up, Dr. Ryzl defected to the US.
So who’s the winner in the parapsychological mind control battle? KGB/USSR/Russia, for the lifetime award. Although Americans definitely deserve notable mention for sheer brutishness and stupidity, Russia has continued to perpetuate the idea of psychic warfare, long after the Cold War has decidedly warmed up and the US has moved its scare-campaign to the Middle East. Project MKUltra was definitively closed in 1975, while Russians continue to pour money, time , and effort into the bottomless black hole that is psi research.
Author: Alexandra Wayson Copyrighted © paranormalhaze.com
My name is carmen corbin and I am a extra sensory perseption and eplipsy. so does My so Devin Michael and he said he is a psychic and Medium. I have been in a abusive relationship and live in the USA and DCFS came and took him out of my house. My son doctor and my doctor said I had on set psyoid all of a sudden but it didn't really start till the earthquakes for me and a near death eperience pluse I got GHB or Lithium in my system some how last August and then In Jan my son came up with Lithium in his system we both take some of the same meds. I need to find a place that they test for this my nurologist says Yes they test but I dont know where and this Dr doesn't know what she is talking about there is Epilepsy from earthquakes please help.