Psychiic Book Reviiew: Project MK-ULTRA: Sex, Drugs, and the CIA …

By Jason Stone

So, what was PROJECT MK-ULTRA? MIND KONTROL ULTRA (1953-1973) was a C1A government research program with a global reach distributed over 149 sub-projects. The project connected the U.S. armed services, the intelligence community, and the military industrial security complex with the academic world. Funds for academic research were parceled out to through covers like the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology, the Geshickter Fund, and other clean front organizations. Over 80 private and public institutions were funded including but not limited to Stanford, Harvard, and Cornell. The purpose was to continue WWII research into how to control human beings through drugs, sex, torture and other exotic means. Some of the researchers did not know their funding was through the C1A, though this can’t be said for all involved. Another avenue of research was through contracts with psychologists working at prisons. Well-known survivors of PROJECT MK-ULTRA research at academic or correctional facilities include Whitey Bulger, Ted Kaczynski, Charles Manson, and Marshall Applewhite.

These are just a few examples of the interesting American history facts found within the pages of the graphic novel, Project MK-ULTRA: Sex, Drugs, and the C1A, Vol. 1. created by Brandon Beckner (author), Scott Sampilla (author), Stewart Moore (artist), and Ted Adams (editor) and published by Clover Press in 2022. The graphic novel illustrates the involvement of alphabet agencies in the procurement and dispersal of LSD within academic and professional fields in the U.S. circa 1960s. Through alphabet agencies like the C1A, the LSD psychedelic evolution of society was aided through a counter-culture revolution spearheaded by the black sheep of academia including Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, and Ken Kesey. LSD, C1A, FB1, LBJ indeed.

Project MK-ULTRA presents a mostly factual account of this time in history as a massive amount of documentation was destroyed by the C1A themselves. Once the C1A Director Richard Helms became aware the C1A was going to be investigated by the Church Committe a plume of smoke from PROJECT MK-ULTRA files filled the D.C. air. However, due to an error in a C1A accounting department, approximately 20,000 financial documents were accidentally saved including receipts. Enough documentation was available to tarnish the reputation of several people involved including former C1A TSS Department Head Sidney Gottlieb, former C1A Directors Allen Dulles and William Colby, and former American Psychiatric Association & Canadian Psychiatric Association President Ewen Cameron. Ewen Cameron being the creator of such mind control techniques as de-patterning and psychic driving while at McGill University Hospital at Ravenscroft in Canada. Currently, there is a lawsuit being brought against McGill by over 400 former patients who survived the MK-ULTRA programs at the University Hospital.

The problem with de-patterning is that once a person was mentally regressed through sensory deprivation, LSD/drugs, electro-shock, and forced sleep for weeks at a time it was difficult to re-program or put a person back together via psychic driving or so we are told. In any case, thanks Mr. President for your contributions. In the end loose lips would not sink this mind-controlled ship as most of these people ended up dead from suicide or under semi-mysterious circumstances that were labeled suicide or accidental death. The Intelligence Community takes care of their own to death, literally.

During the documented timeframe of PROJECT MK-ULTRA, if you were attending university or living in one of the cities where a project was underway, there was a chance of being a statistic in one of their experiments like in OPERATION MIDNIGHT CLIMAX in the Bay Area. In fact, there are many people who were experimented on over the reported two decades of this program. Fear of the Soviets or the Red Scare of the Cold War drove scientists to go beyond good and evil to determine the potential hazards which might be around the bend for the U.S. government and its citizens/science experiments. The bending of morality to fit the needs of a determined group of scientists working for the even more morally flexible intelligence agencies. We are talking contortionist level moral flexibility. 

Honestly, it wouldn’t be surprising if most of this mind control tech ended up being used on members of the Intelligence Community. After all, that was the purpose to an extent. To get people to do “the work” for their intelligence agency handlers whether they wanted to or not. “The work” consisting of assassinations, espionage, and similar types of subterfuge with an intentional override of any sense of self-preservation.

The stories behind the stories of PROJECT MK-ULTRA are just so god-damned unbelievable I am not going to get into it here any further. You could just tell yourself it’s all a lie and throw a blanket over your head for a few hours until you feel better. Try it on for size. Or alternatively, for additional verification simply check out such books as The Search for The Manchurian Candidate by John Marks (1978), Operation Mind Control by Walter Bowart (1978), and Poisoner In Chief by Stephen Kinzer (2019).

And now with Project MK-ULTRA: Sex, Drugs, and the CIA, Volume 1 and Volume 2 this critical component of U.S. history is available in graphic novel format. In any case, I think the Project MK-ULTRA graphic novel does a one-up by caricaturing the people and the methods to the madness behind the production of a psycho-civilized society during the dawn of a new Technologic Age. It also presents the ideas or concepts reforming or bending society into a new image. Pick up Project MK-ULTRA at the library or a bookstore, and learn about history, a history I am certain you too are a part of in one way or another. After all, among many labels you are located in the northwest stronghold of the military industrial security complex. If you doubt, read a book, get a map, look around even when/if it gets weird.