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Portions from: Secret, Don’t TellThe Encyclopedia of Hypnotism Carla EmeryClaire, Michigan: Acorn Hill
Publishing, 1998
Chapter 1
Svengali: Unethical Stage Hypnosis in Literature
and Life
The
hypnotist can be erotically fascinated by the sight of his inanimate,
plastic, unresisting subject. In this, hypnotists share a dream world with
undertakers. – Robert
Marks, p. 119 An Englishman with a French name,
George Du Maurier (1834-1896), wrote his last and most famous novel, Trilby,
about hypno-control. It was the first “best seller.” Du Maurier got the idea for his tale of Svengali’s cruel
domination of his hapless hypnotic subject from viewing a demonstration of a
subject’s complete, amnesic dissociation in a hypnotist’s office. In
the late 19th century, both natural split personalities and artificial
personality splitting (by suggested amnesia under hypnosis) were hot new
items in psychological research.[1] The
young female whose hypnotic submission was demonstrated to Du Maurier was an
unknowing, chronic, hypnotic subject, an artificially-split personality. The novelist watched her be
hypnotized, made to obey commands under trance, then awakened. He saw her
obedience to posthypnotic commands and her rationalization of them as being
freely willed choices. He observed her total unawareness of the previous
trance state. He realized the tragic potential for abuse of such a long-term,
unknowing, hypnotic subject. Svengali and Trilby The novel, Trilby, published in 1894, contained
some minor technical errors. Nevertheless, it introduced the basic, sordid
facts of hypnotic exploitation to a mass readership.[2] By
the vehicle of fiction, it presented important facts about abusive hypnosis.
Du Maurier’s tale of poor Trilby stimulated a much needed public awareness,
and discussion, of unethical hypnosis. What Svengali did to Trilby has never
quite been forgotten, despite ceaseless efforts by the hypnosis lobby to discredit
the basic facts. In the novel, Svengali, a middle-aged, unsuccessful
musician, captured Trilby by a disguised induction, then hypno-trained her
into a split personality (and a brilliant singer). Thereafter, she kept her puppet
master, Svengali, living in luxury, supported by her concert performances.
She always sang in an amnesic trance.[3] He began Trilby’s conditioning
by persuading her to agree to a Mesmer-style induction by passes: Svengali
told her to sit down on the divan, and sat opposite to her, and bade her look
him well in the white of the eyes. “Recartez-moi
pien tans le planc tes yeaux.” Then
he made little passes and counterpasses on her forehead and temples and down
her cheek and neck. Soon her eyes closed and her face grew placid. (Du Maurier, p. 69) In the novel, as with real-life subjects, Trilby did not
understand how a seemingly harmless first submission to hypnosis can develop
into a terrible long-term mind slavery. Svengali gradually transformed her from
a proud, independent person into an obedient hypno-tool. Now she lived a
cruel, secret life in addition to the “real” life that she consciously lived. Conceited,
derisive, and malicious, he alternately bullies and fawns in a harsh,
croaking voice...Though Trilby is repelled at first by his greasy, dirty
appearance and regards him as a spidery demon or incubus, she becomes
completely his creature under his hypnosis....Gecko...[is] a young fiddler,
small, swarthy, shabby, brown-eyed, and pock-marked; a nail-biter. Though he
loves Trilby he helps Svengali train her...so that Svengali may exploit her. (Magill, Masterplots, p. 1158) At the story’s end, foul Svengali dies. Trilby dies a few
hours after. (Du Maurier’s presumption that a mind-controlled victim cannot
survive without the puppet master is false.) The novel concludes with Gecko,
Svengali’s assistant, trying to explain to Trilby’s grieving former friends
what happened to her—and how a hypnotic split personality functions: Gecko
sat and smoked and pondered for a while, and looked from one to the other.
Then he pulled himself together with an effort, so to speak, and said, “Monsieur,
she never went mad—not for one moment!...She had forgotten—voila tout!” “But hang it all, my friend, one doesn’t forget such a…” “...I will tell you a secret. There were two Trilbys.
There was the Trilby you knew...But all at once—pr-r-r-out! presto!
augenblick!...with one wave of his hand over her—with one look of his
eye—with a word—Svengali could turn her into the other Trilby, his Trilby,
and make her do whatever he liked...you might have run a red-hot needle into
her and she would not have felt it... “He had but to say ‘Dors!’ and she suddenly became an unconscious
Trilby of marble, who could...think his thoughts and wish his wishes—and love
him at his bidding with a strange unreal factitious love...When Svengali’s
Trilby was singing—or seemed to you as if she were singing—our Trilby was
fast asleep...in fact, our Trilby was dead...and then, suddenly, our Trilby
woke up and wondered what it was all about...” (Du Maurier,
pp. 456-459) Trilby is
now back in print (Everyman, 1994), an old fable that refuses to be forgotten.
Svengali, the name that Du Maurier gave to Trilby’s evil hypnotist, is the
author’s best-known character. The mere word is resonant with sinister
implications. A Svengali is “one who attempts, usually with evil
intentions, to persuade or force another to do his bidding.” (Webster’s
Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary) Exploitation of Female Stage Mediums The publication of Du Maurier’s novel wound up a century
of European hypno-abuse of genetically susceptible persons, especially young
women. Trilby spotlighted the specific problem of hypnotic
exploitation of women (and men) in the theater world. The use of somnambulist (highly-conditioned) mediums on
stage, or in séances serving smaller audiences, was common in that
era. The medium tended to be young, female, and attractive. She was a
highly susceptible hypnotic subject, of course—and not protected by strong
and prosperous family connections. The use of hypnotized women on stage for entertainment emerged from eighteenth century scientific demonstrations of trance and medical hypnosis. Scientific researchers regarded their subjects as means to an end, as useful objects whom they manipulated like laboratory rats to prove, or disprove, their competing hypotheses. Medical hypnotists who were followers of Charcot viewed their patients being treated by hypnosis as disgusting neurotics. Their mechanistic mind manipulations respected only the knowledge and will of the operator. Unethical hypnotists viewed subjects as possessions destined by inborn genetic susceptibility to be ruled by the power of any master who made the effort to acquire and manipulate them. Most hypnotists scorned their subjects for the very quality they worked hardest to develop in them: mindless obedience. Du Maurier may also have read the autobiography of Charles
Lafontaine before he wrote Trilby. Lafontaine failed as an actor, but
then became wealthy as a stage hypnotist. The secret of his success on stage
was not his own talent, but that of his female hypnotic subject. Lafontaine ...taught
her a theatrical role that she then performed beautifully on the stage before
a large audience and of which she could remember nothing in her waking state.
(Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious, p. 157) He might have read Auguste Lassaigne’s autobiography.
Lassaigne was French, born in 1819. He was just a touring solo juggler the
day he watched an 18-year-old girl named Prudence receive treatment from a
magnetizer. Observing her somnambulist behavior, he became fascinated with
the possibilities of hypnosis. Perhaps, he also suddenly envisioned a more
prosperous professional future for himself. He courted and married Prudence.
Thereafter, she traveled with Auguste, and his act became a stage show in
which he hypnotized her. Offstage, Auguste used hypnotic suggestions to sexually
arouse Prudence, which produced “heavenly voluptuousness.” His control,
however, was imperfect; an angry Prudence could resist induction! (Ibid.) In 1894, the same year that Trilby was published, a
legal case involving a disreputable psychic healer, Ceslav Lubicz-Czynski,
was reported. He had a chronically abused medium: He
made use above all of a method which nowadays is hardly ever applied and
which was called “Psychic Transfer.” He hypnotized a female employee who
served him as a medium (and at the same time as a lover) and suggested to the
patient sitting nearby that his pains and sufferings would be transferred to
the medium. (Hammerschlag, p. 35) In deep trance, the young woman was caused to experience other people’s ailments, daily acquiring her mental version of their pains and suffering. How cruel! The sexual exploitation was also objectionable, for Czynski was at that time pursuing a rich aristocratic client, the Baroness Hedwig von Zedlitz, with the hope of marriage to her. He conducted his “courtship” during his hypnotic services to her. That is what caused the legal case (not his psychological and sexual abuse of the medium), for the Baroness said “Yes” under hypnosis—and her relatives reported the matter to the police. “Voodoo Death” on Stage In 1894, another hypnotist, Franz Neukomm, also made European news. Ella first was hypnotized by two doctors who were hired by a “relative” to treat her for a “nervous ailment.” Their power of suggestion temporarily suppressed the symptoms, but then she got even worse. Neukomm happened to be passing through, and her relative took Ella to be mesmerized by him. He also achieved an effective cure of her problem. Neukomm then saw opportunity knocking. He convinced Ella’s relative that the somnambulist girl might again relapse in the absence of his hypnotic influence and therefore should remain in his care. He would look after her without charge. Her relative then abandoned Ella to Neukomm. Thereafter, she traveled with the hypnotist as his medium. Neukomm was “effective,” to say the least. One day, he suggested to Ella that a cold needle, which he placed on her hand, was red-hot. Its touch then produced a real burn on her hand (a known somnambulist phenomenon). During each show, Neukomm invited an ailing volunteer from the audience up on stage. Then he would hypnotize Ella and give her a suggestion to place herself in the mind of the patient and provide information about his or her state of health. The night that Ella died, Neukomm, to increase the audience’s sense of drama, had changed his hypnotic instructions in a small, but significant way. He told Ella, “Your soul will leave your body in order to enter that of the patient.” Ella showed an uncharacteristic, strong resistance to that hypnotic suggestion. She tried to deny it. Imperious master Neukomm deepened her trance, and firmly repeated the “leave your body” command. Once more, she resisted. He further deepened the trance and repeated the command again. Ella Salamon died. The postmortem stated that heart
failure, caused by Neukomm’s hypnotic suggestion, was the probable cause of
her death. Neukomm was charged with manslaughter and found guilty. (Schrenck-Notzing,
1902) Ella’s death was similar to what anthropologists call
“voodoo” death, death by suggestion.[4] Hypnotic Subject Killed on Stage In another case of that era, a stage hypnotist named Flint
was performing in Switzerland, when his program went terribly wrong: One
of his acts was to lead on to the stage his wife, who was his partner in the
show, and bring her to a state of rigidity. He would then place a heavy piece
of rock on her stomach and invite volunteers from the audience to come and
smash the rock with a hammer. One night a member of the audience misjudged
his blow with the hammer and, instead of smashing the rock, he hit the
performer’s wife and caused internal injuries from which she died shortly
afterwards. (Magonet, pp. 19-20)
Mind-Control
Research: Goals and Methods ·
Terminal Experiments ·
Mind-Control Research Goals ·
Personality Restructuring In working on this book I have had to come to terms with my own emotions—disbelief, bewilderment, disgust, and anger and, more than once in the early stages, a feeling that the subject was simply too evil to cope with. Nothing I had researched before could have prepared me... –
Gordon
Thomas, Journey into Madness, p. 8 In
a stream of memos during the 1950s, the CIA laid out an ambitious array of
mind-control research goals. Even unlikely-sounding paths of inquiry were
eventually crafted into operational technologies by throwing enough time,
money, and brain power into the process. Terminal
Experiments [They wanted]...reliable results
relevant to operations. In documents and conversation, Allen and his
coworkers called such realistic tests “terminal experiments”—terminal in the sense
that the experiment would be carried through to completion. It would not end
when the subject felt like going home or when he or his best interest was
about to be harmed....By definition, terminal experiments went beyond
conventional ethical and legal limits. –
John
Marks, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, p. 32 When Morse Allen was directing BLUEBIRD (the first CIA
hypnosis project), he first performed hypnosis experiments on agency
secretaries and office staff. Soon, however, he needed subjects with whom the
CIA could take more risks. Hypnosis skeptics, for years, had been rebuking
experimenters in the field of antisocial hypnosis. The skeptics said
that experiments proved nothing when the volunteers had knowingly agreed to participate.
They argued that those subjects were unconsciously confident that their
professor, or boss, or officer was not really going to hurt them or
make them do something wrong. Morse Allen agreed. He wanted to test subjects
for whom the stakes were completely real—even to the point of life or death. For how could researchers learn to make permanent changes in the way a person’s brain works without making permanent changes in the way the experimental subject’s brain works? How could they research techniques that might—or would—cause brain damage? Or death? To solve this dilemma, a dual policy for secret government experimentation developed: a classic double standard. For such subjects, called terminal subjects, all
risks were permissible, even long-term changes in personality, even risks to
life and sanity. And all those risks could be taken without the subject’s
pre-knowledge or permission. Because asking permission or providing
pre-knowledge could negate the experiment. For persons in the research bureaucracy and experimenters, however, no risk was acceptable. These morally questionable terminal experiments were labeled “top secret,” deliberately keeping the information and results from the public. The top-secret label was also a “license to kill” for research bureaucrats and technicians, absolving them of accountability for their actions. Morse Allen approved the use of terminal experiments in
1950. From then on, subjects were entrapped, used, and permanently changed by
CIA experimentation. They were discarded when the experimenter had no more
use for them. The CIA, however, still felt that a frustrating atmosphere of
moral inhibition was impeding their research. A 1950 memo said: We shall continually strive to attain
more knowledge and better techniques. In the meantime, my general feeling is
that because we have accomplished things which seem almost impossible, the
authorities concerned almost believe that nothing is impossible. As you know,
there are definite limitations, especially since we are so greatly
handicapped by popular and official prejudice against some of our methods. (quoted
in Scheflin & Opton, p. 114) The CIA began researching brainwashing techniques in 1953, ...the very year that the United
States government signed the Nuremberg Code that prohibits human experimentation
on captive populations, such as prisoners, or anybody else for that matter,
unless the person is fully informed on the nature of the experiment and
freely gives his or her consent. (Chavkin, The Mind Stealers) Wolff, a CIA brainwash researcher, told his superiors: Where any of the studies involve
potential harm to the subject, we expect the Agency to make available suitable
subjects and a proper place for the performance of necessary experiments. (quoted
in Weinstein, 1988, p. 133) The CIA’s last policy restraints on terminal experiments vanished in 1954. That was the year a Russian defector, Vladimir Petrov, revealed that the May 1951 disappearance of two British intelligence agents had been staged by the KGB because it knew that the two (who were double agents also working for the KGB) were suspected and were under investigation by superiors. A very disturbed U.S. Joint Chief’s officer wrote: It would appear that very nearly all
U.S./U.K. high-level planning information prior to 25 May 1951...must be
considered compromised.... (Martin, p. 61) President Eisenhower instructed Lieutenant General James Doolittle to make recommendations for improved CIA operations to prevent another such Soviet intelligence coup in the future. Sixty days later, Doolittle turned in recommendations to pursue ...“every possible scientific and
technical avenue of approach to the intelligence problem”...he urged the CIA to
become “more ruthless” than the KGB. “If the United States is to survive,
longstanding American concepts of ‘fair play’ must be reconsidered...We must
learn to subvert, sabotage and destroy our enemies by more clever, more
sophisticated and more effective methods than those used against us.” (Martin,
p. 62) Doolittle’s recommendations were followed. In 1959, a
hypnotist, writing of “hypnosis in war,” said: “It is relevant to note that
an individual who was concerned with this type of work described it as
‘unethical’ and a ‘dirty mess.’” (Marcuse, Hypnosis: Fact and
Fiction, p. 204). In that same decade, Alden Sears ran a University of
Denver study for MKULTRA, using students as hypnotic subjects. He researched
the “building blocks” that make an unknowing hypnotic subject: “Could
a hypnotist induce a totally separate personality? Could a subject be sent on
missions he would not remember unless cued by the hypnotist?” In 1957, Sears
wrote that the next experiments, on methods “to build second identities [artificial
personality splitting]...could not be handled in the University situation.” (John
Marks, 1979, pp. 186-7) Sears refused to participate in that ugly second
generation of experiments. He became a minister instead. Afterwards, he would
never talk about the hypnosis experiments he had done. Where Terminal
Research Was Done In the 60s, MKULTRA directors kicked mind-control
experimentation into high gear. Their investigations had three experimental
levels: 1) basic research, 2) clinical testing, and 3) testing in operational
situations. Richard Helms was “the driving force behind this.” (Weinstein,
p. 129). Various chunks of research were ...conducted at industrial
facilities, academic centers, hospitals, government research sites and state
and federal correctional and mental health institutions...MKULTRA’s funding
bypassed normal channels...its full scope was known to only a handful of
people. (Scheflin and Opton, p. 132) Fifteen penal, or mental, institutions were used by the CIA for secret research on their inmates. The Addiction Research Center of the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital, Lexington, Kentucky, was one such institution. The Federal Narcotics Bureau, the Food and Drug Administration, and possibly certain defense contractors, were also involved in mind experiments. For example, in one typical LSD experiment, the CIA
enlisted the aid of the Navy and also that of the National Institute of
Mental Health (NIMH). Both served as false-front conduits for CIA money. A
typical CIA document states that the directors of NIMH and the National
Institutes of Health fully recognized the CIA’s “interest” and had offered
the Agency “full support and protection.” (Lee and Schlain, p. 24) CIA mind-control researchers also worked, and were based,
in educational institutions. They involved “at least 185 scientists and some
eighty institutions: prisons, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and
forty-four medical colleges and universities” in this type of study. (Chavkin,
p. 12) Those facilities were ...all over the United States, at the
great research centers like Boston Psychopathic, the University of Illinois
Medical School, Mount Sinai, Columbia University, the University of Oklahoma,
the Addiction Research Center at Lexington, Kentucky, the University of
Chicago, and the University of Rochester, and still other centers,
researchers had begun projects funded by the Agency through intermediaries. (Thomas,
pp. 156-157) Ivy League colleges, especially, became centers for
defense and CIA contracts. At Harvard, “students and professors had for years
served as guinea pigs for CIA- and military-funded” experiments (Lee
and Schlain, p. 73). A professor later recalled that Princeton was crawling with agents.
They came courting everyone. It was obvious. They would give us whatever we
wanted...We realized we were being recruited, but at that time we were
flattered that such a prestigious government agency was interested in us. (Ibid.,
footnote, p. 46) In New York, MKULTRA researched in a very different social
atmosphere—a safehouse disguised as a brothel. Although listed under
the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, the safehouses were actually managed and
funded by the CIA. George White organized the first one in a Greenwich
Village apartment. He equipped it with a stable of prostitutes. He observed
their interactions with customers through a special two-way glass, which
functioned as a mirror on the brothel side and as a clear observation glass
on the researcher’s side. The CIA was studying the use of “lovemaking” for espionage
purposes and analyzing the sexual behavior of johns—especially of certain
targeted individuals. White also tested experimental drugs, administered by
experimental covert means, to the unknowing patrons. In 1955, White was
transferred to San Francisco where he set up two more safehouses doing
similar experiments. The safehouse experiments went on into the 60s. After retiring, White wrote in a personal letter: I was a very minor missionary,
actually a heretic, but I toiled wholeheartedly in the vineyards because it
was fun, fun, fun. Where else could a red blooded American boy lie, kill,
cheat, steal, rape, and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the
All-Highest? (quoted in John Marks, 1979, p. 101)[5] Cameron’s Patients Cameron’s patients are the best-known individual victims
of CIA-supported mind-control experiments. The patients and their presenting
symptoms when they arrived at Dr. Cameron’s office at McGill University in
Canada for psychiatric help were not unusual: unhappy wife, middle-aged
businessman with a holocaust flashback, hypochondria, arthritis, and
menopause. Once they fell into Cameron’s trap, however, they became humanoid
white rats expended in extreme, ruthless, and brain-damaging experiments on
mind control.[6] Cameron was working on a new mind-control technique. One
patient, Mr. Weinstein, was a middle-aged Canadian businessman who owned a
prosperous clothing manufacturing company. Weinstein made the mistake of
asking Cameron for help to overcome an occasional phantom choking sensation.
After years of Cameron’s bizarre, destructive experimentation, Weinstein
acquired severe mental damage. His son, Harvey, grew up and became a
psychiatrist out of a burning need to understand what happened to his
father’s mind.[7] Why did Cameron entrap normal people (with minor problems) to use in his experiments? He did that because both brainwashing and hypno-programming work best on normal persons. Dr. Sargant, an English psychiatrist, expert on brainwashing, and a personal friend of both Dr. Cameron and CIA Director Dulles explained: ...the really crucial point which the
whole history of hypnotism demonstrates is that the people most susceptible
to hypnotic states are normal people. Hypnotism has never been very
successful in treating the severely mentally ill...Many normal people, on the
other hand, become hysterical under stress, and, when they do, they become
amenable to hypnotism and to techniques which depend on the same brain
mechanisms. It
is not the mentally ill but ordinary normal people who are most
susceptible... (Sargant, The Mind Possessed, p. 31) The people most susceptible to brain changing are stressed,
normal people. So, Cameron captured normal people for his experiments.
They did not stay normal. They became stressed. Funded, in part, by the
Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology, he experimented with
conditioning (building unconscious reflex habits), hypnosis (using a Sodium
Amytal induction), other drugs, electroshock, and psychic driving. He
analyzed the three stages of electroshock amnesia. He studied the retroactive
amnesia for recent events which electroshockings can cause. Cameron worked on two major CIA goals. One was the
creation of irresistibly powerful remembering. His technique was
forced listening to a short, taped message played over and over. He called
that psychic driving. The other goal was its opposite: the causing of
irresistibly powerful forgetting. Cameron’s method to accomplish that
was a large amount of electroshock. The amount was called regressive because
subjects lost their bladder control.
Medical Ethics Henry K. Beecher, a medical ethicist studying publicly
available statistics, was astonished and disturbed by the steady increase, after
World War II, in experimentation on unknowing subjects: ...they would not have been available
if they had been truly aware of the uses that would be made of them...many of
the patients in the examples to follow never had the risk satisfactorily explained
to them, and it seems obvious that further hundreds have not known that they
were the subjects of an experiment although grave consequences have been
suffered as a direct result of experiments... There is a belief prevalent in
some sophisticated circles that attention to these matters would “block
progress.” But, according to Pope Pius XII, “...science is not the highest
value to which all other orders of values... should be submitted.” (Beecher
“Ethics and Clinical Research,” 1966) Beecher said that ethical errors were increasing not only in numbers, but also in variety. Above all, he was dismayed by the ballooning government budget for research on human beings. Since World War II the annual
expenditure for research (in large part on man)...in the Massachusetts
General Hospital has increased a remarkable 17-fold. At the National
Institutes of Health, the increase has been a gigantic 624-fold...Medical
schools and university hospitals are increasingly dominated by investigators.
(Ibid.) That was just NIH funding. What would the numbers have
looked like to Beecher if military, think tank, NIMH, CIA, and NSA fundings
for human research were added in? What exactly were they doing to all those people? Mind-Control Research Goals Can we get control of an individual
to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against
such fundamental laws of nature such as self-preservation? – 1952 ARTICHOKE memo, quoted in Chavkin, p. 13 In 1950, the CIA’s BLUEBIRD program began to target specific hypnotism goals. At first, the research goals were all defensive: to identify disloyal persons, establish a defector’s legitimacy, make CIA agents able to resist hostile interrogation, and strengthen interrogation methods used on captured enemies. The list of goals soon changed, however, to include offensive uses of hypnosis. Hypnotism would make it ...possible to brief a prisoner or
other individual, subsequently dispatch him on a mission and successfully
debrief him on his return without his recollection of the whole proceeding. (CIA
memo, “Defense Against Soviet Medical Interrogation and Espionage
Techniques,” quoted in Scheflin & Opton, p. 114) They also targeted the basic goal of getting absolute control, in absolute secrecy, over another person. The victim would become an unknowing hypno-puppet who would obey any command: The support program will consist of
both fundamental and applied research studying all means through which
control of an individual may be attained. (CIA memo quoted in Scheflin
& Opton, p. 116) They preferred the method of disguised hypnotic induction over nondisguised. Disguised induction would help achieve an ...absence of resistance and
counter-control: ideally, the technique will be so elegant, so smooth, that
the manipulated will not suspect, let alone object, that someone or something
is trying to shape their behavior. (Schrag, Mind Control,
p. 10) One author wrote of a military scenario in which hypnosis
is used ...to obtain the services of an apprehended
spy, obtain all the knowledge he might have by use of an involuntary
technique and send him back out as a double agent. (Teitlebaum,
Hypnosis Induction Techniques, p. 172) In 1960, the CIA’s Technology and Science Director, who was in charge of operational experiments in hypnosis, began an aggressive, new, enlarged program which he called “field experimentation” in the “counterintelligence program.” There were ...three goals: (1) to induce
hypnosis very rapidly in unwitting subjects; (2) to create durable amnesia;
and (3) to implant durable and operationally useful posthypnotic suggestion. (John
Marks, 1979, p. 189). An outline of ARTICHOKE research targets listed further goals in the hypnosis area: development of techniques for disguised induction, hypnotic memory training, and sealing. Disguised Induction They were “investigating the possibility of obtaining
control of an individual by application of special interrogation techniques” (Scheflin
& Opton, p. 116). “Special interrogation techniques”
was a euphemism for methods of disguised induction. The ARTICHOKE research
program subdivided that research into experiments on how to cause an
unknowing person to become hypnotized using polygraphs, drugs, hypnosis,
subconscious isolation, or electroshock. Hypnotic Memory Training They called hypnotic memory training memory enhancement.
Hypnosis definitely
improves memory. If a person’s memory is good to start with, hypnosis makes
it even better. Hypnotic memory training had at least two intelligence and
military applications: a) couriers bearing unconsciously remembered messages
and b) subjects used as human tape recorders where no mechanical recording of
speech was possible or permitted. In 1962, a research hypnotist issued a
lyric call to use hypnosis to ...produce synthetic genius, emergent
genius...in ordinary mortals...phenomenal memory...we are convinced that
synthetic genius lies within the grasp of the human, but it will take long
and patient research to activate this dream. (Wright,
in Estabrooks, Ed., Hypnosis: Current Problems, p. 235) Dr. Gindes studied rote memory in hypnotized persons for
the Army. ...five soldiers were
hypnotized...and given a jumbled “code”...they were allowed sixty seconds to
commit the list to memory. In the waking state, each man was asked to repeat
the code; this none of them could do...During rehypnotization, they were
individually able to recall the exact content of the code message. (Gindes,
pp. 33-34) The men had learned to spell “ordinary” as “sqlcnrbc,” “tendency”
as “tmslnfsk,” and so on. (Gindes, pp. 53-54) Hypnocouriers In 1500 B.C., the Egyptians were using a hypnocourier system. Programmed virgins served the Pharaoh as royal “message bearers from the gods.” The women were sent under military escort to distant dignitaries who knew the cue which would unlock the messenger’s lips and release the consciously unknown secret message locked in her unconscious. At journey’s end, when presented to the dignitary and cued, the words of her message would miraculously form themselves at her lips and speak themselves. She had no conscious knowledge from where those words came. She had no foreknowledge what words it was that her mouth would speak. Modern hypnocouriers are described in a 1963 text on clinical and experimental hypnosis: Hypnosis is assuming an
ever-increasing role in the psychological aspects of warfare. For instance, a
good subject can be hypnotized to deliver secret information. The memory of
this message could be covered by an artificially induced amnesia. In the
event that he should be captured, he naturally could not remember that he had
ever been given the message. He would not remember the message. However,
since he had been given a posthypnotic suggestion, the message would be
subject to recall through a specific cue, this having been given to him in
the form of a posthypnotic suggestion. (William Kroger, Clinical
and Experimental Hypnosis in Medicine, Psychology, and Dentistry, p. 299) The basic system was to read or tell a message to a hypnotized
subject, who then was instructed to remember the message and speak it on cue.
It could be long and complicated. The courier did not consciously know the
message, or even the fact that he carried a message. The message’s intended
recipient, who knew the cue, would speak or act it out when ready. After
perceiving that cue, the courier would go into a posthypnotic trance and
speak the message—like a human tape recorder on “play.” A supplementary
hypnotic suggestion could cause the courier to be amnesic for the meaning of
the words he was speaking. (Bowart, in Operation Mind Control,
reported the case of a military man trained in this way.) Estabrooks promoted the use of consciously unknowing
hypno-messengers by government agencies: If one expert can build up a code,
another can break it down...a code must be printed somewhere...And human
nature is weak. With hypnotism we can be sure of our private messenger. We
hypnotize our man in, say, Washington...give him the message. That message,
may we add, can be both long and intricate. An intelligent individual can
memorize a whole book if necessary. Then we start him out for Australia by
plane with the instructions that no one can hypnotize him...except Colonel
Brown in Melbourne...It is useless to intercept this messenger. He has no
documents and no amount of “third degreeing” can extract the information, for
the information is not in the conscious mind to extract... (Hypnotism,
1944 edition, pp. 210-211) Sealing An early CIA memo described sealing as “establishing
defensive means for preventing hostile control.” In civilian language it
means that sealing the programmed mind blocks it from attempts by other
hypnotists to put that person into trance. Sealing was another CIA
hypno-programming goal: Can we prevent any unauthorized
source or enemy from gaining control of the future activities (physical and
mental) of agency personnel (or persons of interest to this agency) by any
known means? (CIA memo quoted in Scheflin & Opton, pp. 116-117) The usual method of sealing was, and is, simply a hypnotic suggestion that the subject cannot be hypnotized by any unauthorized person. 1950s CIA HYPNOGOALS, AND PROBABLE OUTCOMES In a chapter called “Tampering with the Mind: I,” Scheflin and Opton included a long list of hypno-programming goals obtained from a CIA memo written in the 1950s. Here are thirteen of those goals, and my opinion of their probable research outcomes: (1) Identify Hypnotically
Susceptible Personality—The CIA wanted to know “the
types of personalities which could or could not be controlled.” Since the
1950s, many studies, both military and nonmilitary, have sought ways to
covertly recognize hypnotizability. Some systems are based on personality and
behavior traits. A hysteric is always a good hypnotic subject.
Compulsives are the hardest personality type to either hypnotize or to
control by hypnosis, because they are going to be, and do, what they are
going to be and do. Psychotics are categorically considered impossible to
hypnotize, but there have been exceptions. In some research, women were
easier to hypnotize than men, but only by a small percentage. In both sexes,
the higher the IQ, the greater the hypnotic susceptibility. In one study,
bright female introverts were most susceptible. Extroverts forget more over
time than introverts, but they are better at retrieving information from
deeply buried memory, especially if it’s relatively inaccessible. Introverts
are more affected by punishment, extroverts by reward. That data could be interpreted to make introverts preferred candidates for hypno-programming. They have better memory for unconscious instructions, less ability to recover repressed memory, and are more controllable by suggested suffering. More formal evaluations of hypnotizability are derived from Rorschach or TAT tests and from brainwave patterns (more alpha indicates more susceptibility). If the subject had an imaginary playmate in childhood, that also indicates susceptibility.[8] (2) Which Mind Control Method for Each Personality?—The
CIA list included the goal of knowing “the methods which would or would not
work on those personality types.” Therefore, they studied every conceivable induction
method: open or disguised. That included study of hypnotic induction hardware
of every sort, including instruments for electronic induction by brainwave
manipulation and post-electroshock induction. They studied the inductive
effects of fatigue and stress, visualization, relaxation, narcohypnosis,
repetition, disorientation, sensory deprivation, extrasensory (mind-to-mind,
psychic) induction, and combinations of those. (Research knowledge in these
areas is covered in Part IV of this book.) (3) Time Needed to Establish Mind Control?—The CIA wanted to know “the amount of time needed |