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Plan 156 from Intra-Space

Balok

Plan 93 from Outer Space

"Like a vast network , the iridescent tendrils of our occult complex spread across the land, linking such centres as are located in California, Florida, North Carolina, Chicago, and New York. These dynamic centres of Thelema receive their vivifying current through our World centre in England." Such was the message of Janice Ayers in 'Sothis' I;2, in September 1977.

...

Crowley's erstwhile secretary Kenneth Grant (who claims to have formed a link to his 'angel' Aossic, and so calls himself Aossic, Ossik, or A'ashik) has - together with his followers - developed a more or less comprehensible outline of a 'new' cosmos on this basis. Interested readers are referred to Grant's books, many of which remain in print. [7] In this article we shall be concentrating on Grant's resulting theoretical expansion of Crowley's demonology. The latter never seems to have regarded angels or demons as very definite beings; for him, they ruled the material world, and were useful for things like getting hold of money. Under Grant's influence they were elaborated into complex transcendental schemes of alternate dimensions outside the circles of space and time. "The terrestrial vehicle is an outcropping in three dimensions of the Angel: the Angel is the fountain of living waters which empowers the terrestrial vehicle." [8] Through contact with this fountain, the Holy Guardian Angel (HGA) opens the gate of remembrance of our supernatural reality, what Grant calls "the continuum often glyphed as the Goddess of which we are terrestrial facets." [9] Grant and his adherents 'remember' the origins of Be-ing [10] and have constructed a remarkably complicated collection of metaphors drawn from sources such as the Qabalah, H.P. Lovecraft, [11] Salvador Dalí, Michael P. Bertiaux, Austin Osman Spare, [12] Lemuria, Atlantis, extraterrestrial visitors from Sirius, the promotion of at least one new 'New Aeon', and a whole shoal of 'revelations'. 

Grant placed great emphasis on the development of a IX° 'dream-control' technique, borrowed from Thomas Lake Harris, and introduced into the Crowleyan O.T.O. by Ida Nellidorf under the name of "eroto-comatose lucidity." Before going to sleep the sexual energies were first raised by constant sexual stimulation without orgasm, and then concentrated onto a talisman bearing a requisite symbol, so that in its dreams, the aroused libido would copulate with a dream-partner. The talisman would thus become magically charged, and would make a particular wish - be it for gold or Gnosis - come true.

...

The Cult of Lam and Michael Staley, Grant's London amanuensis.

The 1919 portrait of Lam drawn by Crowley came into Grant's possession in 1945. Crowley never published any explanation of the image, and this allowed for the development of a distinct 'Lam cult'. For this article, Michael Staley provided the following detail in June 2001: "The point is that Crowley says nothing about Lam in his published writing; whether or not there is anything unpublished, I don't know. Interestingly, I have come across an account by an American visitor to Crowley's flat in Jermyn Street, London, in 1941 or thereabouts, who says that the portrait [he doesn't say who it is, but his description of it - he found it repulsive - leaves no doubt] was on Crowley's wall. When the visitor asked who or what it was, Crowley said that it was a portrait of his guru."

In the 1990's this cult (described as the "quintessence of the Typhonian O.T.O. tradition") was supposed to be a manifestation of the Hidden praeternatural/supernatural God or Holy Guardian Angel (HGA), who united the natural with the supernatural. Contact with this HGA was identical to an entry into the Aeon of Ma'at, or the extra-terrestrial continuum. [17] "In my view Lam is the mask of a dynamic state of [extra-terrestrial] [18] gnosis, rather than simply an entity." [19] Staley interested himself in Lam as a state of Gnosis, although he admitted that this state could sometimes also take the nature of an entity's mask; but he would break through these masks.

Crowley's (feminine?) Hoor-paar-kraat (Set) was again understood as the HGA; in the Tetragrammaton YHVH Ra-Hoor-Khuit (Horus) corresponded with the Vav, and Hoor-paar-kraat to the Heh final. "This identifies Hoor-paar-kraat with the Aeon of Ma'at." [20] Lam 'sits' in the Muladhara Chakra's Bija-Mantra, where the Fiery Serpent (or Kundalini) waits to uncoil. The 'optical' union with Lam took place in Lam's eyes, the region of the Ajna-Chakra (and also the seat of the will). [21] According to Crowley this corresponded to a sex-magical act in which one became conscious of the Ajna and Muladhara Chakras during orgasm. [22]

Contact with the HGA was defined as the stage of "reaching critical mass" after doing intensive Abramelin or Liber Samekh exercises. The HGA is the sum total of experience, gathered into this critical mass and then able to take on spontaneous form. [23]

This contact with the HGA - whether experienced in concrete exterior form, or as the aspirant's spiritual Higher Self - corresponded with the start of 'occult puberty'. [24] For an occultist, it meant that there was no longer any distinction between inner and outer. Evolution demanded that one cast off such old mental habits, [25] and that humanity should become non-human, as in Crowley's A*A*, where a kind of superman hatched from the Egg or Babe of the Abyss (that is, the concept of dissolution in occult Qabalah, the bridge between human and divine).

Freed of Ego, only this new human creature can help human evolution, and perhaps even that of the universe. ['Babe of the Abyss'; the whole point being that the Kabbalistic Abyss is the ultimate womb from which the soul is born before progressing to the Supernal Triad of sefiroth (Kether, Chokmah, and Binah) on the Tree of Life. After being born from the Abyss, it first reaches Binah, the 'Magna Mater'.]

For Staley, magic is primarily a matter of communicating with non-human entities. However, such entities are not to be found outside human beings, as man and the universe are one - both are aspects of the universe. [26] Staley found better comprehension of this through the Sanskrit concept of Advaita or "not-divided", and in the Prajnaparamita-Buddhist "Sunyavada". At one stage Staley worked with a Lam-Serpent Sadhana, in which the Lam-Serpent was visualised as the Kundalini surmounted by Lam's head. [27] This Lam-Serpent uncoiled itself along the sushumna, while the chakras were visualised, and the Bija-Mantras were vibrated. According to Staley the 'secret' of sex-magic resided solely in the fact "that matter is malleable and can be influenced by sustained, intense visualisation; the potency of this visualisation can be increased by the directed sexual current." [28]

The HGA functioned as the mediator and boundary station between the terrestrial and the infinite. With the HGA projected as the Egregore outside the individuality, the HGA can be used to communicate with the 'Secret Chiefs'; using the occult technique of 'Assuming a God-Form' one becomes an angel/egregore among other angels/egregores.

...

26. In Thelemic terms, the magician expels his blood into the chalice of Babalon. Babalon (or Venus, see Crowley's "Vision and the Voice", 1909) has been the (sometimes masculine) Scarlet Whore of Revelation; her number, 156, is equated Kabbalistically with 'constant copulation' and 'samadhi'. 

(excerpt)

Full Article and Hyperlinks:

http://user.cyberlink.ch/~koenig/lam.htm

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"Erase This God Damn Thing"

"Miracle Studies" Dismisses Schucman-Thetford MK-ULTRA Connections as "Conspiracy Rumors"

Regarding Conspiracy Rumors about Dr. William Thetford, the CIA and A Course in Miracles

By Joe R. Jesseph, Ph.D. Author: A Primer of Psychlogy According to A Course in Miracles [Coordinator of Miracle Studies]

...

One of the more bizarre forms of controversy to develop relative to ACIM in recent years (circa 2006) has to do with the suspicion that the Course is the result of a CIA plot -- a mind-control conspiracy. As is often the case in conspiracy thinking, some people have taken certain facts, combined them and come up with preposterous conclusions. In this case certain conspiracy theorists have added the facts that William Thetford was once employed by the CIA, that the CIA has funded psychological research and that some of that research was conducted by Thetford and Schucman, to concluded that the Course, which by its very nature is deeply threatening to the ego, must have been the result of a CIA plot. Contributing to this assertion is the fact that indeed some of the psychological research funded by the CIA was directed at discovering techniques for manipulating human beings, and that some of that "mind control" research was conducted in an unethical manner.

In the fall of 2006 I was asked about these kinds of assertions as found on a Web site with the headline: "ACIM: Lie Down With Dogs, Get Up With Fleas! The MKULTRA Milieu Surrounding the 'Scribing' of A Course In Miracles." (MKULTRA is an acronym for a CIA program which funded the research of a very large number of prominent psychologists back in the 1960's, some of that research later found to have been conducted unscrupulously.)

The Web site in question contained wildly outlandish statements and suggestions intended to establish guilt by association -- a strategy that a trial lawyer or tabloid journalist might use, but not a very credible approach to serious, intelligent, scholarly consideration. None of us who are familiar with the facts about Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford, particularly those who knew them personally, could possibly take seriously the claims made on that Web site. However, I could see how people not familiar with the historical facts about the Course and its scribing could take such claims seriously, especially if they are orthodox in religious belief, already skeptical about the phenomenon of channeling, and even more so if they are not familiar with words actually found on the pages of A Course in Miracles.

Anyone who cares to have an informed perspective on the Course should at least become acquainted with the Course itself, along with relevant portions of the following books: 1) Absence from Felicity: The Story of Helen Schucman and Her Scribing of A Course in Miracles by Kenneth Wapnick; 2) Understanding A Course in Miracles: The History, Message and Legacy of a Spiritual Path for Today and the earlier version of this work entitled: The Complete Story of the Course by D. Patrick Miller, and; 3) Journey Without Distance: the Story behind A Course in Miracles by Robert Skutch. Wapnick's book is by far the most authoritative account and some important, relevant excerpts from it are available on the World Wide Web. Those excerpts are linked from a site dedicated to Helen Schucman and entitled The Scribe. Another helpful site is that of the Foundation for Inner Peace, publisher of the Course. On that site, in particular see: The Scribing of A Course in Miracles.

In addressing the conspiracy theory about ACIM as a brain washing tool and perhaps the product of brain washing, one ought to take note of a statement written by Helen Schucman herself and which concludes the first part of the Preface to the Course, which is entitled "How It Came." That statement says: "The names of the collaborators in the recording of the Course do not appear on the cover because the Course can and should stand on its own. It is not intended to become the basis for another cult. Its only purpose is to provide a way in which some people will be able to find their own Internal Teacher" (ACIM Text Preface, p. viii; italics mine; see the entire three-part Preface here: www.facim.org/acim/description.htm).

The Course can stand on its own. You don't have to believe it was channeled from Jesus to make use of it, and you don't even have to believe in Jesus. Neither do you have to believe in the phenomenon of channeling.

It has always been clear to me that the Course was not intended to be the basis for a religious organization of any kind. For one thing, such organizations are rife with ego specialness, hierarchies of power and attempts to tell people what to believe rather than helping them to "find their own Internal Teacher." The Course actually dismisses the phrase "formal religion" as an oxymoron:

In this world, there is an astonishing tendency to join contradictory words into one term without perceiving the contradiction at all. The attempt to formalize religion is so obviously an ego attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable that it hardly requires elaboration here (ACIM Psychotherapy Pamphlet-2.II.2:2-3).

In other words, spirit is formless while the ego's attempt to formalize spirituality is an attempt to imprison in form what is formless; to elevate the importance of form, which is an illusory projection of the ego thought system, at the expense of an awareness of content -- mind and thought -- which is reality because mind is a dimension of spirit.

The Course does not encourage proselytizing or even setting up study groups. What it means by "teaching," is not formal didactic teaching (or preaching), but teaching love and forgiveness by example; something I think the CIA would have little use for, especially back in the 1960s. That said, it is true that for most of us the Course material is not easy to understand, integrate and apply in spite of the fact that it continually says it is a "simple course." So a teacher and a study group can be helpful. In this regard, the only teacher of the Course in whom I have complete confidence is Kenneth Wapnick, who was intimately associated with Bill and Helen, having first met them in 1972 and then working closely with them to prepare the Course for publication in 1976. When one reads his autobiographical accounts (see links at: the Website dedicated to Ken), it is evident that Ken's own spiritual journey had led him to a place of knowing the message of the Course before he ever read it. He, too, had experienced an inner presence that he recognized in the voice that speaks from the pages of the Course itself. In effect, Ken became Helen's designated teacher of ACIM, while she and Bill preferred to stay in the background after the Course was published. And Ken, who knew Bill and Helen very, very well, just laughed when I told him about the CIA conspiracy theory regarding the Course. He thought Bill would be quite amused and no doubt have some clever remark to make, since Bill had a very good sense of humor. Helen, on the other hand, would probably not have been amused at all. She was very intelligent and could be scathing in criticism when she was so inclined. One can obtain a very helpful understanding of Helen, Bill and their relationship by reading Ken's book Absence from Felicity, which I've already mentioned.

Nevertheless, even a glass of water can be misused, let alone a spiritual document. So, in spite of its intent, it is true that the Course has been misrepresented and misappropriated, sometimes with very unfortunate consequences. The Course, like the glass of water, can serve a constructive, helpful purpose or a harmful one, depending upon who is making use of it and the purpose they wish to serve. Obviously the same is true of the Bible, the Koran, and countless other spiritual writings. Likewise, psychology can be misused, which brings me to the CIA and MKULTRA.

According to John Marks in his book The Search for the Manchurian Candidate2, back in the Cold War era of the 1950s and 60s the CIA had an interest in being able to make use of the scientific knowledge and professional techniques of psychology. They sought to have rapport with a wide range of psychologists to whom they could have access for information, consultation and research. Consequently, a large number of research projects of various kinds were funded by the CIA through MKULTRA, and a very long list of some of the most distinguished names in psychology benefited from this funding, most of them not having a clue about the nefarious activities of people like Drs. Gottlieb and Cameron which were discovered later. It was not until the Church Committee3 investigations of Congress beginning in 1975 that the unconscionable activities sponsored by MKULTRA funding came to light. But, the mere fact that a particular psychologist's research was funded by the CIA through MKULTRA should not be used to incriminate that psychologist. Neither should the fact that a psychologist was employed by the CIA be used to vilify that person. Back in the fifties, there was a lot of concern about Russia and communism, and there was a high level of public confidence in the CIA. What we've learned since then should not serve to discredit every one of the distinguished psychologists who received funding through MKULTRA, or who was employed by the CIA. The practice of guilt by association, which the Web site in question attempts, is reminiscent of another phenomenon of the late 1940's - early 1950's: McCarthyism.

Among the psychologists whose research was funded by the CIA through MKULTRA was the widely known and beloved Dr. Carl Rogers, who was instrumental in the development of what became known as "humanistic psychology," and who founded the "Person-Centered Approach" to psychotherapy. His goal was not to manipulate, brain wash and deceive people, but to free them from their conflicts so that they could become "fully functioning" persons -- "self-actualizing" human beings. One of Roger's most famous books was entitled On Becoming a Person4 wherein the second major section was titled "How Can I Help?" Yet Rogers received funding for some of his research through the CIA's MKULTRA program, just as did Bill Thetford and Helen Schucman.

In his book Marks discusses and quotes Rogers as follows:

Although he says he would have nothing to do with secret Agency activities today, he asks for understanding in light of the climate of the 1950s. "We really did regard Russia as the enemy," declares Rogers, "and we were trying to do various things to make sure the Russians did not get the upper hand." Rogers received an important professional reward for joining the Society [for the Investigation of Human Ecology, later called the Human Ecology Fund] board. Executive Director James Monroe had let him know that, once he agreed to serve, he could expect to receive a Society grant. "That appealed to me because I was having trouble getting funded," says Rogers. "Having gotten that grant [about $30,000 over three years], it made it possible to get other grants from Rockefeller and NIMH." Rogers still feels grateful to the Society for helping him establish a funding "track record," but he emphasizes that the Agency [CIA] never had any effect on his research (brackets mine).

It is common for psychologists to seek government funding for their research projects, and in the "publish or perish" climate of prestigious universities like Columbia it is not surprising that some of the work done by Bill Thetford and Helen Schucman received funding through MKULTRA. But it is hardly accurate to characterize that research as being directed toward "brain washing," any more than it would be accurate to characterize Roger's work that way.

My principle point here is that it is important to understand the historical context for the MKULTRA funding as well as to realize that not all of the psychological research funded by the CIA was of the dishonest and inhumane sort carried out by Dr. John Gottlieb and others. For an extensive discussion of this and of the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology see "CIA's Behavior Caper" by Dr. Patricia Greenfiled, professor of psychology at UCLA.

Another example of legitimate psychological research funded in part by the CIA is Dr. John Gittinger's "Personality Assessment System," or PAS. This system was of particular interest to Bill Thetford and Helen Schucman for very sound professional reasons, and it utilized one of the intelligence and personality assessment tests which has been a standard in the psychology profession for decades: the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scales (WAIS) which were a refinement of the earlier Wechsler-Bellview Intelligence Scales. Gittinger began his work on the PAS in 1948-49 when he was a psychologist at Central State Hospital in Norman, Oklahoma. To this day, the PAS is utilized by professional psychologists who are responsible for psychological diagnosis in connection with mental health treatment. Following are some excerpts from the PAS Website:

Psychologist Dr. John Gittinger conceived the fundamental idea behind the "Personality Assessment System", or PAS, many years ago when he observed that our personalities are shaped, to a large extent, by the way we use the several components of our intellect. He realized that each person learns to cope with life by using (or not using) the intellectual strengths and overcoming (or not overcoming) the intellectual weaknesses that she or he may have learned or acquired by genetic endowment. He saw that, over the period of our maturation into adulthood, this process produces what we call each person's "personality." The result, in other words, for each of us, is a coherent pattern for how to "do" life....

Even John Marks, in his anti-CIA book, In Search of the Manchurian Candidate, recognized and reported that the most positive development during the 1950's and 1960's in the CIA was the Personality Assessment System....

After Dr. Gittinger’s retirement from government service in 1978, many of the psychologists with whom he had worked developed university affiliations. Students at such prestigious institutions as Cornell University, The Ohio State University, The University of Missouri, and American International College are among those who have been provided with an opportunity to learn to analyze and interpret PAS profiles. Further, the Gittinger Assessment Center, established at Hocking College in 1984, serves as a site for training, resources, information, data collection, and future development of the PAS. (For the full account see: Originator: John Gittinger and for a complete explanation of the PAS see: Non-technical Overview.)

It is quite understandable to me that Bill Thetford and Helen Schucman would have an interest in the PAS and in conducting research with it. Certainly any psychological test (like the glass of water I mentioned) could be used for unethical purposes of manipulation and control. However, Bill and Helen, like Carl Rogers, were psychologists interested in helping people. Helen's particular interest was in children, and particularly mentally retarded children.

So, some of the research Bill and Helen engaged in was funded through MKULTRA, but it is not accurate to characterize their interest as having to do with "mind control," nor is it accurate to characterize the entire body of research funded through MKULTRA that way. Further, much of what went on under the aegis of the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology was of legitimate interest to professional psychologists and that Society may even have helped the science of psychology to move in a broader, more  humanistic direction. To quote John Marks again:

By investing up to $400,000 a year into the early, innovative work of men like Carl Rogers, Charles Osgood, and Martin Orne, the CIA's Human Ecology Fund helped liberate the behavioral sciences from the world of rats and cheese. With a push from the Agency as well as other forces, the field opened up.

Summary of Dr. William Thetford's Professional Career

When he graduated from DePauw University in 1944, Bill was uncertain about what he wanted to do. He had majored in psychology but also enrolled in the pre-med program. Even though he was accepted at the University of Chicago School of Medicine, he still wasn't sure he wanted to study medicine, so he decided to apply for a job at the University and wait to make a decision about whether to enroll in medical school. The job he got involved work as an administrator with the Manhattan Project with responsibilities for supervising certain buildings and for radiation decontamination. Robert Skutch5 quotes Bill about this job:

The atmosphere in our department at the time was an extremely exciting one. There was a sense of utmost urgency and high sense of national priority to the work being done...It was the belief of the scientific community that the Nazis had already progressed very far in the development of atomic energy, and that we were in a life or death race with them.

Remember, this was before the end of World War II and the social/political climate in the U.S. was profoundly affected by that war as well as the "Cold War" which followed.

Bill finally decided not to enter medical school, but when the atomic bombs were dropped he was horrified at the devastation and quit his job. Skutch quotes him regarding his next step:

A few weeks later Dr. Carl Rogers arrived on campus. Although I knew nothing about Rogers, who even then was one of the most eminent names in the field of psychology, I signed up for his first course on Client centered Psychotherapy, simply because some of the graduate students I knew recommended that I do so.

Rogers immediately recognized a very intelligent student with keen insight into what Rogers was teaching and to Bill's dismay Rogers appointed him as a teaching assistant and then invited him to become Rogers' research assistant.

In 1949 Bill received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago after completing research related to Rogers' theory. Again, Skutch quotes Bill:

I was intrigued with the possibility of measuring the autonomic nervous system and its functions before and after Rogerian therapy...Rogers was very impressed by this study, and I was actually stunned that I had found any significant results at all.....In March 1949, somewhat to my surprise, I received my Ph.D. However, I still had no real awareness of the field of psychology...Although I had met many eminent people during my studies...no one seemed to have any awareness of how these specialized areas of knowledge could be synthesized.

Even though Bill lacked confidence in his own qualifications it seems evident that many others were quite impressed with him. This kind of situation involving Bill's humility and the high regard of others appears to have characterized much of his early professional career. After Chicago, at the suggestion of a friend, he applied for and was accepted into a position at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago where he worked in research involving schizophrenic patients and patterns of response to the Rorschach inkblot test. This was done under the direction of Dr. Samuel Beck, a leading authority on the Rorschach, about which Bill knew nothing. But, in what by now seems to be characteristic fashion, Beck was quite impressed with Bill and even regarded his lack of experience with the Rorschach as a positive factor since it meant that he would not bring bias into his studies. Bill stayed on in this program under Dr. Beck for 2 1/2 years, and it is during this time that he was introduced to Freudian psychoanalytic theory, which was contrary to Rogers' theories. Skutch quotes Bill about this period as saying:

One thing I felt strongly about, both during graduate studies and afterwards at Michael Reese, was that I did not in any way wish to be a university professor...I had already turned down several offers...I felt I had nothing to profess. Also, I did not feel that university life was something that I would happily adapt to.

Bill subsequently moved on to enroll in the Washington School of Psychiatry in Washington. D.C., because he was intrigued by the eminent Dr. Harry Stack Sullivan's interpersonal theory of psychiatry which focused upon interpersonal relations rather than the individual psychodynamics of Freudian psychology. (By the way, this kind of focus in psychological study is compatible with the study of human ecology as a psychological undertaking since it takes an interest in the environment of human relationships surrounding an individual.) This was during the period 1951-54 when, in addition to being a post-graduate student at the Washington School of Psychiatry, Bill was employed as a psychologist for the U.S. government, and this is when Bill’s association with the CIA began. I could not find details of his government employment, although one source states that during 1953 Bill served as a consultant to the Foreign Service Institute in Beirut, Lebanon. No doubt Bill was employed by the CIA at this time. Skutch quotes Bill about the next phase of his career:

When I completed the study program at the Washington School, I was undecided about what to do next. Since I had long been attracted to New York City, I decided to go there to look for a position. The head of the Psychological Placement Service at the N.Y. State Employment Service said he had absolutely the perfect job for me...What he had in mind was the Directorship of the Psychology Department at the Institute of Living in Hartford Connecticut.

The Institute for Living is a very well known mental health treatment center and hospital, which was founded in 1822, being one of the first mental health facilities of its kind in the U.S. Bill stayed there as Director of the Division of Psychology from 1954 to 1955 when he moved to the CIA-funded Society for the Study of Human Ecology at Cornell University Medical College. About this, Skutch quotes Bill as saying:

After a year at Hartford I received a call from Dr. Harold G. Wolff, one of the founders of psychosomatic medicine, a leading authority on stress disorders, and at the time Chairman of the Department of Neurology at Cornell...Dr. Wolf offered me an appointment as Chief Psychologist in the Human Ecology Study Program which he was directing. My uneasiness about becoming involved in a university position had mellowed somewhat by this time and I decided to consider an academic appointment. As a result, I accepted Dr. Wolff's offer, and before I knew it I became an instructor and a year later was promoted to assistant professor.

The idea of taking an ecological approach to the psychological study of human beings intrigued Bill and fit in with his general tendency to be attracted to unconventional approaches to psychology which emphasized understanding people in the context of their family relationships as well as their socio-cultural and natural environment, the kind of interest that had led him to the Washington School of Psychiatry. John Marks characterizes Wolff as not only being brilliant, but also as arrogant and quite interested in helping the CIA find ways to both manipulate human beings as well as train them to resist such manipulation, but there is nothing in Bill's history to suggest that he shared these kinds of interests. There is nothing in Bill's story to indicate that he himself had any interest in brain washing, hypnosis, drug-induced states or the like. Whether he had any knowledge at all of these activities being carried on with CIA sponsorship through MKULTRA is unclear to me, but I think it is unlikely that he did. Anyway, he stayed on at the Human Ecology Study Program from 1955-57, and then, upon the urging of a friend, applied for and -- even though rather unsure of himself -- took a very challenging job at Columbia University where he began in 1958 as an Associate Professor of Medical Psychology and Director of the Division of Clinical Psychology at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital.

Apparently he was fascinated by his work under Wolf at Cornell, and the job at Columbia had been subject to controversy because members of the search committee could not agree upon a candidate. Thus, they were willing to consider Bill who apparently was less controversial to them. Bill told the Cornell people that he would accept the job if given an Associate Professorship, which he thought quite unlikely. But they surprised him by offering it. So, off he went.

Faculty politics can be quite conflicted and difficult. In fact, it was this very kind of difficulty that later led Bill to make his famous speech to Helen in which he said that there must be a better way for them to relate to each other as well as to their colleagues. They had been involved in some bitter, acrimonious interpersonal conflicts by June of 1965 when he made that speech, and when Helen -- surprisingly -- immediately agreed with him and said she was willing to help. This event led to the scribing of A Course in Miracles following a series of unusual dreams and visions on Helen's part during the summer of 1965.

The story of Bill's relationship to Helen began when he hired her as a research assistant at Columbia in 1958. Shortly after assuming his position at Columbia, he found that his new job was going to demand much more from him than he had imagined, or been led to believe. As he was getting himself oriented and setting some priorities, the Dean of the College notified him that the University had received a large grant from the National Institute of Neurological Diseases for conducting a cooperative study of neurological and sensory deficits in infants and young children. A research psychologist with special training and skill in working with children and in psychological testing was needed. Helen became that psychologist and seven years later she and Bill became involved with the scribing of the Course. From then on, their work with the Course was kept a carefully guarded secret, because it would certainly have jeopardized their professional status as well as their employment.

Helen herself had a very strong authoritative and assertive personality, while Bill tended to be much more passive and inwardly unsure of himself. As I mentioned, she and Bill had much difficulty in their relationship, which was one of the factors leading up to Bill's earnest plea for "a better way." Anyone who knew Helen would find it ludicrous that somehow Bill could have used "mind control" techniques to influence her!

In conclusion, I'll quote a few passages from D. Patrick Miller's first book about the Course:6

Whether one views it as happenstance or predestined preparation, several major elements of Thetford's character made him suitable to become Schucman's helper in the recording of the Course. Perhaps most significant was his reluctance to "profess" a distinct philosophy of his own. It's safe to assume that few academics of his status could have resisted the temptation to revise, add to, or even co-opt a major project on which they were assisting a junior colleague, regardless of the project's nature or origin.

Second, Thetford's intellectual curiosity and flexibility would counterbalance Schucman's judgmental tendency, and help both of them deal with a system of psycho-spiritual thought that substantially challenged their psychoanalytic training. Thetford's brush with humanistic psychology may have also prepared him for the transpersonal dimensions of the Course material.

Finally, the younger professor's passivity is probably what made it possible for him to tolerate Helen Schucman's contrariness, albeit not happily. It remains a sad irony that the tenuous balance of the relationship between the two Course recorders never matured into a healthy reciprocity. In 1977, the year following publication of the Course, Schucman was forced to retire from Columbia-Presbyterian at age sixty-eight...In 1978 Thetford took early retirement and moved to California.

Let me just repeat that revelations about unethical and illegal activities sponsored by the CIA through MKULTRA only began to surface as a result of the Church Committee investigations in 1975. The last date I see for a joint psychological publication by Thetford and Schucman is 1972, though Bill continued his role in the MKULTRA-sponsored personality research project 130 until he retired. That project was professionally sound, utilized the PAS, and would only have been of use to the CIA in the same indirect way that the research of Carl Rogers and many other legitimate psychologists would have been. I think that the reason for keeping that project classified is that the CIA hoped to prevent Russia and other foreign countries from either knowing about or making use of psychological research sponsored by the CIA in the United States.

Perhaps this background and summary will contribute to an understanding of why the allegations of conspiracy and "mind control" as being factors in the scribing of A Course in Miracles are preposterous. Anyone unfamiliar with the Course who wants to know more will have to do more reading, particularly reading Wapnick's Absence from Felicity. It might also be helpful to watch the video entitled, "The Story of A Course in Miracles" which is available from the Course publisher, the Foundation for Inner Peace. See their catalog at: https://www.acim.org/miva/merchant.mvc

_______________________________________
1See chapters 4 and 5 of A Primer of Psychology According to A Course in Miracles by Joe R. Jesseph,
 Outskirts Press, Denver, Colorado. 2008
2Marks, John. The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control. New York: Dell
 Publishing, 1988.
3Also on the Internet see this page of the History Matters Website.
4Rogers, Carl R. On Becoming a Person. The Riverside Press: Cambridge, MA. 1961
5Skutch, Robert. Journey Without Distance: The Story Behind A Course in Miracles. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 2001
6Miller, D. Patrick. The Complete Story of the Course: The History, The People, The Controversies Behind A Course in Miracles. Berkeley, CA: Fearless Books, 1997.

Full Article and hyperlinks:

http://www.miraclestudies.net/BillCIA.html

W.S. Burroughs Warned of Elitist Nazi World State using Psychic, Electronic Mind Control

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. - The Adding Machine: Selected Essays. "Mind War" - William S. Burroughs (1985)

Mind War: Text Files

Related Archives:

From PSYOP to Mind War: Aquino and Vallely (pdf file)

Not a Ghost of a Chance

RE/Search Interview with William S. Burroughs (1982)

"Vice President Burroughs" Confirms Remote Electronic Mind Control Program

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From MindWar to FoxNews

The "Luggage Physics" of a "Chesse Dealer": Marcel Duchamp, Militarism and Patriotism

Duchamp's "Luggage Physics": Art on the Move

"Well, it had to come. How long will it last?" wondered Marcel
Duchamp in a letter to Katherine Dreier about the onset of World
War II following the invasion of Poland. "How will we come out of
it, if we come out of it?" At fifty-two, and thus too old for
military service, Duchamp envisaged doing "some civilian work to
help. What?? Everything is still a mess," he exclaimed. In Paris,
half deserted and in darkness, he was "waiting for the first bomb,
to leave for somewhere in the country."[1 <#foot1>] The eruption
of the war had Duchamp packing his bags again, just as he did
during World War I when he first came to America. In this period
he was producing materials for a box packed in a valise, a folding
exhibition space that would assemble reproductions of his artistic
corpus. Resembling a portable museum, The Box in a Valise
(1935-41) collected 69 miniature reproductions and replicas that
he intended to assemble in America.[2 <#foot2>] Traveling between
the unoccupied and occupied zones with a cheese dealer's pass in
the spring of 1941, Duchamp anxiously transported across the
German lines a large suitcase filled not with cheese, but with
materials for his boxes.

...

The materials for assembly
and reproductions for fifty boxes were shipped off to New York in
1941 in two cases, along with Peggy Guggenheim's recently acquired
art collection, under the label "household goods." By 14 May 1942,
when Duchamp got his papers and headed from Marseilles to New
York, most artists and intellectuals had already left France; this
escape route would soon be cut off.[4 <#foot4>] Fleeing the
ravages of war in the nick of time, Duchamp would once again
assume the migrant condition inaugurated by his arrival to the
U.S. during World War I.

Duchamp's repeated attempts to take refuge from war reflected his
enduring aversion to militarism and patriotism. Speaking of the
reasons for his first migration to the U.S. during WWI, he stated:
"I had left France basically for lack of militarism. For lack of
patriotism, if you wish" (Cabanne 59). He held this conviction
throughout his life, although after WWII it was colored by
ambivalence and regret.[5 <#foot5>] Even as early as 1905, "being
neither militaristic nor soldierly," he availed himself of the
exemption of "art worker" by becoming a printer of engravings (the
other option was to be a typographer) in order to reduce his
military service (Cabanne 19-20). Duchamp's aversion to war
largely overlapped his discontent with art and his sense that he
was incompatible with its endeavors. In a letter to Walter Pach
(27 Apr. 1915), he notes the combined impact of war and art on his
decision to leave France:

For a long time and even before the war, I have disliked this
"artistic life" in which I was involved.--It is the exact
opposite of what I want. So I tried to somewhat escape from
the artists through the library. Then during the war, I felt
increasingly more incompatible with this milieu. I absolutely
wanted to leave. (Duchamp, Amicalement 40)

His disenchantment with art is based on its exclusive cultivation
of visual aspects (what he called the "retinal") to the detriment
of intellectual expression. Trapped by professional and market
pressures that left artists to merely repeat themselves by copying
and multiplying a few ideas, he actively sought to escape. War
appears to have exacerbated this rising disaffection with art and
with the artistic milieu by bringing it to a crisis. However, the
challenge of implementing his decision to leave both war and art
behind and the questions this decision raises gained renewed
urgency upon the eruption of WWII.

http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/text-only/issue.905/16.1judovitz.txt

Rolling up the White Man's World like a Carpet (Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions)

A prophet had told them that through the power of the Ghost Dance the earth would roll up like a carpet, with all the white man's works...the whole works. - Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions

Lame Deer, a 20th century shaman among the Sioux, had this vision of America's future. "Listen," he said, "I saw this in my mind not long ago: in my vision the electric light will stop sometime. It is used too much for TV and going to the moon. The day is coming when nature will stop the electricity. Police without flashlights, beer getting hot in the refrigerators, planes dropping from the sky, even the President can't call up somebody on the phone. A young man will come, or men, who'll know how to shut off all electricity. It will be painful, like giving birth. Rapings in the dark, winos breaking into the liquor stores, a lot of destruction. People are being too smart, too clever; the machine stops and they are helpless, because they have forgotten how to make do without the machine. There is a Light Man coming, bringing a new light. It will happen before this century is over. The man who has this power will do good things too -- stop all atomic power, stop wars, just by shutting the white electro-power off. I hope to see this, but then I'm also afraid. What will be will be.

"I am trying to bring the ghost dance back," Lame Deer said, "but interpret it in a new way. I think it has been misunderstood, but after eighty years I believe that more and more people are sensing what we meant when we prayed for a new earth and that now, not only the Indians, but everybody has become an endangered species. So let the Indians help you bring on a new earth without pollution or war. Let's roll up the world. It needs it."

http://www.texfiles.com/features/prophecies.htm

Related Archive:

Lame Deer Seeker of Visions

Only human beings have come to a point where they no longer know why they exist. They don't use their brains and they have forgotten the secret knowledge of their bodies, their senses, or their dreams. They don't use the knowledge the spirit has put into every one of them; they are not even aware of this, and so they stumble along blindly on the road to nowhere--a paved highway which they themselves bulldoze and make smooth so that they can get faster to the big empty hole which they'll find at the end, waiting to swallow them up. It's a quick comfortable superhighway, but I know where it leads to. I've seen it. I've been there in my vision and it makes me shudder to think about it. -  Lakota Shaman Lame Deer, Lame Deer Seeker of Visions

Virilio, Visionics and Electronic Apartheid: Automating the Interpretation of Reality (notes)

...

Nevertheless, _Polar Inertia_ is an important book for beginning to assess the revolutionary cultural impact of digital *visionics* in media studies, for affirming the crisis of representation and ambiguity surrounding the factual in the visual domain, and for anticipating the age of paradoxical logic and *telepresence* (as the possibility of the 'actual' end of modernity). In this context, one also has to wonder whether Virilio's acknowledgment of *speed* as the engine of the acceleration, breakdown, and parabolic distortion of images (and imaging) redeems an anti-ocularcentric turn in Western thought (particularly French poststructuralist thought); or does it forewarn of an active *hyperCartesianism* and extension of classical optical communication by 'electro-optical' communication. Species of anti-ocularcentric discourse resist the static taxonomies of a rigid space- time in modernist vision, whereby *knowing* was no longer an imitation of the world based on similitude, but a self-contained universal science whose function was to represent forms, magnitudes, quantities, and relations of objects in a homogenous, mechanical space. Virilio pays homage to Foucault and Merleau-Ponty in this regard for shaking up the order of things in the Western eye, disturbing the primacy of perception, and questioning the 'electronic apartheid' of the media world (although he perhaps deliberately neglects Gilles Deleuze and Luce Irigaray when they criticize Western thought for its reverence of mimetic representations, for its rejection of phantasms, its consumption of women for *specularization*, and its framed, visual reduplication of male-dominated ideas).

The reader of _Polar Inertia_, then, is led to believe that the shift toward sightless, digital vision is a movement away from the modernist perception that emphasizes the movement of visual information in a mechanical, linear, segmented time, and toward a new perceptual revolution deriving from past and present breakthroughs in quantum theory. Virilio, however, is highly critical of the effects of the 'lensless', synthetic, point to point digitalization/manipulation of appearances, and the accelerated 'photonic' transmission of those appearances. He suggests that the effects of the new 'active' optics are a deepening of some of the negative aspects of Cartesian objectivism and conventional camera cinematography, particularly regarding the emergence of paradoxical forms of duration and space-time regimes.

http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol6-2002/n42kafala

Paul Virilio - War and Cinema: The Logistics of Perception

ce399 notes:

There exists yet another layer to the automation of the interpretation of reality through technological means that Virilio hints at though does not make explicitly clear. A previous ce399 note was made here in this regard:

News items in corporate media communications can also trigger an accompanying message in a method similar to a midi sample in computer generated music in order to 'blanket' a target geographic area with  spectral or psionic transmissions conveying Pentagon PSYOP deception and misinformation - this further strengthens the effect (a 'force multiplier') of the word-image communication broadcasts by 'traditional' media.

--

With the advent of remote brain scanning technology, a keyword read by the target individual or group in print media format, for example, can trigger silent audio (or voice-to-skull) transmissions. These transmissions can further automate anti-critical thinking programming via broadcast of  pre-recorded positive or negative corporate-military propaganda messages which, again, function as psychological operations (PSYOP)  'force multipliers'  via remote, automated and space-based action agents. 

Homeland Security Moving to Abandoned Insane Asylum

The Homeland Security Department is moving to an abandoned insane asylum.

The department outlined its $4.1 billion plan to consolidate most of its more than 60 Washington-area offices into a massive headquarters complex to be built at St. Elizabeths Hospital compound in Southeast Washington.

Department officials say the move will bring convenience savings and more camaraderie and cooperation among employees.

But employees shouldn’t start packing just yet. Most won’t begin moving to the St. Elizabeth’s Hospital compound in Southeast Washington until 2012 at the earliest, and the entire move won’t be done until 2015.

Homeland Security’s offices are scattered throughout Washington and Northern Virginia, an area that has some of the worst traffic in the nation. Homeland Security decided to start looking for a main headquarters site after a 2005 review ordered by Secretary Michael Chertoff showed people were spending too much time in traffic trying to get to meetings, spokesman Larry Orluskie said.

A headquarters complex “will ensure a unity of effort and command for the secretary, as well as build a culture and a spirit which are essential to having a happy and productive work force,” Undersecretary for Management Paul Schneider told the House Homeland Security subcommittee on management, investigations and oversight at a March 1 hearing.

Senior officials are concerned that a single Homeland Security culture — one that encourages cooperation among components such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Coast Guard — has not yet gelled. Schneider told the committee that grouping most component headquarters together will help foster a “one DHS” culture.

After consulting with the General Services Administration, Homeland Security settled on St. Elizabeths, which at 4.5 million square feet had the most available space in Washington. The District of Columbia will continue to operate the mental health institution on St. Elizabeths east campus. Homeland Security will take over the now-vacant west campus.

Homeland Security considered moving to Walter Reed Hospital, also in Washington, but decided against it because the Pentagon’s planned base closures would not shut it down in time. Homeland Security also rejected other Washington-area locations such as the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium site, which is expected to be demolished, and one of its current headquarters near the Naval Observatory because they either were not under federal control or were not big enough.

But even St. Elizabeths isn’t big enough to house all of Homeland Security’s 22,000 Washington-area employees, who are now housed in 7.1 million square feet.

The Secret Service, US-VISIT, Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, Office of the Inspector General, Citizenship and Immigration Services and science and technology directorate likely will remain off campus, according to an October plan prepared by the department.

Orluskie said that since most component headquarters will move nearly intact to the new compound, little will change about how agency managers work with their employees.

Similar moves have worked in the past. The Federal Emergency Management Agency was scattered among several Washington offices after it was created out of various disaster-related agencies in 1979. Until FEMA’s offices were combined into a single headquarters about 18 months later, the agency was disjointed and employees lacked a strong sense of identity, said Leo Bosner, the American Federation of Government Employees local president for FEMA.

“When they created the C Street headquarters, it did a lot of good,” Bosner said. “People were able to work face-to-face and meld together. . . . You theoretically could do things online [or with teleconferencing], but that doesn’t work all the time. People have got to work together and talk to each other.”

Former Homeland Security inspector general Clark Kent Ervin also applauded the move.“A big problem from Day One has been a lack of cohesion and esprit de corps,” Ervin said. “It’s belated, but it’s better late than never.”

The department estimates it will cost $4.1 billion to develop St. Elizabeths and relocate the department’s offices there. But Schneider said the move will save the department $64 million a year in leasing costs. Homeland Security now rents 70 percent of its office space.

The Coast Guard will be the first to move in 2010, Orluskie said. Homeland Security’s headquarters functions will follow in 2012, and all remaining components will move between 2012 and 2015.

Mental health activist Dorothea Dix founded St. Elizabeths in 1855, and many Civil War veterans received treatment there. John Hinckley has been at St. Elizabeths since he shot President Reagan in 1981. Charles Guiteau, who killed President Garfield in 1881, and poet Ezra Pound also were committed to the hospital. The facility grounds include a cemetery of about 300 Union and Confederate soldiers who died while at the facility.

Orluskie said GSA insists on preserving the site’s historic value and will either leave historic buildings intact or renovate them from within, he said.

http://www.federaltimes.com/index.php?S=2626923

GTMO Detainees Subjected to "Invasion of Space by Female" and "Dance Instruction" (pdf file)

 
Stalags - Holocaust and Pornography in Israel
http://www.siff.net/festival/film/detail.aspx?id=27259&FID=64

Declaration of Gitanjali S. Gutierrez, Esq., Lawyer for Mohammed al Qahtani

The U.S. military transferred Mohammed al Qahtani to Guantánamo in January 2002. At some point in early September 2002, military intelligence personnel at Guantánamo began planning a new, more aggressive interrogation regime for Mr. al Qahtani. Major General Michael Dunlavey, the Commander of the Guantánamo detention center, sent a request up the chain of command on October 11, 2002 for approval for an interrogation plan for Mr. al Qahtani that included 19 techniques outside the traditional guidelines for military interrogations.

...

The interrogation log explicitly documents several instances where Mohammad al Qahtani is subjected to sexual humiliation techniques:

1. There are at least ten separate instances when the interrogation log reports that interrogators used a technique labeled “invasion of space by a female” or that Mr. al Qahtani is repulsed, angered or otherwise bothered by a female interrogator invading his personal space. The details of what this involved are generally lacking.6 “Invasion of Space by a Female” is used to describe a number of tactics, from a female interrogator straddling Mr. al Qahtani and molesting him while other military guards pin his body to the floor against his will to a female interrogator rubbing his neck and hair, often until Mr. al Qahtani resists with force and is subdued by military guards.

2. There are documented instances of forced nudity7 and also

3. “Dance instruction.”
a. In one incident, a mask was placed on Mr. al Qahtani and he was forced to undergo “dance instruction” with a male interrogator.8
b. In another incident, he was forced to wear a towel “like a burqa” and undergo “dance instruction” with a male interrogator.9

4. The interrogators made sexual insults and sexually offensive comments about Mr. al Qahtani and about his female family members, specifically his mother and sisters...10

5. Mr. al Qahtani was forced to either wear11 or to look at and study12 pornographic pictures. Interrogators required him to memorize details of the pornographic pictures and answer questions as a means to “test” his willingness to cooperate and to end other abusive interrogation practices. In addition to explicit sexual and religious humiliation, other aspects of Mr. al Qahtani’s treatment and detention were also morally humiliating and a denial of his human dignity. This included forcing him to urinate in front of U.S. personnel in either a bottle or in his pants while in restraints13 and then subsequently denying him the opportunity to clean himself. Military authorities also deprived him of privacy in his living conditions, specifically during showers when both female and male personnel were present.14 On at least one occasion during an interrogation, he was also stripped and forcibly given an enema while military police restrained him in the presence of multiple U.S. personnel. He was also subjected to the following treatment: “On 20 Dec 02, an interrogator tied a leash to the subject of the first Special Interrogation Plan’s chains, led him around the room, and forced him to perform a series of dog tricks.”15

--

Footnotes:

6 (1) 12/04/02 at 1800 “The detainee was bothered by the presence and touch of a female.”; (2) 12/05/02 at
1800 “Detainee became irritated with the female invading his personal space.”; (3) 12/06/02 at 1930 “The
approaches employed [included] Invasion of Space by a Female.”; (4) 12/09/02 at 2340 “Detainee was
repulsed by the female invasion of his personal space.”; (5) 12/10/02 at 1830 “Detainee became very
annoyed with the female invading his personal space.”; (6a) 12/12/02 at 1830 “SGT L started “invasion of
personal space” approach.”; (6b) 12/12/02 at 2312 “The detainee is still annoyed with the female invasion
of space.”; (7) 12/19/02 at 2320 “He attempts to resist female contact.”; (8) 12/21/02 at 2223 “He was laid
out on the floor so I straddled him without putting my weight on him.”; (9) 12/23/02 at 2245 “Female
interrogator used invasion of personal space and detainee cried out to Allah several times.”; (10) 12/25/02
at 1929 “Detainee spoke in English when the female interrogator invaded his personal space.”
7 See, e.g., 12/20/02 at 2200 “The detainee was stripped searched. Initially he was attempting to resist the
guards. After approximately five minutes of nudity the detainee ceased to resist. He would only stare at the
wall with GREAT focus. His eyes were squinted and stuck on one point on the wall directly in front of him.
He later stated that he knew there was nothing he could do with so many guards around him, so why should
he resist. He stated that he did not like the females viewing his naked body while being searched and if felt
he could have done something about it then he would have.”
8 12/12/03 at 1115 “In order to escalate the detainee’s emotions, a mask was made from an MRE box with a
smiley face on it and placed on the detainee’s head for a few moments. A latex glove was inflated and
labeled the “sissy slap” glove. This glove was touched to the detainee’s face periodically after explaining
the terminology to him. The mask was placed back on the detainee’s head. While wearing the mask, the
team began dance instruction with the detainee. The detainee became agitated and began shouting.”
9 12/20/02 at 1300 “A towel was placed on the detainee’s head like a burka with his face exposed and the
interrogator proceeded to give the detainee dance lessons. The detainee became agitated and tried to kick an
MP. No retaliation was used for the kick and the dance lesson continued.”
10 12/17/02 at 2100 “Detainee appeared to have been disturbed by the word homosexual. He did not appear
to appreciate being called a homosexual. He denies being a homosexual. He also appeared to be very
annoyed by the use of his mother and sister as examples of prostitutes and whores.”
11 (1) 12/19/02 at 0200“While walking out, detainee pulled a picture of a model off (it had been fashioned
into a sign to hang around his neck)…”; (2) 12/23/02 at 0001 “Upon entering booth, lead changed white
noise music and hung pictures of swimsuit models around his neck. Detainee was left in booth listening to
white noise.”; (3) 12/24/02 at 0001 “Control entered booth, changed music playing, and hung binder of
fitness models around detainee’s neck.”; (4) 12/26/02 at 0001 “Detainee was eating his food (given by the
previous team). Lead walked into booth turned on white noise and put picture binder of swimsuit models
over detainees neck.”12 (1) 12/17/02 at 2200 “He appeared disgusted by the photos of UBL and a variety of
sexy females.
Detainee would avoid looking at all of the photos shown to him.”; (2) 12/19/02 at 0300 “Interrogators had
detainee look at pictures of women in bikinis and identify if the women were the same or different.
Detainee refused to look at girls and began struggling. A few drops of water were sprinkled on his head to
gain compliance.”; (3) 12/20/02 at 0001 “Detainee listened to white noise while interrogators added photos
of fitness models to a binder. Once completed, the interrogators began showing the photos and asking the
detainee detailed questions about the photos.”; (4) 12/21/02 at 0001 “New interrogation shift enters the
booth and begins “attention to detail” approach. Detainee looks at photos of fitness models and answers
questions about the photos.”; (5) 12/22/02 at 0030 “Lead began the “attention to detail” theme with the
fitness model photos. Detainee refused to look at photos claiming it was against his religion. Lead poured a
24 oz bottle of water over detainee’s head. Detainee then began to look at photos.”; (6) 12/23/02 “The
“attention to detail” approach began. Lead pulled pictures of swimsuit models off detainee and told him the
test of his ability to answer questions would begin. Detainee refused to answer and finally stated that he
would after lead poured water over detainees head and was told he would be subjected to this treatment day
after day.”; (7) 12/24/02 at 0200 “Control entered the booth and began the “attention to detail” lesson for
the night. The detainee still would not accurately answer questions about the fitness models and control
stated that the lesson would continue the next day.”; (8) 12/26/02 at 0030 “Lead entered the booth and
began attention to detail approach. Detainee missed 3 of 10 questions. He has learned to provide more
details and provides enough information to substantiate his answers.”; (9) 12/27/02 at 0100 “Detainee was
taken to bathroom and walked 10 minutes. The “attention to detail” theme was run with the fitness model
photos.”
13 “Detainee again said he has to go to bathroom. SGT R said he can go in the bottle. Detainee said he
wanted to go to the bathroom because it’s more comfortable. SGT R said “You’ve ruined all trust, you can
either go in the bottle or in your pants.” Detainee goes in his pants.” (11/25/2002 at 1000).
14 12/21/02 at 1630 “Detainee given shower, brushed teeth, and given new uniform. The detainee was very
shy and asked several times to cover himself with his trousers or a towel while in the shower.”
15 Schmidt Report. This is documented in the interrogation log as follows: “Told detainee that a dog is held
in higher esteem because dogs know right from wrong and know to protect innocent people from bad
people. Began teaching the detainee lessons such as stay, come, and bark to elevate his social status up to
that of a dog. Detainee became very agitated.” Then: “Dog tricks continued and detainee stated he should
be treated like a man. Detainee was told he would have to learn who to defend and who to attack.
Interrogator showed photos of 9-11 victims and told detainee he should bark happy for these people.
Interrogator also showed photos of Al Qaida terrorists and told detainee he should growl at these
people.” (12/20/02 at 1115, 1300)

Download Doc14_-_ANG_Declaration_of_Gitanjalifr (pdf file)

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Former Liberian Leader Charles Taylor Denies Cannibalism Charges During War Crimes Trial

When There's No More Room in Hell..The Dead Shall Walk the Earth

Charles Taylor Denies Cannibalism

Former Liberian leader Charles Taylor has denied eating human flesh or ordering militias to eat their enemies.

Speaking at his war crimes trial in The Hague, Mr Taylor was quoted as saying accusations of cannibalism levelled against him were "total nonsense".

Some of Mr Taylor's former fighters have previously told the court that he had ordered them to eat their enemies.

Mr Taylor has denied 11 charges related to the civil war in Sierra Leone, Liberia's neighbour.

At the start of the third week of his trial, Mr Taylor also said impassable roads would have made it impossible for him to trade weapons for Sierra Leone's diamonds, as the prosecution alleges.

On trial at the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, Mr Taylor is accused of having armed and directed rebel groups from Liberia in order to seize control of Sierra Leone's diamond riches.

The 61-year-old denies charges including terrorism, murder, rape and torture.

He is the first African leader to be tried by an international court.

'Never happened'

Responding to the allegations of cannibalism, Mr Taylor was quoted by AFP news agency as saying: "It is sickening. You must be sick to believe it."

CHARLES TAYLOR CHARGES

# Violation of humanitarian law: Conscripting child soldiers
# Crimes against humanity: Terrorising civilians, murder, rape, sexual slavery, enslavement
# War crimes: "Violence to life", cruel treatment (including hacking off limbs), pillage

"It makes you feel like throwing up."

The former Liberian leader said there were cannibals in parts of his country, but he was not among them.

One witness had told the court he had eaten human flesh with Mr Taylor at a meeting of a secret society, Poro, AFP reports.

"It never happened," the former president responded. "I never ordered any combatant to eat anyone."

Denying accusations that he had traded diamonds for arms, he said neither of the two roads leading to the border between Liberia and Sierra Leone could support vehicles laden with weapons.

One of Mr Taylor's former bodyguards testified last year that he had escorted such vehicles, and the court was shown a photo with a lorry allegedly pictured near the border.

Mr Taylor said on Monday that the accusation was a "lie", also dismissing allegations that he accepted diamonds from rebels in Sierra Leone.

An estimated 500,000 people were killed, mutilated or suffered other atrocities in the civil war in Sierra Leone, which lasted from 1991 until 2002.

A verdict in Mr Taylor's trial, which was moved from Sierra Leone to the Netherlands because of security concerns, is expected next year.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/8171295.stm

Published: 2009/07/27 16:36:06 GMT

Related Archives:

Obama (Indirectly) Refers to "Eating" Afghanistan as "Pudding" during G-20

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Žižek: Chocolate Laxative 

When There's No More Room in Hell..The Dead Shall Walk the Earth

Charles Taylor Denies Cannibalism

Former Liberian leader Charles Taylor has denied eating human flesh or ordering militias to eat their enemies.

Speaking at his war crimes trial in The Hague, Mr Taylor was quoted as saying accusations of cannibalism levelled against him were "total nonsense".

Some of Mr Taylor's former fighters have previously told the court that he had ordered them to eat their enemies.

Mr Taylor has denied 11 charges related to the civil war in Sierra Leone, Liberia's neighbour.

At the start of the third week of his trial, Mr Taylor also said impassable roads would have made it impossible for him to trade weapons for Sierra Leone's diamonds, as the prosecution alleges.

On trial at the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, Mr Taylor is accused of having armed and directed rebel groups from Liberia in order to seize control of Sierra Leone's diamond riches.

The 61-year-old denies charges including terrorism, murder, rape and torture.

He is the first African leader to be tried by an international court.

'Never happened'

Responding to the allegations of cannibalism, Mr Taylor was quoted by AFP news agency as saying: "It is sickening. You must be sick to believe it."

CHARLES TAYLOR CHARGES

# Violation of humanitarian law: Conscripting child soldiers
# Crimes against humanity: Terrorising civilians, murder, rape, sexual slavery, enslavement
# War crimes: "Violence to life", cruel treatment (including hacking off limbs), pillage

"It makes you feel like throwing up."

The former Liberian leader said there were cannibals in parts of his country, but he was not among them.

One witness had told the court he had eaten human flesh with Mr Taylor at a meeting of a secret society, Poro, AFP reports.

"It never happened," the former president responded. "I never ordered any combatant to eat anyone."

Denying accusations that he had traded diamonds for arms, he said neither of the two roads leading to the border between Liberia and Sierra Leone could support vehicles laden with weapons.

One of Mr Taylor's former bodyguards testified last year that he had escorted such vehicles, and the court was shown a photo with a lorry allegedly pictured near the border.

Mr Taylor said on Monday that the accusation was a "lie", also dismissing allegations that he accepted diamonds from rebels in Sierra Leone.

An estimated 500,000 people were killed, mutilated or suffered other atrocities in the civil war in Sierra Leone, which lasted from 1991 until 2002.

A verdict in Mr Taylor's trial, which was moved from Sierra Leone to the Netherlands because of security concerns, is expected next year.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/8171295.stm

Published: 2009/07/27 16:36:06 GMT

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Žižek: Chocolate Laxative 

Obama (Indirectly) Refers to "Eating" Afghanistan as "Pudding" during G-20 Summit Q&A

Black Pudding (Boudin Noir) aka Blood Sausage

And what the American people care about I suspect are the same thing that the British people care about, and that is, are you putting people back to work? Are businesses growing again? Is business -- is credit flowing again? And, you know -- and that's just true with respect to this summit. But when it comes to our Afghanistan policy, the question is going to be, have we made ourselves safer; have we reduced the risks and incidents of terrorism?

And so the proof of the pudding is in the eating. But hopefully, I think at least we've set a tone internationally where people don't -- where they give us the benefit of the doubt. They're still going to have their interests, and we're going to have ours. There are going to be tough negotiations, and sometimes we're going to have to walk away from those negotiations if we can't arrive at a common accord. There are going to be real dangers that can't always be talked through and have to be addressed. But at least we can start with the notion that we're prepared to listen and to work cooperatively with countries around the world.

All right, let me sprinkle in another -- it's got to be an international person. All right, this young lady right there. - Barack Obama. April 2, 2009

http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/speeches/04.02.09.html

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Black pudding or blood pudding is a type of sausage made by cooking blood with a filler until it is thick enough to congeal when cooled. It is also called blood sausage (first attested in 1868, perhaps influenced by German Blutwurst). Although "blood sausage" is often labeled as a North American term, it is also found in British English (e.g., in the story "The Name-Day" by Saki). "Blood sausage" is also used as a term for similar blood-based solid foods around the world.

Black pudding is usually served as part of a traditional full breakfast in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. The further addition of the similar white pudding is an important feature of the traditional Irish and Newfoundland breakfast and is also common in Scotland. Black pudding can be eaten uncooked but is often grilled or boiled in its skin.

Towns noted for their black pudding include Clonakilty, County Cork in Ireland's south west, Bury, Lancashire (now Greater Manchester) in northern England, and Stornoway, Isle of Lewis off the west coast of Scotland.

Black and white pudding, as well as a third variant from Fife—red pudding—are served battered at chip shops in Scotland and England as an alternative to fish and chips.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_pudding

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Former Merry Prankster's Connection to Dan White's "Twinkie Defense"

J. I. Rodale, health food and publishing magnate, once claimed in an editorial in his magazine, Prevention, that Lee Harvey Oswald had been seen holding a Coca-Cola bottle only minutes after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He concluded that Oswald was not responsible for the killing because his brain was confused. He was a "sugar drunkard." Rodale, who died of a heart attack during a taping of The Dick Cavett Show -- in the midst of explaining how good nutrition guarantees a long life -- called for a full-scale investigation of crimes caused by sugar consumption.

In a surprise move, Dan White's defense team presented a similar bio-chemical explanation of his behavior, blaming it on compulsive gobbling down of sugar-filled junk-food snacks. This was a purely accidental attack. Dale Metcalf, a former member of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters who had become a lawyer, told me how he happened to be playing chess with Steven Scheer, an associate of Dan White's attorney.

Metcalf had just read Orthomolecular Nutrition by Abram Hoffer. He questioned Scherr about White's diet and learned that, while under stress, White would consume candy bars and soft drinka. Metcalf recommended the book to Scherr, suggesting the author as an expert witness. In his book, Hoffer revealed a personal vendetta against doughnuts, and White had once eaten five doughnuts in a row.

During the trial, one psychiatrist stated that, on the night before the murders, while White was "getting depressed about the fact he would not be reappointed [as supervisor], he just sat there in front of the TV set, bingeing on Twinkies." In my notebook, I immediately scribbled "the Twinkie defense," and wrote about it in my next report.

This was the first time that phrase had been used, and it was picked up by the mainstream media.

In court, White just sat there in a state of complete control bordering on catatonia, as he listened to an assembly line of psychiatrists tell the jury how out of control he had been. One even testified that, "If not for the aggravating fact of junk food, the homicides might not have taken place."

(excerpt) 

Paul Krassner
Behind "the Twinkie Defense"
19 November 2008

Full Article:

http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=7544

Related Archive:

Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsberg, Jerry Garcia - CIA MK-ULTRA Medical Guinea Pigs

Ken Kesey, while a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University (1959-1961), offered himself as a human guinea pig in an MK-ULTRA subproject utilizing such psychedelics as LSD-25, psylocibin, and mescaline inside the walls of Menlo Park Veterans Hospital. It was via Ken Kesey, who disbursed smuggled quantities of then-legal LSD to his intellectual cohorts at Stanford's Perry Lane, that the psychedelic Sixties was born.

http://www.writenews.com/1997/060597.htm

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At Stanford in 1959, Kesey volunteered to take part in a CIA-financed study named Project MKULTRA at the Menlo Park Veterans Hospital. The project studied the effects of psychoactive drugs, particularly LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, cocaine, AMT, and DMT on people.[4] Kesey wrote many detailed accounts of his experiences with these drugs, both during the Project MKULTRA study and in the years of private experimentation that followed. Kesey's role as a medical guinea pig inspired him to write One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1962. The success of this book, as well as the sale of his residence at Stanford, allowed him to move to La Honda, California, in the mountains south of San Francisco. He frequently entertained friends and many others with parties he called "Acid Tests" involving music (such as Kesey's favorite band, The Warlocks, later known as the Grateful Dead), black lights, fluorescent paint, strobes and other "psychedelic" effects, and, of course, LSD. These parties were noted in some of Allen Ginsberg's poems and are also described in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, as well as Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs by Hunter S. Thompson and Freewheelin Frank, Secretary of the Hell's Angels by Frank Reynolds. Ken Kesey was also said to have experimented with LSD with Ringo Starr in 1965 and in fact influenced the set up for their future performances in the UK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Kesey

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There are those who would suggest that the Beat Movement was part of a grand conspiracy; and the Beats themselves unwitting pawns in this game. In one of his many broadsheets self-published over the years, Kerry Thornley once posited this theory, without actually elaborating on exactly what this conspiracy entailed. Perhaps what Thornley was alluding to is the same theme found in Todd Brendan Fahey's Wisdom's Maw, which suggests that Ken Kesey as well as the Beats were part of an elaborate scheme concocted by the American Intelligence Community to infiltrate and supply the sixties counterculture with mind altering drugs, ostensibly to test their reactions, and--long range--to influence widespread social control. Theoretically, this was all conducted under the covert auspices of such infamous CIA mind control projects as Artichoke and MK-ULTRA. Such countercultural icons as Kesey and Leary--Fahey suggests--were chosen by the CIA and Military Intelligence as facilitators of this grand experiment, whose powerful side effects are still lingering to this day in the collective craniums of its unwitting participants.

...

Ginsberg first became acquainted with LSD in 1959, through government sponsored research at the Menlo Research Institute in Palo Alto. Kesey and Jerry Garcia were also early volunteers for these mind-bending experiments, which many connect directly to MK-ULTRA. This before the term psychedelic was in the popular lexicon. At this time psychedelics were referred to as 'psychomimetic' drugs; drugs that reportedly brought about temporary psychosis. Kesey and the other adventurous souls who volunteered their brains for science received 75 dollars a day. Due to a bad trip courtesy of the Menlo Research Institute, Ginsberg composed a poem under the influence of LSD, aptly titled, "Lysergic Acid" of which the following is an excerpt: It is a multiple million eyed monster it is hidden in all it's elephants and selves it hummeth in the electric typewriter it is electricity connected to itself, if it hath wires it is a vast Spiderweb... I, as well, have beheld this multiple million eyed monster, hidden--as it is--in all elephants and selves. Like Ginsberg, acid brought about this nightmarish vision, on the full-size Technicolor viewing screen behind my closed eyelids. Whether or not this monstrous, Bosch-like archetype is inherent exclusively to practitioners of Guerrilla Khundalini, I can not authoritatively address. Nevertheless, I find it interesting that Ginsberg's description of this demonic entity--viewed under the influence of lysergic acid diethylamide--matches almost perfectly my own temporary psychedelic psychosis, producing what would appear to be a shared thematic experience linking the drug experimentation of the Beat subculture with my own generation of Guerrilla Khundalini adepts, forming--one might conjecture--a metaphysical conspiracy that bridges generations; that of a religion of elitists waving no particular banner (except maybe, a "freak flag"), dedicated to the principle of discovering "GOD" on their own terms, without benefit of a mediating agency, or dogmatic agenda. Robert Anton Wilson summed it up best in his intro to Cosmic Trigger when categorizing this new age of holy mad men:

"We are all evolving into the use of new neurological circuits, which will make us superhuman in comparison to our present average state. The activation of these new circuits creates a great deal of temporary weirdness until we learn to use them properly..."

The Beats and Government Intelligence: What Were the Sixties?
by Adam Gorightly

http://www.declarepeace.org.uk/captain/murder_inc/site/texts/beat.txt

Foucault: Abnormal (misc notes)

 

 

There is no such thing as 'delusion' or 'hallucination' - Pablo Picasso

Image from The Poisoned Needle by Eleanor McBean

http://books.google.com/books?id=31QtmHLg77IC&pg=PA80&lpg=PA80&dq=Else+Thuroff&source=bl&ots=pnCd3A2nA8&sig=-d0VWYrfXFcVNktdEDfZVuSsoSk&hl=en&ei=jDNZSsTqKojCsQOFp_mdCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1

The ability to codify "madness as mental illness" within the rubric/construct of "biological psychiatry."

[Jung: education of the patient - most important in diagnosis.]

Genealogy of the abnormal individual:
1. The great monster
2. The little masturbator
3. Recalcitrant child.

Cannot be integrated within the normative system of education. 1867 examples. (Case studies).

Permanent stigmata that branded the individual structurally. [ie. anthropometry/eugenics/psychiatry.]

[Nazi blood ritual - Holocaust - burnt offering. http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?letter=B&artid=1612]

[Lacan - Mirror > Stigmata from the (Freudian-primal) father.]

None of the elements constitute either a cause or even a principle for triggering illness.

The deformities of the body are, as it were, the physical and structural outcomes of this conduct and the aberrations of conduct are its instinctual and dynamic outcomes (social illness).

It is this immobilization of life, conduct and performance around childhood that essentially makes psychiatry possible. (lifelocked infant - infantilism.)

The degenerate is someone who, at all events, cannot be cured.

- Michel Foucault. Abnormal. 19 Mar 1975.

Psychiatry as a social defense at the end of the nineteenth century, starting with the problem of anarchy and social disorder, political crime. Social defense and the psychiatry of order.

History of Madness. Foucault. Madness was made possible by all that milieu that repressed in man of his animal nature...madness then became the other side of progress. By multiplying mediations, civilisation offered men ever increasing means to become insane. (p. 374)

The insane are not entirely strangers to the world of reason, but demonstrated instead something like a reason perverted, or reason that went off the rails with each movement of the spirit. 

["Ubu-esque" descriptions]

(...in 'progress.')

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Warren Buffett: "first stimulus was like taking half tablet of Viagra"

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"We are finally beginning to see the seeds of a bottoming" in the housing industry. - Alan Greenspan. May 13, 2009.

Image Pending

As debate grows about a possible second stimulus package for the flagging American economy, at least one legendary investor is giving the idea his guarded approval.

The "Oracle of Omaha" believes a second stimulus may be called for.

"I think that a second one may well be called for," Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, told "Good Morning America" today. But, he added, "you hope it doesn't get watered down in many ways."

Buffett cautioned that a second stimulus package, like the first, won't be "a panacea," because stimulus packages take time to work. He criticized lawmakers' work on the first stimulus package, which contained $787 billion in spending.

"Our first stimulus bill ... was sort of like taking half a tablet of Viagra and having also a bunch of candy mixed in ... as if everybody was putting in enough for their own constituents," he said. "It doesn't have really quite the wall that might have been anticipated there."

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=8039651&page=1