Chapter 12

LSD 25

    The most dangerous mind-altering drug used at Aum was LSD. Its use by the CIA is also described by Gordon Thomas in the book Journey into Madness, the book which according to Hayashi, the Aum doctor, was their reference work. The point being made in this chapter is that the drug was used in Aum, as it was by the CIA, in an attempt to control the thoughts of people. Additional research has also shown that the drug was widely experimented with by Japanese psychiatrists at the same time the CIA was experimenting. In Japan the source of the drug, Sandoz, was the same as that for the CIA.

    The CIA experimented extensively with LSD in the hope of finding a way to induce insanity upon an entire population, and thus make a nation subject to an easy invasion. The CIA had noted that the drug was a deadly weapon and could reduce the strongest person to quivering jelly.

    LSD 25 was first synthesized in 1938 by Albert Hoffman, a Swiss chemist working for Sandoz Laboratories. LSD stands for lysergic acid diethylamide. Hoffman was investigating the properties of a fungus in rye called ergot. The compound was labeled number 25 in the series. This ergot was seen as a source of a mysterious madness that lasted several days associated with the fungus infected rye. Hoffman set aside the chemical after a series of tests and Hoffman did not pick it up again until 1943. At that time he absorbed some via his finger tips.

    Hoffman wrote in his dairy of the experience that he felt, "an intense stimulation of the imagination and an altered state of awareness of the world." He continued, "As I lay in a dazed condition with eyes closed there surged up from me a succession of fantastic, rapidly changing imagery of a striking reality and depth, alternating with a vivid, kaleidoscopic play of colours. This condition gradually passed off after about three hours. "150

    In 1947, Werner Stoll, a psychiatrist from Sandoz, wrote that LSD could be useful in treating psychiatric diseases. Dr. Otto Kaunders of Vienna investigated this further. Dr. Greenblatt then investigated LSD in 1949. He wanted a drug that could induce schizophrenia.

    The director of the CIA, Allen Dulles, arranged for Sandoz to air freight a quantity of LSD to the USA. It was tested on a small number of agency personnel. M The results were astounding with subjects going out of control in minutes. The agency staff put LSD in each other's coffee, tuna fish salads, hamburgers, and French fries and chocolate malts. The staff went crazy in Washington and in the Maryland countryside. Some staff danced on tables, one tried to throw himself off the top of a building. The doctors considered these small "hiccups" in research. This was 1953 and the search was on how to control another human being's mind. The CIA doctor in charge of this work was Dr. Gottlieb.

    Gottlieb however wanted to try out the drug on someone outside the inner circle, someone who did not know what was going on. So they chose a biochemist. The subject was a Doctor Olsen, and his job was to make aerosol sprays that could spread biological germs to kill people. Such sprays were disguised as deodorants and antiperspirants.

    Olsen was given a glass of Cointreau which was spiked with LSD. His behavior became odd. He soon became gripped in depression, was disoriented and soon was suffering psychosis. The intelligence operatives returned Dr. Olsen to his home. But Olsen looked ill so he was taken to an Agency doctor, Dr. Abramson. Abramson, who was involved in the MK ULTRA Project, prescribed Nembutal, and a glass of bourbon. This was not a treatment recommended for psychosis. Over the days Olsen also visited a famous conjurer, John Mulholland, who was working with the agency to see how magic could be used in the intelligence business. Unfortunately, Olsen thought Mulholland was going to make him disappear like a rabbit.

    Dr. Olsen was then taken back to Dr. Abramson who this time gave him whiskey and sleeping tablets. Olsen was still acting strange and was later found outside his hotel after he had ripped up the contents of his wallet saying he was being followed and plotted against. His minders decided that they should take Olsen home. But Olsen was afraid he would do something stupid in front of his children so he was taken to a hotel in New York. It was on the tenth floor. Before Olsen could be stopped, that night he raced across the room and crashed through the drawn blinds and window and plummeted down the ten floors to the pavement below.

    In 1976 the Olsen family were finally told some of the truth and Congress passed a bill authorizing Dr. Olsen's widow $750,000 in compensation.

    The point being here, if members of Aum acted at all strange in killing people, they have not been alone. Psychiatrists and doctors have been at work elsewhere doing the same.

    From this lesson in 1957 it was obvious to the CIA that they could no longer experiment inside US territory, and for this reason Dr. Cameron's offer to work for them in Canada was accepted.

    Cameron also used the drug LSD to break people down, as part of the MK ULTRA Project. Patients were given the drug unknowingly, and even when they desperately pleaded for Cameron not to inject them, they were not listened to. Cameron, as president of the American Psychiatric Association, and president of the World Psychiatric Association, and with 200 staff under his control in the institute, was above reproach. 152

    But do not think that Aum psychiatrists and doctors were the first to experiment with LSD in Japan. In 1954, Japan began testing LSD in the Department of Neurology at the Syowa Medical College.153 For the next ten years many universities from Hokka1do 154 to Kyushui 155 experimented with LSD. By 1964 it was being experimented with by the Japan Self Defense Forces. 156 LSD had also been experimented within Japanese prisons. 157 During this ten years LSD was also used experimental in Osaka City University, 158 Kobe Medical College, 159 Tokyo Medical College,160 Syowa Medical College,161 Tohoku University School of Medicine,162 Tokyo University,164 Kanazawa University, 164 Kyoto University,165 and Takasaya Hospital.166 The Scientific Research Fund, under the Ministry of Education, supplied the funds. Sankyo Pharmaceuticals distributed the drug. 167 The LSD experiments were grisly, ranging from testing labomized patients to experimenting with animals which had electrodes stuck into their brains. 16a

    This possibly is the only true method of changing one's decision making process against one's own will. It is done through the psychiatric methods of drugging and giving electric shock to the individual. And it appears that the Aum doctors had discovered it.

LSD and AUM

    If the CIA could document that the use of this drug could turn a strong man to quivering jelly, it seems logical that the same would happen to the leader of Aum Supreme Truth, who is reported to have consumed the LSD drug hundreds, or even thousands of times.169

    One ex-member gave her experience of being in one such drugged state. She was shown a video of what hell would be like. She was then given the drug and slipped into unconsciousness for two days. When she awoke she thought she was in hell and she felt afraid. At first, when she wanted to leave, a woman would calm her but soon a male took over, and when the she attempted to leave she was physically thrown back into the small cell and the door locked. 170

    Members of Aum were given LSD. They hallucinated. The drug affects the nervous system. People went unconscious after being given the drug. During their hallucinations they were tied up and locked in closed rooms. They experienced pain. People were heard crying out in agony from the experience. The drug, the CIA reported, could turn the strongest man into quivering jelly. For the victims of Aum this was their initiation.

    Per the Hochi Newspaper,171Matsumoto (Asahara) was very satisfied with the affects of the LSD at initiations. He ordered Murai and Dr. Endo and Tsuchia and Dr. Nakagawa to make the drug. They decided that they would also make a stimulant drug to go with the LSD. They gave this drug mixture to 1,000 members along with the rest of the initiation rites. There was a written plan that evolved from these rites and it included the getting of 30,000 such initiated members by 1996.172

    Other similarities between Aum psychiatrists and CIA psychiatrists is that they experimented with other similar drugs, such as sodium amytal and mescaline

    Mescaline is not new. It was reportedly used by the Germans during the World War 2 on prisoners of war in Dachau to obtain confessions.173

    The drug comes from a hallucinogenic cactus, from which peyote is derived. One hundred years ago English psychologist Hevelock Ellis urged others to take the drug.173 In the late 19305, G.T.Stockings, an English psychiatrist, gave mescaline to people and studied their drug-crazed states to learn about "insanity". The drug had been supplied by the London psychiatric drug manufacturer Burroughs Wellcome. Stockings claimed this drug was of the greatest importance to psychiatry. 174

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