Now anyone who has lived for any time in countries like Morocco where magic is widely practiced has probably seen a curse work. I have. However, curses tend to be hit or miss, depending on the skill and power of the operator and the susceptibility of a victim. And that isn’t good enough for the CIA or any similar organization: ‘Bring us the ones that work not sometimes but every time.’ So what is the logical forward step? To devise machines that can concentrate and direct psychic force with predictable effects. I suggest that what the CIA is, or was working on, at their top secret Nevada installation may be described as computerized black magic. If Curse A doesn’t make it, Curse Program B automatically goes into operation — and so on.
I recommend to your attention a book called The Mind Masters by John Rossmann. This is ostensibly a fanastic science fiction novel, interesting more for its content than its style, that may well contain some real-inside information. The story concerns a researcher who has been disillusioned by his work on Project Pandora, an American psychic training center run by a Colonel Pickett, who is strongly reminiscent of the mad General Ripper in Doctor Strangelove, right down to the cigar. Only he is unloosing psychic warfare rather than nuclear bombs, having convinced himself that this form of warfare is more effective and more easily controlled for elitist objectives. The disillusioned researcher, one Britt St. Vincent, is contacted by Mero, a private institute dedicated to opposing these black magic centers. (It should be obvious that only black magic has ‘military applications.’)
After he has been taken to Mero’s secret headquarters, Britt is briefed by Dr Webster on the purposes of Mero. Dr Webster cites an early report by columnist Jack Anderson that the reason the Johnson-Kosygin summit conference in 1967 at Glassboro, New Jersey, was held in such a remote spot was that this was the world’s first summit conference on psychic warfare. He recalls for Britt how the CIA, while making an electronic sweep of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow for listening devices, discovered some very unusual electromagnetic emanations pulsing through the building. (Later it came out that the Soviets had stepped up the power to a point where Embassy officials and their families were in danger from the high-voltage microwave radiation, which can cause confusion, migraines, and even death.) Not long after, the CIA confirmed that this was in fact part of a much larger psychic attack on the Embassy. When the Defense Department launched its top-secret psychic counterattack, according to columnist Anderson, it was code-named Project Pandora.
Dr Webster goes on to tell Britt: ‘Glassboro wasn’t the end of it, Britt. .. obviously. By easily diverting funds within their mammoth defense budgets, small groups of supermilitarists here and in Russia covertly continued psychic programs . ..
The violent student rioting of the late Sixties was largely instigated by electronic mood-control devices that were derived from the psychic discoveries of Project Pandora. The riots, it is now evident, were the first phase of a massive plot. The students were used by U.S. military extremists for two purposes. First, the riots tended to discredit the student causes. Secondly, the civil disturbances conveniently provided the plotters with the necessary reasons to reinstate some of their psychic weapons programs under the guise of ‘crowd control’ research. Britt learns that similar secret psychic research is still advancing rapidly in China, France, Israel, Egypt, South Africa and Chile, in addition to the United States and Russia.
‘Although these scattered groups are currently working to beat each other to the secret of powers that will give them world control, there is a good possibility that they could even now join forces and make a combined psychic bid for world control — and at this moment they appear to stand an almost even chance of succeeding if they joined forces.’
And what would the future look like if such groups actually exist and if they do combine and take over? An elitist world state very much along the lines laid down by the Nazis. At the top would be a theocracy trained in psychic control techniques implemented by computerized electronic devices that would render opposition psychologically impossible. Entry to this privileged class would be permitted only to those whose dedication to the world state was absolute and unquestioning. In short, you don’t get in by merit or ability but by being an all around one hundred percent shit. Under this ruling, elite of power addicts would consist of an anonymous service collective of functionaries, managers, and bureaucrats. And below them the slave workers.
There would be no place for dissent or independent research. The troublesome artist would be eliminated or absorbed. The elite lives happily ever after, at the top of a control state that makes 1984 seem cozy and nostalgic.
In the Interests of National Security
Frank Olsen, a civilian biochemist working on a top-secret project for the CIA, apparently committed suicide on Nov. 28th, 1953, by throwing himself through a tenth-floor window in the Statler-Hilton Hotel in New York City. Perhaps someone should have a look at the window in question. Throwing oneself through a window set in metal frames is quite a feat.
Colonel Ruwet, Olsen’s boss in something called the Special Operations Division, was involved with a CIA contract so secret that members working on various aspects of it did not even discuss their work with each other. And what was this so secret project? Ruwet refuses to say. We know now that one thing they were working on was LSD or the more potent BZ in gaseous form. They wanted something that would incapacitate an enemy without doing any lasting harm. It’s more humane that way you see. This laudable project could have been easily handled by any college chemistry major. LSD is effective in very small doses and it is simply a question of finding a suitable suspension medium. Such a gas was developed and subsequently used in Vietnam, with what results we have not been told. Why then such elaborate precautions to conceal the project from the Russian military, who were admittedly ahead of us in drug research at the time? Why should Ruwet cover up something that is now common knowledge? We cannot but conclude that other projects in ‘behavior modification’ lurk behind the LSD smokescreen.
The ultimate form of behavior modification is Electric Brain Stimulation. EBS was developed by Dr Delgado and is described in his book Physical Control of the Mind. Electrodes implanted in the brain are activated by radio control. In this way Delgado has stopped a charging bull in its tracks. He has forced human subjects to pick up articles against their will... ‘Your electricity is stronger than my will, Doctor,’ one subject admitted as he tried to keep his hands from carrying out the electronic order. Delgado has also induced in human subjects fear, rage, sexual excitement, and euphoria, all at push-button control A thing like that could solve a lot of problems. The only limitation is the necessity of implanting electrodes in the brain of the subject. Can this limitation be overcome to achieve the same results without electrodes? EBS simply delivers a small electric current to certain brain areas. The brain itself emits small electric currents and there is no doubt that obsessive thoughts result from the auto-stimulation of certain brain areas. Could directed auto-stimulation be induced by the administration of a drug? Could a virus directed to certain brain areas serve as a terminal for electrical impulses delivered by radio control? If this was or is one of the secret projects Colonel Ruwet was engaged in, the need for secrecy is understandable, since such convenient modifications would be directed primarily against dissident elements within the United States.
Biological warfare has come a long way since 1953. Just how far it has come and how far it can go is leaking out from civilian projects. Here is a clipping from the Paris Herald Tribune: ‘Beginning of the End — The Synthetic Gene Revolution ... In a laboratory at 125 University Avenue, Madison, Wisconsin, a chemist from India, Dr Har Khorana, has made a gene. It is the first completely synthetic copy of one of the chemical molecules that direct life processes. “It is the beginning of the end.” This was the immediate reaction to this news from the science attache at one of Washington’s major embassies. If you can make genes, he explained, you can eventually make new viruses for which there are no cures.
“Any little country with good biochemists could make such biological weapons. It would take only a small laboratory. If it can be done, someone will do it.’” And presumably any big country could do it quicker and better. Just as well to keep a thing like that under wraps, isn’t it now?
And here’s another from the London Times, 18 April 1971: ‘New Cancer Virus Made By Accident... A completely new virus probably capable of causing cancer in humans has been made by accident in an American research laboratory. Its appearance is likely to reinforce fears already expressed by cautious scientists that some medical research could inadvertently produce new forms of human disease instead of curing existing ones. Sir Macfarlane Bumet, in a provocative article, bluntly warned: “Any escape into circulation that was not immediately dealt with could grow into the almost unimaginable catastrophe of a Virgin soil’ epidemic... involving all the populated regions of the world.’”
And here’s another: ‘Genocide Made Easy... Ethnic weapons that could wipe out one race and leave another unharmed could soon be developed. A leading Swedish geneticist, Carl Larson, says icily, “Ethnic weapons would employ differences in human genetic configuration to make genocide a particularly attractive form of war.’” And Larson published his findings in the U.S. Army Military Review. It is the super-selective weapon that all military thinkers dream of. “’More genetic research is needed,” he admitted, “but we should be thinking about this now if only to prevent such a weapon from being developed. We must not let it creep upon us unawares.’”
Civilian researchers publish their findings. Top secret projects can then develop these findings in negative directions designated under ‘military use,’ but they do not publish their findings. They are withholding valuable knowledge not only from the public but from other workers in specialized fields. If we lived in the Middle Ages, the fact that the world is round would be a top secret enabling us to attack the enemy from the rear.
This is a game planet. All games are hostile and basically there is only one game, and that game is war. Research into altered states of consciousness — which might result in a viewpoint from which the game itself could be called into question — is inexorably drawn into the game. One of the rules of this game is that there cannot be final victory since that would mean the end of the war game. Every player must believe in final victory and endeavor to attain final victory with all his resources. In consequence all existing technologies are directed towards producing total weapons that could end the game by killing all players. Is there any way out of this impasse of national security at the expense of global insecurity? Certainly a prerequisite for any solution would be for all countries to put all their top secrets right on the table.
The only thing that could unite this planet is an all-out program for the exploration of space. As Brion Gysin says, we are here to go. If all nations saw the earth as a space station and landing field, the concept of war would be irrelevant. Is there any possibility of this happening? Not so long as those who make their living from the war game continue to control the resources of the planet and to direct all discoveries to military ends. So far the military and the CIA have managed to hide the full scope of secret operations by admitting what is already known. .. Army Admits Experiments with LSD Gas — big deal The gas was used in Vietnam and the story came out in the Paris Herald Tribune six years ago. Army Tested Drug More Potent Than LSD — fifteen years ago I talked to a Dutch chemist who told me a drug had been developed so much more potent than LSD that they could not take the responsibility of administering it to human subjects, even with their full knowledge and consent, owing to the possibility of residual neural damage. In any case the drug had only been released to the military, who, it seems, did not hesitate to take the responsibility of administering the drug to human subjects without their knowledge or consent.
‘We acted in the interests of national security.’ they say smugly. It’s the old war game, from here to eternity. Where would the military and the CIA be without it? It would seem that only a miracle could shock the planet into a realization that the game will kill us all unless we stop playing it.
Notes From Class Transcript*
I use scientific material in my fiction to get ideas for science, just to show the range and possibility of things that are actually going on. My use of building up identikit pictures is to get an idea of a character, maybe one I first encountered in a dream. I will find someone in reality that looks like that character and take a picture. I may find a picture in a magazine that resembles them. Or I may find a similar character in someone else’s writing. In that way you slowly build up an identikit picture of your character.
I may have many sources for one character. All characters are composites. I think that’s a mistake that writers often make when they start: they try to have just one real character. In other words, they are working from real characters and transcribing more or less directly. I mean literal transcription. Of course a writer’s idea of a person is always a fiction in itself. Like Kerouac’s picture of Neal Cassady. Well, I saw a very different Neal than the one he saw. You have On the Road, where Neal is always talking. Well, he had a great capacity for silence. I’ve driven with him for eight hours and he never said a thing.
In connection with schizophrenic writing, I’ve done a great deal of exploration in the direction of schizophrenic art, much of which is not very distinguished. But most of that was done by people who had some inclination towards painting, who might have been painters. So what I was interested in was writers who had the concept of schizophrenia. I knew one who was a poet; he was a great admirer of T. S. Eliot and his work was very much like Eliot’s. You could say it’s imitative of Eliot, but perhaps it’s the opposite. That little trick that Eliot has, that stylistic trick, is noticeable in schizophrenic poetry, but unfortunately I don’t have any of this poetry available. I just remember a few phrases like ‘Doctorhood is being made with me,’ or titles like At Swim Two Birds the same stylistic tricks of language that are found in Eliot and in the earlier poems of MacLeish.
You ask about the effects of grass on the creative mind. Hallucinogenic drugs tend to reduce the necessity to dream. People will dream less if they are using grass or LSD or any of those drugs, because they are doing their dreaming in a waking state. By hallucinogenic I don’t mean it produces actual hallucinations. It certainly extends awareness and I think makes your imagery more vivid, while at the same time you recognize it as imagery — you don’t see it as an hallucination. As to the literature of the hallucinogenics, I don’t think that such a literature exists. People are not going to become writers just because they are high. Undoubtedly a drug that increases awareness will give people ideas and imagery and so forth. But I don’t think there is anything that we could call hashish writing, LSD writing, or mescaline writing. There is a lot of writing done by people after they have taken LSD; I remember whole collections of it. Most of it is terrible, vague, and in essence not good writing. But these people were not experienced writers.
Footnote
* This is edited from answers to questions from students in class after a lecture.
Who Did What Where and When?
I have made several references to Science and Sanity by Count Korzybski. This book should be required reading for all college students and for anyone who is concerned with precision of thought and expression. Journalists and scientists especially. The Count points out that generalities without a clear referent are misleading and meaningless. ‘Everyone knows that. .. Informed opinion indicates .. . Most people will agree . . .’ What people will agree to what where and when? I have had reporters ask me whether I thought the American people were moving toward the right What people? Farmers? Book-of-the-Month-Club ladies on the east coast? College students? Ghetto residents?
In His Image by David Rorvik contains a number of quotations from scientists who oppose cloning, and seem to be incapable of composing a semantically respectable statement.
‘Selfness is an ess
ential fact of life.’
To whom is it essential? Has no one told the learned gentleman that eastern spiritual disciplines with millions of followers are designed to eliminate the ‘self?
‘The thought of human non-selfness is terrifying.’ Whom does it terrify, Professor?
I do not argue with his viewpoint. If he chooses to treasure that querulous, frightened, defensive, petty, boring entity he calls his ‘self that is his affair. I am taking him to task on semantic grounds. He is talking nonsense.
‘I consider selfness an essential fact of my life. The thought of human non-selfness terrifies me.’
Now it is a meaningful statement.
‘Difference of appearance reinforces our sense of self and hence lends support to the feeling of individual worth we seek in ourselves and from others.’
Our sense of self? We seek? He has the stunning impertinence to speak for all mankind.
The Count points out that Aristotelian either or logic, setting up such polarities as intellect or emotion, reason or instinct, does not correspond to what we know about the physical universe and the human nervous system. He uses the phrase ‘neuromuscular intention behavior’ to describe the reactions of an organism as a whole in relation to its environment. Every action is both instinctive and intellectual, involving the entire body and nervous system. A man is hungry. The magic and almost meaningless word instinct has been invoked. But in his primitive instinctive search for food he may cross streets, take cabs, pay fares, read menus, all activities of the rational intellect it seems obvious, but here is Michel Jouvet, a French scientist, formulating a theory that dreams are ‘instinctive’.
Consider what would happen if instinctive and rational behavior were actually operating on either or basis.
The scene is the Rock Hotel in Gibraltar. The Professor lopes in like an animal sniffing for food. The waiter doesn’t like his looks and decides to give him the treatment. Now the Professor sits down and orders in a voice without inflection or any emotional tone like a speaking computer. He orders two portions of very rare roast beef telling the waiter that his ‘other half will be along in a minute, and a bottle of red wine. He finishes a cross-word puzzle. At the sight of his food he emits a gutty whine of anticipation and his stomach rumbles like a vast kraken. He snatches the meat and licks the plate in such an offensive manner that nearby diners turn away and retch. He composes himself and looks at the bottle. It is white wine. He signals to the waiter.