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What would it take to turn you into a suicide bomber? How would you interrogate a member of Al Qaeda? With access to formerly classified documentation and interviews from the CIA, the U.S. Army, MI5, MI6, and the British Intelligence Corps, acclaimed journalist Dominic Streatfeild traces the history of the worldʼs most secret psychological procedure. From the cold war to the height of todayʼs war on terror, groups as dissimilar as armies, religious cults, and advertising agencies have been accused of brainwashing. But what does this mean? Is it possible to erase memories or to implant them artificially? Do heavy-metal records contain subliminal messages? Do religious cults brainwash recruits? What were the CIA and MI6 doing with LSD in the 1950s? How far have the worldʼs militaries really gone? From the author of the definitive history of cocaine, Brainwash is required reading in an era of cutting-edge and often controversial interrogation practices. More than just an examination of the techniques used by the CIA, the KGB, and the Taliban, it is also a gripping, full history of the heated efforts to master the elusive, secret techniques of mind control. Includes information on amnesia, ARTICHOKE project, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), hypnosis, hallucinogens, interrogation, LSD, MKULTRA project, satanic ritual abuse, sensory deprivation, sleep, suicide, truth drugs, Unification Church, etc.… (more)
User reviews
This book covers some of the stranger experiments in interrogation and brainwashing by government agencies and medical professionals from the end of WWII to today. To me, some of the most interesting elements include the tested pharmacology of marijuana, LSD, and "magic" mushrooms (which, of course, escaped the lab and became popular recreational drugs), while the more disturbing include the concept of false memory and a case in which a man went to prison for a series of horrible lies his children told.
Definitely an interesting read.