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The Mind Altering Reality of LSD and the Central Intelligence Agency
From 1946 to today the "Intelligence" that influences every aspect of our lives.
Psychedelic music, mediums, UFOs, remote viewing, and mind control, the "new age" of the CIA.
This series of reports commenced on January 11th, 2006 the 100th birthday of Albert Hoffman "The Father of LSD"
We will begin with a report from the United States Department Of Energy detailing the early years of experiments
on human subjects and the resulting legislation which drove the operation "behind closed doors".
This CIA program's reality is not in question here, it is a well known fact in all levels of government. What lies deep
beneath the covers is the fact that it was and is a highly successful program that continues to this day. FRJ
Supreme Court Dissents Invoke the Nuremberg Code: CIA and DOD Human Subjects Research Scandals
The development of federal legislation for government-sponsored research with human
subjects arose in part because of institutional and governmental concern and public
reaction to perceived abuses and failures by the government. Around the same time that
the 1974 National Research Act was enacted, a scandal arose surrounding the discovery
of secret Cold War chemical experiments conducted by the CIA and DOD. The review of
these experiments led to the rediscovery of the previously secret 1953 Wilson memorandum
and later to the first Supreme Court decision in which comment was made, in dissent, on the
application of the Nuremberg Code to the conduct of the U.S. Government.
In December 1974, the New York Times reported that the CIA had conducted illegal domestic
activities, including experiments on U.S. Citizens, during the 1960s. That report prompted
investigations by both Congress (in the form of the Church Committee) and a presidential
commission (known as the Rockefeller Commission) into the domestic activities of the CIA,
the FBI, and intelligence-related agencies of the military. In the summer of 1975,
congressional hearings and the Rockefeller Commission report revealed to the public for the first time that the CIA
and the DOD had conducted experiments on both cognizant and unwitting human subjects as part of an extensive
program to influence and control human behavior through the use of psychoactive drugs (such as LSD and
mescaline) and other chemical, biological, and psychological means. They also revealed that at least one subject
had died after administration of LSD. Frank Olson, an Army scientist, was given LSD without his knowledge or
consent in 1953 as part of a CIA experiment and apparently committed suicide a week later. [Commission on CIA
Activities within the United States, Report to the President, (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1975).] Subsequent reports
would show that another person, Harold Blauer,a professional tennis player in New York City, died as a result of a
secret Army experiment
involving mescaline. [Commission on CIA Activities within the United States, Report to the President, (Washington,
D.C.: GPO, 1975).]
The CIA program, known principally by the codename MKULTRA, began in 1950 and was motivated largely in
response to alleged Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean uses of mind-control techniques on U.S. prisoners of war in
Korea. Because most of the MKULTRA records were deliberately destroyed in 1973 by order of then-Director of
Central Intelligence Richard Helms, it is impossible to have a complete understanding of the more than 150
individually funded research projects sponsored by MKULTRA and the related CIA programs. [For general
information on the CIA program, see the Church Committee report, 385-422, and J. Marks, The Search for the
"Manchurian Candidate": The CIA and Mind Control (New York: Times Books, 1978). ] Central Intelligence Agency
documents suggest that radiation was part of the MKULTRA program and that the agency considered and explored
uses of radiation for these purposes. [Church Committee report, book 1, 389] However, the documents that remain
from MKULTRA, at least as currently brought to light, do not show that the CIA itself carried out any of these
proposals on human subjects.
The congressional committee investigating the CIA research, chaired by Senator Frank Church, concluded that
prior consent was obviously not obtained from any of the subjects."[ Church Committee report, book 1, 400, 402. In
1963 the CIA inspector general (IG) recommended that unwitting testing be terminated, but Deputy Director for
Plans Richard Helms (who later became director of Central Intelligence) continued to advocate covert testing on
the grounds that "positive operational capability to use drugs is diminishing, owing to a lack of realistic testing. With
increasing knowledge of the state of the art, we are less capable of staying up with the Soviet advances in this
field."] The committee noted that the "experiments sponsored by these researchers . . . call into question the
decision by the agencies not to fix guidelines for experiments." [ Ibid., 402.] (Documents show that the CIA
participated in at least two of the DOD committees whose discussions, in 1952, led up to the issuance of the Wilson
memorandum.) Following the recommendations of the Church Committee, President Gerald Ford in 1976 issued
the first Executive Order on Intelligence Activities, which, among other things, prohibited "experimentation with
drugs on human subjects, except with the informed consent, in writing and witnessed by a disinterested party, of
each such human subject" and in accordance with the guidelines issued by the National Commission. [Executive
Order 11905 (19 February 1976).] Subsequent orders by Presidents Carter and Reagan expanded the directive to
apply to any human experimentation. [Executive Order 12036, section 2-301 (26 January 1978) and Executive
Order 12333, section 2.10 (4 December 1981).]
Following on the heels of the revelations about CIA experiments were similar stories about the Army. In response,
in 1975 the secretary of the Army instructed the Army inspector general to conduct an investigation. [U.S. Army
Inspector General, Use of Volunteers in Chemical Agent Research [Army IG report] (Washington, D.C.: GPO,
1975), 2.] Among the findings of the inspector general was the existence of the then-still-classified 1953 Secretary
of Defense Wilson memorandum. In response to the inspector general's investigation, the Wilson memorandum
was declassified in August 1975. The inspector general also found that the requirements of the 1953 memorandum
had, at least in regard to Army drug testing, been essentially followed as written. The Army used only "volunteers"
for its drug-testing program, with one or two exceptions. [One noted exception involved using LSD as an
interrogation devise on ten foreign intelligence agents, and one U.S. citizen suspected of stealing classified
documents. Army IG report, 143.] However, the inspector general concluded that the "volunteers were not fully
informed, as required, prior to their participation; and the methods of procuring their services, in many cases,
appeared not to have been in accord with the intent of Department of the Army policies governing use of
volunteers in research." [Army IG report, 87.] The inspector general also noted that "the evidence clearly reflected
that every possible medical consideration was observed by the professional investigators at the Medical Research
Laboratories." [Ibid.] This conclusion, if accurate, is in striking contrast to what took place at the CIA.
The revelations about the CIA and the Army prompted a number of subjects or their survivors to file lawsuits
against the federal government for conducting illegal experiments. Although the government aggressively, and
sometimes successfully, sought to avoid legal liability, several plaintiffs did receive compensation through court
order, out-of-court settlement, or acts of Congress. Previously, the CIA and the Army had actively, and
successfully, sought to withhold incriminating information, even as they secretly provided compensation to the
families. [The CIA paid death benefits to the Olson family after Frank Olson's death, and the Army secretly paid half
of an $18,000 settlement that the Blauer family negotiated with the state of New York in 1955. The state ran the
psychiatric institute that administered the drugs, but which never disclosed the Army's involvement. Both agencies
feared that the resulting embarrassment and adverse publicity might undermine their ability to continue their secret
research programs. Barrett v. United States, 6660 F. Supp. 1291 (E. D. N.Y., 1987).] One subject of Army drug
experimentation, James Stanley, an Army sergeant, brought an important, albeit unsuccessful, suit. The
government argued that Stanley was barred from suing it under a legal doctrine--known as the Feres doctrine,
after a 1950 Supreme Court case, Feres v. United States--that prohibits members of the Armed Forces from suing
the government for any harms that were inflicted "incident to service." [Feres v. United States, 340 U.S. 146 (1950).]
In 1987, the Supreme Court affirmed this defense in a 5-4 decision that dismissed Stanley's case. [United States v.
Stanley, 483 U.S. 669 (1987). ] The majority argued that "a test for liability that depends on the extent to which
particular suits would call into question military discipline and decision making would itself require judicial inquiry
into, and hence intrusion upon, military matters." [483 U.S. 669, 682.] In dissent, Justice William Brennan argued
that the need to preserve military discipline should not protect the government from liability and punishment for
serious violations of constitutional rights:
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, writing a separate dissent, stated:
No judicially crafted rule should insulate from liability the involuntary and unknowing human experimentation alleged
to have occurred in this case. Indeed, as Justice Brennan observes, the United States played an instrumental role
in the criminal prosecution of Nazi officials who experimented with human subjects during the Second World War,
and the standards that the Nuremberg Military Tribunals developed to judge the behavior of the defendants stated
that the 'voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential . . . to satisfy moral, ethical, and legal
concepts.' If this principle is violated, the very least that society can do is to see that the victims are compensated,
as best they can be, by the perpetrators. [483 U.S. 669, 709-10.92]
This is the only Supreme Court case to address the application of the Nuremberg Code to experimentation
sponsored by the U.S. government. [George Annas, a scholar of human experimentation and biomedical ethics,
has traced the history of the Nuremberg Code in the U.S. courts. The first express reference in a majority opinion,
Annas found, was in a 1973 decision in the Circuit Court in Wayne County, Michigan. The decisions in which the
Code has since been cited, Annas concluded, reflect the proposition that the Nuremberg Code is a "document
fundamentally about nontherapeutic experimentation." Thus, the "types of experiments that U.S. judges have found
the Nuremberg Code useful for setting standards have involved nontherapeutic experiments often conducted
without consent. . . . Many of these experiments were justified by national security considerations and the cold war."
George J. Annas, "The Nuremberg Code in U.S. Courts: Ethics versus Expediency," in George J. Annas and
Michael A. Grodin, eds., The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code: Human Rights in Human Experimentation
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 218.] And while the suit was unsuccessful, dissenting opinions put the
Army--and by association the entire government--on notice that use of individuals without their consent is
unacceptable. The limited application of the Nuremberg Code in U.S. courts does not detract from the power of the
principles it espouses, especially in light of stories of failure to follow these principles that appeared in the media
and professional literature during the 1960s and 1970s and the policies eventually adopted in the mid-1970s.
Although the MKULTRA records were purged in 1973, there are those who know the 150+ programs true nature.
which grows as a parasite on rye wheat and other grains
. The hallucinogenic properties of this substance were
first discovered by Albert Hofmann in 1943 when he
accidentally took in some of the drug during it’s
purification and crystallization. What Hofmann actually
took in was LSD-25, so named because it was the twenty-
fifth semi synthetic ergot he prepared by combining
lysergic acid with various amines. He reported being
overcome by “unusual sensations” and described the
experience as an “uninterrupted stream of fantastic
pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic
play of colors” (Snyder 1986). Realizing that these
intense feelings were caused by the chemical that he had
just synthesized, Hofmann returned to the lab and set out
to confirm his speculations. Once ingested, the LSD “trip”
is uncontrollable and cannot come to an end {sound
familiar?} by the will of the user. LSD is not strictly
hallucinogenic, it does not make the user see things that
are not there. Rather, it is an illucinogenic compound.
The very fabric of time and space appear to be {perhaps
in fact truly is} altered in the LSD experience.
Prominent Swiss scientist and best known as the "father" of LSD. He
was born in Baden, Switzerland, and studied chemistry at the
University of Zurich. His main interest was the chemistry of plants
and animals, and he later conducted important research regarding
the chemical structure of the common animal substance chitin, for
which he received his doctorate. Hofmann joined the
pharmaceutical-chemical department of Sandoz Laboratories, Basel
(now Novartis), studying the medicinal plants squill and ergot as part
of a program to purify and synthesize active constituents for use as
pharmaceuticals.
His research in lysergic acid, the central shared component of ergot
alkaloids, eventually led to the synthesis of LSD-25 in 1938. It was
five years later, on repeating synthesis of the almost forgotten
substance, that Dr. Hofmann discovered the psychedelic effects of
LSD after accidentally ingesting some through his fingertips on April
16, 1943. Three days later, on April 19 (later known as Bicycle Day),
Hofmann deliberately consumed 250 µg of LSD, and experienced far
more intense effects (see: LSD for details). This was followed by a
series of self-experiments conducted by Hofmann and his
colleagues. He first wrote about these experiments on April 22.
Academy of Sciences, Member of the International Society of Plant Research and the American Society of
Pharmacognosy. He has been the author of over 100 scientific articles and has written (or co-written) a
number of books, including LSD, My Problem Child, which is partly an autobiography and describes his
famous bicycle ride.
an international symposium on January 13th - 15th, 2006 in
Switzerland. Under the motto “The Spirit of Basel” the Gaia Media
Foundation presents symposiums and congresses to themes and
phenomena of human consciousness. Click on Icon for information...
From The Grateful Dead and Timothy Leary, to Terence Mckenna
and Moby, psychoactive substances have guided and influenced
our modern culture, experiencer's numbers grow every day. And
you can thank the CIA for the experience people, but the CIA didn't
stop with LSD, very early on they were looking for more potent
combinations. Various combinations were experimented with, this
began to show some promise in areas unexplored in the past.
Pharmaceutical-Chemical Research Laboratories of Sandoz Ltd., Basel, is best known for fathering his "problem
child," LSD, on April 19, 1943. Thirteen years later, a brief article in a local paper caught his eye. The article stated
that a researcher from America had traveled to southern Mexico and participated in a native ritual where
mushrooms were consumed that produced strange visions. Already intimately acquainted with the molecular
structures of the known psychedelics, Dr. Hofmann was curious about the chemical constituency of the mushrooms.
The researcher was, of course, R. Gordon Wasson, but his name was not mentioned in the article and Dr. Hofmann
would remain interested in the mysterious mushrooms.
A year later Dr. Hofmann was contacted by Professor Roger Heim, esteemed French mycologist and Director of the
Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, who requested his assistance in carrying out the chemical
investigations of the sacred Mexican mushrooms. Roger Heim had accompanied R. Gordon Wasson on his 1956
expedition to Huautla de Jimenez and identified and named several of the species used by the Mazatecs in their
divinatory and curing rites. His beautiful watercolor renderings of sacred Psilocybes accompanied Wasson's Life
article in 1957.
Dr. Hofmann enthusiastically accepted Heim's invitation and quickly began the arduous task of isolating the active
principles. Also at about this time, unknown to Dr. Hofmann, James Moore -- who had claimed to be a chemist from
the University of Delaware -- was working to isolate the mushrooms' actives. His intentions, however, were different
from those of Dr. Hofmann's.
In 1956, Moore, who was in reality a CIA operative specializing in the synthesis of psychoactive and chemical
weapons for the CIA, offered R. Gordon Wasson a $2,000 grant from the agency's front group, The Geschikter
Foundation, and invited himself along on Wasson's next expedition. Wasson, like Dr. Hofmann, had no idea as to
Moore's true identity. Moore was hoping to obtain samples of the mushrooms, isolate their active principles and
provide the CIA with some new "mind-control" toys.
there another goal? The effects of LSD were well known to the
CIA and plans were already in place for it's use if the need and
opportunity arose. In the 60s the perceived need arose and the
opportunity came in the form of four lads from Liverpool and their
contemporaries. Intelligence gathered by the CIA and other
Government Agencies saw a civil uprising in the works fueled by
an unpopular war, rumours of the Government's involvement in
the Kennedy assassination, desegregation, and a new media that
reported it all, via the modern miracle of television network news.
The "Hippie" movement was a well orchestrated product of the
American Intelligence Community and it's "advisors". The
"Beatniks" were far too dangerous, they leaned to the left in
everything. What was needed was a replacement culture for the
post World War II "baby boomers", something benign,
controllable, and profitable. The modern day drug culture was
born and a peaceful solution to growing civil unrest was found in
the form of LSD. The Beatles {unwittingly} sold the initial package
and youth everywhere bought it, and it was a beautiful product,
supplied by the CIA who reaped huge benefits in more ways than
one. The American Intelligence Community added their own take
and influence on the initial {Beatles} package an American
counterpart that added something more... Space and in a big
way, Jimi Hendrix had been cultivated by the CIA and their
"advisors" for years. The Jimi Hendrix Experience exploded onto
the scene and "Purple Haze" was all the rage, along with that
came "Third Stone From the Sun" and widespread "alien
awareness" came to the masses. The concepts and sounds even
awed the seasoned British bands, but more on that later. Free
love and flower power took hold and created a culture quicker
than any religion or political movement seen by mankind. Peace
marches were just that and the idea of peaceful demonstrations
and non violent dissent was an integral part of the movement, the
threat had been quelled. Meanwhile the cash rolled in as peace
descended on the land, the "advisors" had been right. But
something else had descended in larger numbers than ever. LSD
had achieved the desired effect and then some. So why the
search for, and development of more potent mind melting
hybrids, and who were they going to be used on, and for what
purpose? FRJ
