US musicians drafted into the CIA’s MKULTRA

by Jon Rappoport

January 12, 2015

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The CIA mind-control program is medically based. It employs doctors and psychiatrists and researchers. This isn’t just some small group of fringe whackos who have an idea about altering human behavior.

CIA contractors in the private sector resonate with the goals of the program, because they are already trying, in their own way, to change human reaction and thought.

They don’t need a nudge. MKULTRA isn’t foreign territory for them.

In fact, the entire field of psychiatry is about mind control: the diagnosis of arbitrarily labeled mental disorders; the application of toxic drugs to alter brain response, modulate neurotransmitters, and affect hormonal outputs; and the propagandizing of the population to accept the notion that everyone will experience a mental disorder in his/her lifetime.

Biological/chemical psychiatry is, in its current form, a stunning version of MKULTRA right out in the open, with the blessing and backing of national governments, court systems, prisons, mainstream media, and academia.

Here is a bit of US history that illustrates the reach of the CIA’s infamous mind-control program, MKULTRA.

Some would say the 1940s and 50s were the most vibrant and innovative period in the history of jazz.

During those years, it was common knowledge that musicians who were busted for drug use were shipped, or volunteered to go, to Lexington, Kentucky. Lex was the first Narcotics Farm and US Health Dept. drug treatment hospital in the US.

According to diverse sources, here’s a partial list of the reported “hundreds” of jazz musicians who went to Lex: Red Rodney, Sonny Rollins, Chet Baker, Sonny Stitt, Howard McGhee, Elvin Jones, Zoot Sims, Lee Morgan, Tadd Dameron, Stan Levey, Jackie McLean.

It’s also reported that Ray Charles was there, and William Burroughs, Peter Lorre, and Sammy Davis, Jr.

It was supposed to be a rehab center. A place for drying out.

But it was something else too. Lex was used by the CIA as one of its MKULTRA centers for experimentation on inmates.

The doctor in charge of this mind control program was Harris Isbell. Ironically, Isbell was, at the same time, a member of the FDA’s Advisory Committee on the Abuse of Depressant and Stimulant Drugs.

Isbell gave LSD and other psychedelics to inmates at Lex.

At Sandoz labs in Switzerland, Dr. Albert Hofmann, the discoverer of LSD, also synthesized psilocybin from magic mushrooms. The CIA got some of this new synthetic from Hofmann and gave it to Isbell so he could try it out on inmates at Lex.

MKULTRA was a CIA program whose goal was to control minds…in part through the use of drugs.

Isbell worked at Lex from the 1940s through 1963. It is reported that in one experiment, Isbell gave LSD to 7 inmates for 77 consecutive days. At 4 times the normal dosage. That is a chemical hammer of incredible proportions.

To induce inmates to join this drug experiment, they were offered the drug of their choice, which in many cases was heroin. So at a facility dedicated to drying out and rehabbing addicts, addicts were subjected to MKULTRA experiments and THEN a re-establishment of their former habit.

Apparently as many as 800 different drugs were sent to Isbell by the CIA or CIA allies to use on patients at Lex. Two of the allies? The US Navy and the US National Institute of Mental Health—further proof that MKULTRA extended beyond the CIA.

In another MKULTRA experiment at Lex, nine men were strapped down on tables. They were injected with psilocybin. Lights were beamed at their eyes–a typical mind control component.

During Isbell’s tenure, no one knows how many separate experiments he ran on the inmates. No one knows what other mind-control programming he attempted to insert along with the drugs.

As I say, Lex was the main stop for drying out for NY jazz musicians. How many of them were taken into these MKULTRA programs?

As Martin Lee explains in his book, Acid Dreams, “It became an open secret…that if the [heroin] supply got tight [on the street], you could always commit yourself to Lexington, where heroin and morphine were doled out as payment if you volunteered for Isbell’s whacky drug experiments. (Small wonder Lexington had a return rate of 90%.)”

A June 15, 1999, Counterpunch article by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, “CIA’s Sidney Gottlieb: Pusher, Assassin & Pimp— US Official Poisoner Dies,” contains these quotes on Dr. Isbell:

“Gottlieb also funded the experiments of Dr. Harris Isbell. Isbell ran the Center for Addiction Research in Lexington, Kentucky. Passing through Isbell’s center was a captive group of human guinea pigs in the form of a steady stream of black heroin addicts. More than 800 different chemical compounds were shipped from Gottlieb to Lexington for testing on Isbell’s patients.

“Perhaps the most infamous experiment came when Isbell gave LSD to seven black men for seventy-seven straight days. Isbell’s research notes indicates that he gave the men ‘quadruple’ the ‘normal’ dosages. The doctor marveled at the men’s apparent tolerance to these remarkable amounts of LSD. Isbell wrote in his notes that ‘this type of behavior is to be expected in patients of this type.’

“In other Gottlieb-funded experiment at the Center, Isbell had nine black males strapped to tables, injected them with psylocybin, inserted rectal thermometers, had lights shown in their eyes to measure pupil dilation and had their joints whacked to test neural reactions.”

If you think these experiments were so extreme they bear no resemblance to modern psychiatry, think again. Thorazine, the first so-called anti-psychotic drug, was researched on the basis of its ability to make humans profoundly quiescent and passive. Electroshock and lobotomy are straight-out torture techniques that also destroy parts of the brain. SSRI antidepressants increase violent behavior, including homicide. Among its many documented effects, Ritalin can induce hallucinations and paranoia.

Well, all these effects are part and parcel of the original (and ongoing) MKULTRA.


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Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

21 comments on “US musicians drafted into the CIA’s MKULTRA

  1. omanuel says:

    Regretfully, I share your concerns about the medical field but . . .

    I am also convinced that there is a fundamental feeling of good-will at the core of every human for others.

    • bjacob131 says:

      What kind of good-will is it for people to be given off label psychotropic/hypnotic drugs when they go to the doctor for unrelated complaints?

    • Anonymous says:

      Then you have not researched enough. The leaders of the world are more atrocious than you could ever imagine.

    • Frank Richards says:

      Thats the attitude they count on. Whats really going on is beyond your worst nightmare and humans don’t have a fundamental feeling of goodwill. Never did and never will.

  2. dde684 says:

    We see a lot of mass mind control: look at the 3 million outpouring in France and the multinational march of world leaders over the magazine massacre. The Aurora theater shooting is another mass mind control and Holmes might be a MKULTRA fall guy. […]

  3. Sherlock says:

    Can you imagine receiving 4X the normal dose of LSD? Unbearable psychological anguish again and again.

    It looks like they brought all these gentlemen (psychiatrists and scientists) in America during Operation Paperclip. Then soon after we got Thorazine and television could be found in every home. Can’t be a bad thing, huh?

    As John mentions, chemical psychiatry is, in its current form, a stunning version of MKULTRA. According to the CIA torture report, the CIA paid two psychologists more than $80 million to come up with torture methods. Torture programs described in the report include “rectal feeding,” sleep deprivation, insects, use of diapers, and mock executions, CIA officers threatening to hurt, rape, and kill family members of detainees.

    CIA former director, Michael Hayden, repeatedly lied about details of the program. The report describes instances of the CIA misleading the Department of Justice, a US Senate committee, and the media about the usage and effectiveness of enhanced interrogation techniques. These methods were often found to have achieved little to no actionable intelligence. For example, in an email titled “So it begins,” a medical officer wrote that a detainee gave “NO useful information so far,” but had vomited several times.

    Can you believe that? Should I mention those tortured were only “suspected”. Well not all of them, since they also accidentally tortured two of their own informants. This is the kind of agency saying that always need more power. They are protecting us!

    CIA-Psychiatry-MKultra is a long story of torture… not finished yet.

    • doofus says:

      Also with operation paperclip, they brought over a bunch of guys who knew a lot about mercury torus antigravity, so that we usa could get it right xD

  4. From Québec says:

    Everything they ever do is by stealth. We only find out years and decades later. What else have they done that we still don’t know about? They are such criminal pshychopaths.

    The following is not the subject of this article, still it is a concern of this site:

    What They’re Not Telling You About Monsanto’s Role in Ukraine
    http://www.infowars.com/what-theyre-not-telling-you-about-monsantos-role-in-ukraine/

  5. Performance Gallery says:

    Splendid, as usual, Sir.

    Some are allowed to exit the limelight
    right out in the open and then we
    become the conditioned ones, oui?
    […]

  6. “Ongoing” absolutely. Elements of MK are in all MSM, from the constant repetition to the passive blue color of the “news” sets. But that’s only the “soft” variety of mind control. The hard stuff is drugs and deep traumatic torture including ritual sorcery and highly advanced vibrational harmonics and circuit implants. That’s how they create robotic slaves who’ll do anything suggested to them. ANYTHING. And MK victims are in all areas of society; you may be watching one on TV or buying their CD. Or giving a presidential speech. I’m only saying this in the hope that someone unfamiliar with MK will be open-minded enough to do the research.

    We have been so conditioned to think that using drugs is a real crime. I’m not saying they’re not harmful because they most definitely can be. What I’m saying is that it is the Right of every individual to choose what he or she does with their own bodies. Psychotropic plants can be beneficial to the individual if used in a natural or shamanic setting.

    It is upsetting to know that great musicians were subject to this abuse because many of them were truly gifted. But even if they weren’t so gifted, it is a crime against humanity. I listen to a lot of jazz and have for a long time. It’s no wonder that this great art form is but a shadow of it’s former self. How can something like freedom of expression through vibrations be allowed to flourish and thrive?

    • Jon, could you take out “because many of them were truly gifted. But even if they weren’t so gifted,” in the last paragraph and just make it “It is upsetting to know that great musicians were subject to this abuse. It is a crime against humanity.” please? Sorry to pester you but I realized too late that is sounds condescending. I only meant to say that there are some majorly gifted and some who got there through dedication and hard work; a John Coltrane as opposed to an Art Pepper or Sonny Stitt for example. They all had to work/practice damn hard to get to where they were. Anyway, I could talk about jazz for hours but I won’t waste your time. Thanks.

  7. toipaman says:

    good god .. i take st johns wort far better !

  8. aries712001 says:

    Until we actually come to senses if we have any, can’t condone much of anything I see on the internet, thanks.  JackieO

  9. Fred Wahlstrom says:

    Hi Jon,
    Did you ever wonder what percentage of law enforcement is currently taking any of these mental health drugs, after all we want our law enforcement officers to be mentally healthy don’t we?

  10. ozziethinker says:

    This is one of the many parts that Douglas Dietrich exposes. The CIA is “baby stuff” compared to the Pentagon (who I believe are aligned to Israel and NOT the USA).

    By all accounts there was a queue of musicians at this particular mental health facility. In the case of Ray Charles, his biographer claims he could not play “for shit” unless he was loaded on junk.

  11. NWO Reporter says:

    No doubt they continue to try all kinds of mind control — it’s the nature of the beast. Yet I wonder how far they have actually succeeded. I suspect it’s more like a crap shoot. Throwing a lot of different things out there, seeing what sticks, but mostly succeeding in weakening, numbing and muddling minds. They can probably do much more with long-term individualized attention, like they would have in a residential research setting — but still, I’m sure they succeed much more with some people than others.

    The human mind is so complex, unpredictable, different in everyone, and even different in the same person at different times. Seems like mind control is probably more of a perverted art than a science.

    Consider an antidepressant. Some people will say it was wonderful, blissful. Others will commit suicide or murder. It’s that way for virtually all drugs — the effects on everyone are different, and change over time.

  12. paul says:

    John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that who so ever believe in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life …

  13. Cathey says:

    HR 4919 microchip law. Inmates already are being chipped,since 2008.

  14. Percivel says:

    Hi Jon,

    My name is Percivel Morrison and I am certain that the things you mentioned in the above article are currently being used on me. It’s nice to know that you are doing your best to shine light on these horrible acts. I would like to ask you if you know of a way that could assist me in finding a solution to my problems. I have absolute confidence in my sanity and on several occasions I’ve experienced certain situations that led me to believe that nanotechnology is being utilized for multiple objectives (I.e. Electrodes, Chemical/medicine delivery and removal, nasal blockages and more). The unfortunate part is that I have no contacts nor the technology to help prove what is occurring to me. If you feel that you may be able to point me in the right direction my email is […] and my mobile is […] and currently live near New Orleans, LA. Any help is greatly appreciated.

    Best Regards,
    Percivel […]

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