The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
—Terry Pratchett
Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like asking a peeping tom to install your window blinds.
—John Perry Barlow
Dr. Michael Persinger, whom we have written about in previous books, is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Ontario, Canada’s Laurentian University, and a well-respected scientist. His work with electromagnetic fields and their influences on the human brain includes the use of temporal lobe stimulation to invoke the sensation of being watched, seeing “paranormal” shadow entities, experiencing perceptual anomalies, even causing nightmares. But it was his article “On the Possibility of Directly Accessing Every Human Brain by Electromagnetic Induction of Fundamental Algorithms” that set the mind control world on fire. Published in 1995 for Perceptual and Motor Skills, the article then appeared (and still does) on a number of science and conspiracy Websites.
Persinger’s article foretold of a stunning potential achievement that suggested that there existed these fundamental algorithms by which sensory transduction could be generated into intrinsic, brain specific-code, according to the article’s abstract. This code could then be used in direct stimulation of the temporal or limbic cortices by applied electromagnetic patterns requiring energy levels “which are within the range of both geomagnetic activity and contemporary communications networks.” He went on to write that this process could be coupled to the narrow band of brain temperatures, allowing “all normal human brains to be affected by a sub-harmonic whose frequency range at about 10 Hz would vary only by 1.0 Hz.”
Persinger understood that the last few decades of research into neuroscience, coupled with advancements in technology, were leading to, as he put it, “a potential” that was marginally feasible at the time. That potential? “[T]he technical capability to influence directly the major portion of the approximately six billion brains of the human species, without mediation through classical sensory modalities, by generating neural information within a physical medium within which all members of the species are immersed.”
The Matrix, anyone?
Now you can read and reread that over and over again, but the implication will remain the same: We are on the verge, if we haven’t already succeeded, of creating technologies that can control the minds of the masses on a global scale. Whether this control comes in the form of neural programming designed to change our beliefs and behaviors, or some form of “mass consciousness manipulation,” the potential is there for both positive and more nefarious purposes. People in the scientific field, no doubt being urged on by governments and military organizations and corporations, are looking for ways to make our minds up for us.
The question is: Do we have a choice in the matter?
Two news stories present a chilling look into the brave, new world we face. One, “Mind Control Scientists Claim Ability to Turn Off Consciousness,” reported by Nick West for The Sleuth Journal in July 2014, looks at the cutting-edge BRAIN project in the United States, and the British counterpart, the HUMAN BRAIN PROJECT, which will examine the possibility of brain-computer interfacing, the implanting and erasure of memories, and even the direct uploading of information to the brain. But even more shocking is the claim of George Washington University scientists, published in the Epilepsy and Behavior Journal, and reported by New Scientist’s Helen Thomson in her July 2014 article, “Consciousness On-off Switch Discovered Deep in Brain.” Led by neuroscientist Mohamad Koubeissi, the team of scientists switched off and on the consciousness of a woman subject by stimulating her claustrum (a thin sheet of neurons attached to the underside of the neocortex in the center of the brain). The subject suffered from epilepsy and had hooked her brain up with electrodes, one of which was close to the claustrum, an area never before stimulated in any studies.
The result, when zapped with high-frequency electrical impulses, was a loss of consciousness. When the stimulation stopped, she immediately regained consciousness and couldn’t remember anything before that moment of having lost consciousness!
The second story, “Neuroscience Could Mean Soldiers Controlling Weapons With Minds,” for the UK Guardian’s February 2012 edition, looks at cutting-edge research to create a better soldier by having their minds plugged directly into their weapons. The original report was published in the UK National Academy of Science’s Royal Society Report, and also claimed that future research might lead to drugs that can boost soldier performance, get captives and enemies to talk, and make enemy troops fall asleep. All of this would be achieved by passing weak electrical signals through the skull using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). V2K anyone?
Our brains, our minds, and even our consciousness may no longer be a privately owned and operated domain.
Back in 1975, the United Nations General Assembly considered a draft proposed by the then–Soviet Union titled “Prohibition of the Development and Manufacture of New Types of Weapons of Mass Destruction and New Systems of Such Weapons.” Among some of the later weapons systems listed were:
1. Radiological weapons that could produce effects similar to those of a nuclear explosion.
2. Particle beam weapons using charged or neutral particles to affect biological targets.
3. Infrasonic acoustic radiation weapons.
4. Electromagnetic weapons operating at certain radio-frequency radiations, which would have injurious effects on human organs.
Unfortunately, the response from Western nations was no response.
Other treaties, such as biological and chemical weapons bans (both on the battlefield and in the city streets), have been created and modified, but apparently, not one that stops the invasion of the human mind, or the use of mediums such as microwaves or infrasound for individual harassment. And, the push for non-lethal weapons, especially for use by law enforcement against civilians, gives the appearance of a “kindler, gentler” assault on freedoms and liberties. Perhaps a number of authoritative entities agree not to nuke each other, but nothing stops them from using the cutting-edge technology of the times to invade, alter, and manipulate human emotions, thoughts, behaviors, and actions. At least they aren’t killing anyone, right?
According to Judy Wall, editor and publisher of Resonance: The Bio-electromagnetic Special Interest Group, in an article titled “Military Use of Silent Sound: Mind Control Weapons,” psy-ops (psychological weaponry) was used in the Persian Gulf War. The technology utilized consisted of “subliminal, mind-altering technology…carried on standard radiofrequency broadcasts.” There were even news briefs in March 1991 stating that the use of psy-ops had occurred once Saddam Hussein’s military command-and-control system was destroyed. “High-Tech Psychological Warfare Arrives in the Middle East,” a news brief, described a psy-ops used against the Iraqi troops during Operation Desert Storm in which U.S. transmitters overpowered local Iraqi stations and began broadcasting patriotic and religious music, along with “vague, confusing and contradictory military orders and information.” Wall writes that this may have also included a more powerful, subliminal technology at work that used “a sophisticated electronic system to ‘speak’ directly to the mind of the listener, to alter and entrain his brainwaves, to manipulate his brain’s electroencephalograph, i.e. EEG patterns and artificially implant negative emotional states-feelings of fear, anxiety, despair and hopelessness.”
Perhaps that is why, as Wall states, Iraqi troops later surrendered en masse, including majors and brigade commanders who gave up their entire units. What messages might have been coursing through the brains of these soldiers, who at one point fought for their beliefs, and then reversed and gave up?
Well, in 1992, Dr. Oliver Lowery of Norcross, Georgia, developed the “Silent Subliminal Presentation System,” that stated “modulated carriers may be transmitted directly in real time, or may be conveniently recorded and stored on mechanical, magnetic or optical media for delayed or repeated transmission to the listener.” Hell, now you could not only beam a message into the brain once, you could store that message and have it beamed repeatedly! Edward Tilton, president of a company called Silent Sounds, Inc., calls this technology “S-quad” and allegedly stated in a letter dated December 13, 1996, according to Judy Wall for Nexus Magazine, that they could “use supercomputers to analyze human emotional EEG patterns and replicate them, then store these ‘emotion signature clusters’ on another computer, and, at will, ‘silently induce and change the emotional state in a human being.’” Interestingly, Silent Sounds, Inc. stated its schematics were classified by the U.S. government, used by the German government and even the Soviets, and—get this—“The system was used throughout Operation Desert Storm (Iraq) quite successfully.”
Okay, so we are trying to drive home a point here. If these technologies existed back in the 1990s, and we did nothing to stop them, what are we facing now? Is technology too far gone? Have those who wish to control us already won? We are now decades ahead and dealing with modalities that were probably unimaginable 25 years ago. Things have changed. Why anyone would deny this stuff exists is getting a little old.
We live in the age of hovering drones of every size, cameras on every cell phone and street corner, tracking devices we don’t even know we are carrying, mass media and the Internet and social networking invading our every waking moment with other people’s agendas and ideas of what we should be doing and thinking, and technologies that are so insidious and invisible we probably have no clue we are under assault in the first place. We are stalked, followed, tracked, harassed, pushed, pulled, manipulated, changed, controlled, altered, fooled, ripped off, and deceived in every manner possible, and plenty we probably thought were impossible.
Our bodies and our minds no longer seem to belong to us.
Love music? Even music has been used as a means of behavior modification, if not downright torture. Psy-ops involving blasting loud or obnoxious music sounds like a bad joke, but not to those who have been exposed to this rather invasive assault on the senses. Even though the United Nations and the European Court of Human Rights have banned this form of torture, it was used on prisoners of war in the notorious Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo containment facilities, as well as to flush out the followers of David Koresh in Waco, Texas, and even back in December 1989 when music was used to flush out Manuel Noriega from Holy See’s embassy during the U.S. invasion of Panama.
Music, it seems, has the ability to not just incapacitate the mind, but to control it as well. An October 2012 Scientific American article titled “The Power of Music” looks at the use of rhythmic sound patterns on the brain and the ability to affect deeper mental processes with such bad back beats. Music has been proven to tap into the brain’s emotional center, but also the circuitry involving bodily movement, and can actually control both the emotions and movement. According to the article, at a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, psychologist Annett Schirmer reported that rhythmic sound “not only coordinates the behavior of people in a group, it also coordinates their thinking—the mental processes of individuals in the group become synchronized.” This explains why rituals involving music often put people into trances, and trance dancing and raves are as good as drugs to alter consciousness. It also explains the power of drumming, chanting, and repetitive tribal beats to move people on such a deep, primal level.
Chillingly, it could also explain why people get violent at particular concerts or display more aggression at a heavy metal or punk concert than they would at a performance by a string quartet. Music changes us, and it moves us—but now it seems, it can also control our minds and thoughts, even in a group setting. Is it only a matter of time before we are all behaving like the Walking Dead, zombified by music piped into our homes via the many means of technology at our disposal? Not everyone sees this as a negative, though. Schirmer herself states at the end of the previously mentioned article: “When people move in synchrony they are more likely to perceive the world in synchrony, so that would facilitate their ability to interact.”
That perception, and interaction, could go either way: for good or for evil.
But because we have hope, we authors did not want to end this book on such a dark, paranoid, and negatively hopeless and despairing note. Though indeed we are experiencing all forms of mind control and electronic assaults, we still have individual will and resourcefulness, not to mention a stubborn streak that makes us human. In order to retain our humanity, our freedom, and our individuality, we must not stick our heads in the sand as to what occurred in our past, what is happening now, and what might be coming down the pike. Knowledge is power. Awareness is power. Understanding is power.
A dummy model of BrainGate interface at a Star Wars exhibition of the Boston Science Museum, 2006. Image by Paul Wicks.
Remember, too, that controlling the mind can be a good thing, in terms of achieving goals. If the self-help movement has taught us anything, the power of the mind to create our realities is something to celebrate, not to fear. The use of affirmations, goal-setting techniques, intention, focused thought, and even hypnosis has helped many a person lose weight, stop smoking, get healthy, meet a mate, and succeed at achieving a dream. It isn’t all bad when we talk about mind control, as long as we are the ones in control of our own minds—and thus our thoughts, intentions, focus, behaviors, actions, and destinies.
In fact, the same technology discussed earlier, which can influence the brain, might also be used one day to help us live better lives. The concept of “brain hacking,” or using implanted chips in the brain to deliver electrical impulses that could help us remember more, focus better, and achieve more goals is not so far-fetched. Gary Marcus, professor of psychology at New York University, and editor of the book The Future of the Brain: Essays by the World’s Leading Neuroscientists, told Yahoo.com Business Insider in August 2014 that we are on the verge of understanding the brain, even decoding it. We are already sending sound pulses into the brains of the deaf to enable them to hear. We are already using electrical stimulation to study and one day treat depression and other mental illnesses.
Perhaps having a chip in our brains that sends out specific electrical charges that are designed specifically to cure what ails us might literally serve to supercharge the brain.
We might even be able to move stuff around with our brain’s own electrical impulses in what is being called brain–computer interfacing. In 2011, researchers at Brown University successfully tested the “BrainGate,” a type of brain–computer interface that allowed a paralyzed woman to move a cursor just by thinking about it. This opens the door to not just neural prosthetics, but chips that can help us work with computers in a whole new and rather intimate way. We could, one day, be able to tap into a computer’s memory banks and fill our brains with all kinds of information. Though this sounds like a great idea on the surface, the possibility for misuse exists. Who designs the chips? Can we be sure they are not going to control our brains even as they expand them? What kind of data will we be accessing, and who controls the flow of that data? How will our brains know to filter out the bad data from the good?
We may be facing questions we cannot answer and making choices that we don’t have all of the ramifications for. The problems in life arise when one of two things happens. We either don’t control our own minds, thus allowing others to take control—or we do control our own minds, but not with information, wisdom, and knowledge that empower us. Just having a mind doesn’t automatically lead to joy, happiness, health, and success. It has to be used right. Remember: A mind is a terrible thing to waste, or to turn over to other forces that most likely do not have our highest good in mind.
Although this book may have only scratched the surface of the history of the more spooky aspects of mind control, social programming, electronic harassment, surveillance, and spying, we hope it has opened your eyes and your mind enough to want to know more, and to read and learn more, about this frightening aspect of our human existence. The rabbit hole goes much deeper than this, and it is all too easy to get sucked down into those dark and eerie depths, and feel as though you can never climb back out.
What is real and what is the realm of pure conspiracy? What is the truth that usually exists in between? And what can we do about it anyway, because don’t the powers that are behind these technologies and agendas have the ability to keep us from doing anything about it?
Only if we let them.
“All the problems in America are the result of people being led to believe things that are not true.”
—Steven Jacobson, author and producer of the audio series Mind Control in America and Wake-Up America