Several generations of drug addicts: how and why CIA "reprogrammed" people with LSD, electroshock

Recently, new documents about the CIA's mind control programs that were carried out during the Cold War were declassified. We are talking about secret American intelligence projects codenamed "MK-Ultra", "Bluebird" and "Artichoke".

As the US National Security Archive notes, as part of the CIA's mind control program, the CIA conducted horrific experiments using drugs, hypnosis, isolation, sensory deprivation, electroshock therapy and other extreme methods on people without their consent. The Trends project told more about this.

The experiments were carried out mainly on US citizens, who often did not realize that they were part of the CIA experiments. Children also participated in them.

Now everyone knows, for example, that the Pentagon tested bacteriological weapons on its citizens up until the 1990s, simply spraying pathogens over cities, that from 1932 to 1972 the authorities experimented on blacks, inoculating them with syphilis, that the CIA conducted experiments in which people's personalities were erased, and they tried to create new ones with the help of drugs and electric shock. Let's talk about the latter in more detail.

What limits the imagination of a CIA intelligence officer? Nothing, the intelligence officer reasons like this: the enemy does not know morality, and I must get ahead of him, do everything in the name of good and even more than he does in the name of evil.

"As far as I know, we are not engaged in murder, kidnapping and the like. As far as I know, we have never done this," noted the head of the CIA (1953-1961) Allen Dulles.

By saying "as far as I know", the head of the CIA actually admits that any evil deeds are committed under his command. It's just that his superiors demand that he did not give details. The CIA's MK-Ultra program is a prime example.

The age of progress has dictated that a person should be considered a machine. You can change parts, tune it, pour chemicals into it to make it work faster. The CIA hired chemists and told them not to be shy. Like, do whatever you want, because it's for the good of the state.

The subjects were given LSD and electroshock. It was assumed that if these tools were cleverly alternated, it would allow a person's consciousness to be rewired, anything suggested, memory erased, one "I" destroyed and a new one created, a second, third, fourth "I" added to the existing "I".

Random people were chosen for the experiments: on the streets, in prisons, in mental hospitals. It is officially acknowledged that several hundred unfortunates were subjected to processing. Most likely, there were more, much more.

Colin Ross, PhD in Psychology:

"Active experiments in mind control were already conducted between 1941 and 1945. The Office of Strategic Services, which is the predecessor of the CIA, studied various types of drugs, interrogation methods. Esther Brooks created super spies, Manchurian candidates, using hypnosis and other methods that were used for operational purposes during the war."

"MK-Ultra" was completed in 1973, 80 government agencies participated in the program, up to 6% of the CIA budget was spent on the project. Given these figures, we are probably talking about more than several thousand test subjects.

There is a suspicion that the fashion for LSD and experiments with consciousness expansion also did not arise by itself. Timothy Leary, the preacher of drug trips, closely cooperated with the CIA. It is quite reasonable to assume that the intelligence service decided to conduct a field experiment on millions of "human mice" and did so, creating three generations of drug addicts.

In addition, it established the cocaine trade. The role of the CIA in the development of the business of Colombian drug lords is widely known, and it is unlikely that MK-Ultra was closed in 1973.

Edward Snowden, former CIA employee:

"I think the public must know the motives of people who have gone beyond the democratic model. The government is doing things that are dangerous to democracy, doing evil secretly and consistently. The government is not shy about any means of profiting for itself. The authorities do not need official permission to kill, torture and commit crimes of any kind. The only way we have to fight is to turn to the press. But they no longer pay attention to that either."

"MK-Ultra" has given birth to a whole layer of pop culture. Stars sometimes report that they have become victims of CIA villains with syringes in their hands. And celebrities sometimes have strange fainting spells in public. Conspiracy theorists claim that this is a glitch in the program imprinted in the brain by specialists from MK-Ultra.