Chapter 8

THE HIRED "EXPERTS" - USA

    In the USA the term religious mind-control had already appeared and had been disbanded by the time of the Aum raids of 1995. But after the raids the concept was truly alive and being pushed heavily in the Japanese media. To truly understand Aum and what it was not, then it is important to look at these Western theories and how the Western courts subsequently dismissed them.

    The term mind-control originated in the USA. The most outspoken "expert" against new religions in the USA was the clinical psychologist from Berkeley, California, Margaret Singer (who attended the Hearst trial.). Singer was also later found to have worked with US Army intelligence on experimental mind altering programs. She became the most prominent exponent of the brainwashing theory in courts against religions. She was also one of the persons who had placed pressure on Leo Ryan to travel to Jonestown.81 Thus her theories and how they were interpreted in court are worth reviewing.

    Singer's claim in the mind-control argument, and against new religions in particular, was that through cumulative pressures of "physical, emotional and intellectual blitzes of a new religion, self control and personal beliefs give way." Her position was initially established in several articles, most notably "Coming Out of Cults", that appeared in Psychology Today. 82 She served on the Board of advisors of the now defunct Cult Awareness network, as well as the still operational American Family Foundation, which has current links to the Japanese anti religious movement.

    Singer was soon able to gain notoriety and income from being an expert court witness against minority religions. Her theories were known as the "Singer hypothesis," and the "robot theory", and later by the lay term "mind-control". Additionally, mufti-million dollar law suits were being awarded against new religions by the fact that once a member had changed his mind, and no longer wanted to be a member, he could sue his former religion for brainwashing him in the first place.

    But this theory of brainwashing did not sit well with religious experts. Research was conducted on ex-members by such scholars as Trudy Solomon 83 and Stuart Wright. 84 They, along with others, found that members who left their religion voluntarily did so without many bad experiences to relate, and that often there were moments to relate of

    their membership that were positive. While on the other hand, the smaller number of ex-members who were physically forced out from the group by means of kidnapping and deprograrnmings had horror stories of brainwashing and themselves later engaged in physical deprogramming others.

    Scholars such as James R. Lewis and David G. Bromley 85 even took the research further and researched those who left and voluntarily received counseling, as against those who left and were counseled forcibly as in a deprogramming. The results showed that those who were engaged in activities with the anti religious movement had high pathological symptoms, and those who were physically forced to leave through deprogramming had the highest pathological symptoms. The lowest pathological symptoms were found in those members who left without any intervention by anyone.

    These findings and research data broke the stereo typed image of members in new religions.

    So, after much public debate between scholars, religious experts and psychologists, eventually Singer's theories were ruled as non-scientific by the American Psychological Association, APA. 86 Soon Singer began being associated with lost court cases. The APA had found like Lifton, and even L. Ron Hubbard before him, that brainwashing, mind control, thought reform and other pseudonyms for the same subject, simply were unscientific.

    In reference to Singer's theories a court once stated, "Specifically, the conclusions Drs. Singer and Benson (Dr. D. Benson worked with Singer at this time.) assert cannot be said to be scientific in any meaningful sense, and the methodologies generating those conclusions depart so far from methods generally accepted in the relevant professional communities that they are incapable of producing reliable and valid results. Stripped of the legitimate luster of a scientific pedigree, plaintiffs' purporting scientific claim of coercive persuasion is little more than a negative value judgment rendered by a lay person ...."

    Singer's theories also failed to meet the same scientific qualifications to be accepted in the case of Kropinsky v. World Plan Executive Council, 87 and the judge stated, "Kropinski Failed to provide any evidence that Dr. Singer's particular theory, namely that techniques of thought reform may be affective in the absence of physical threats or

    coercion, has a significant following in the scientific community, let alone general acceptance."

    In another case, Robin George v. International Society for Krishna Consciousness of California (1989), 88 the judge said the following, "...Robin's brainwashing theory of false imprisonment is no more than an attempt to premise tort liability on religious practices the Georges find objectionable. Such a result is simply inconsistent with the First Amendment."

    And in the famous US v. Fishman (1990) case 89 where Judge Jenson even barred Singer from giving testimony, as did Judge Oliver Gasch in Patric Ryan v. Marharishi Yogi (1991), Judge Jenson stated, "The evidence before the court... shows that neither the APA (American Psychological Association) nor the ASA (American Sociological Association) has endorsed the views of Dr. Singer and Dr. Ofshe on thought reform. The APA found that studies supporting its findings lack methodological rigor."

    Singer and her later associate, Richard Ofshe (a sociologist whose similar theories were rejected by the American Sociological Association [ASA]) sued the APA and the ASA. Singer and Ofshe alleged these two organizations had conspired to discredit them. But on August 9, 1993, a federal judge threw their suit out of court. Then Singer and Ofshe brought a similar suit in the state court in California. Superior Court Judge James R. Lambden, dismissed it on June 17, 1994, noting, "Plaintiffs have not presented sufficient evidence to establish any reasonable probability of success on any cause of action. "90

    With Singer's theories in tatters, it was no wonder that public acceptance of the anti religious movement began to dry up in the USA. Furthermore, without the basic tenants of Pavlov to excuse their reign of spiritual terror, deprogrammers were soon being jailed by law enforcement officers. Deprogrammers, who mainly kidnapped members of new religions and held them against their will until they had degraded the spiritual faith of the victim, were no longer tolerated by the courts. In 1995 the case of Jason Scot, an escaped deprogramming victim, came before the courts. The result was that the deprogrammers, along with Cult Awareness Network (an anti religious organization), were found guilty and almost five million dollars of damages were awarded against them. The case was appealed against and finally in 1999 the courts reaffirmed their earlier verdicts.

Mind Altering Drugs and the US Intelligence Agencies

    Now that the term mind-control, brainwashing, and other like words have dropped from the vocabulary of the western anti-religious movement, and the movement itself has diminished, it is time to look at what was being researched by the intelligence community which Hunter, West and Singer came from. What was it that their own testimonies, which were simply hoaxes, were attempting to hide? Additionally, what was in their past that supposedly made them immediate experts in mind-control theories. What credentials did they carry on mind-control to be able to give what was considered expert court testimony?

    The original term mind-control did not come from the term brainwashing. Mind-control was a term originally given to explain the phenomena of psychiatric manipulation of a person's mind using drugs, hypnosis, electro convulsive therapy, and various other forms of mental torture developed by the military intelligence community since the Second World War.

    It was only later when members of that same military intelligence community, such as West and Singer, used the same terms of mind-control to relate to religious conversion, was the nature of this psychiatric mental manipulation confused and obscured. If this effort to obscure psychiatric mind-control was part of the plan from the original psychopolitical operations to remove religion using Pavlovian ideology, or if it was part of later day plan to cover up for criminal psychiatric practices can only be speculation now. The main point being, such harmful psychiatric practices to alter and retard humans did and still exist today.

    The main point being made here is that the claims of brainwashing and mind-control that do not engage in drugs or hypnosis to control a person are merely hoaxes. But the as we are about to learn, drugs and hypnosis can be used to control a person and make him do things ordinarily against his will. While these drug and hypnotic methods of controlling human behavior are covered well later on in this book, it is well to briefly cover the subject now.

    In 1954 the CIA approved experimental programs for the "...covert use of biological and chemical materials..." to investigate whether and how it was possible to modify an individual's behavior.92

    Some of the most authoritative works on this psychiatric mind altering techniques have been: Journey Into Madness, Medical Torture and the Mind Controllers by Gordon Thomas; Operation Mind Control by Walter Bowart;93 The Control of Candy Jones by D. Bain, 94 and John D. Mark's In Search for the Manchurian Candidate.95 These books are about the true mind controlling experimental programs of the CIA which were named Artichoke, Bluebird and MK ULTRA. In Japanese there is the translated version of Gordon Thomas's book by Asahi Press, as well as separate work titled, Expansion Mind Control by writer Yoshie Hamada. Bain's book on Candy Jones, written in 1976, was published in Japanese in 1979. Such exposed psychiatric experimental programs include the use of hallucinogenic drugs, electric shock, LSD, and other psychiatric terror. What was sought was to make the perfect obedient soldier, as well as to make a totally passive population.

    The case of Candy Jones was about a one-time pin-up girl of the USA who was unknowingly turned into a CIA spy. Jones was cleverly implanted by her intelligence operators and she would vanish for weeks at a time. Her missions took her to many places, even into communist China, where she would even suffer torture and later not be able to recall willingly. Upon returning to the USA and having been completely debriefed by her CIA operator and left the CIA complex, she would not be able to recall any of her mission. The forgetting command would be installed by her intelligence operator and she would return home and forget the entire mission. Eventually all the above clandestine activities enforced upon her were exposed. She was an unwilling victim of her operator and she never knew herself to be working for the CIA.

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