Mindf*ck 102: MK Ultra, Crypto Cults & Modern Brainwashing with Rebecca Lemov (Part 2)

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[00:00:28] Das Podcast ist für informational purposes only und nicht beachtet legal, medical, oder mental health advice. Die views und opinions expressed do nicht necessarily reflect die official policy or position of the Podcast und are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business, individual, anyone, or anything. Ich bin Sarah Edmondson. Und ich bin Anthony Nippy Ames.

[00:00:56] Und das ist A Little Bit Culty. Cults are commonplace now. From fandoms to fads, we're examining them all. We look at what happens when things that seem like a great thing at first go bad. Every week we chat with survivors, experts, and whistleblowers for real culty stories told directly by the people who lived through them. Because we want you to learn a few things that we've had to learn the hard way. For example, if you think you're too smart to get sucked into something culty, you might be prime recruitment material. And who knows? You could already be in a cult.

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[00:02:05] Welcome back to part two. Because Rebecca Lamov didn't listen to the first one. Put it in reverse. Matthew McConaughey's back. Nah. Okay. Yeah, well, yeah. Let's get into it. Kicking it around, yeah. This is so fascinating.

[00:02:35] I wish we had hours with you. Well, no, it's really fun to talk to you. Oh, so great. Okay, Charles Manson. I haven't read Chaos yet. That's been on my list forever. Forever. So technically, we know he brainwashed, air quotes, his followers. But there are theories that he was brainwashed by the CIA before that and links to MKUltra. And I've done all the rabbit hole dives on MKUltra to the point where I was like, I think this is BS.

[00:03:04] You know, once it reached Roseanne Barr's mouthpiece, I was like, eh. Once celebrities get a hold of these theories, I tend to dismiss them for whatever reason. But what is your take on the Manson? Do you believe he was involved with them? And what is MKUltra? And CIA experiment, et cetera. The short answer is I don't think you can yet prove that Manson was – I don't think he was formally brainwashed by the CIA.

[00:03:30] But there is evidence that Louis Jolly and West, who was a very prominent MKUltra researcher, also the number one cult expert in the U.S., also testified at Patty Hearst trial, also was involved in the cult wars, that he did have contact with Manson. And that – I mean, there is a case to be made that he was involved in some way with the Manson family.

[00:03:54] And I can explain what I found in my research, but I wouldn't – I don't think MKUltra was still the entity doing that. And I'm not sure. So there's still many questions unanswered, and Tom O'Neill doesn't say he's answered them either. So if people are drawing that conclusion from his book, it's merely just that the research is so spectacular that one can find in the West files. And also that a couple of rabbit holes I've been down for the last couple of decades.

[00:04:23] So to go back to what is MKUltra, it's a – so this was a program that was developed by the CIA as a result of the Korean War and the very same 21 POWs who elected not to return, as well as the – a set of Air Force pilots who confessed to having dropped germ warfare over China. And this was seen as a new communist superweapon that brainwashing, which strangely the BW in brainwashing was parallel to biological weapons.

[00:04:52] So this was – in 1953, the CIA, the State Department, the highest echelons of the U.S. government, including Alan Dulles, who was head of CIA, were extremely alarmed.

[00:05:02] And they felt that the CIA needed to devote extraordinary resources to figuring out what this was and to reverse engineering whatever processes were at work, whether it was brainwashing, whether it was maybe some other set of – maybe it was hypnosis, maybe it was LSD, maybe it was a combination of sleeplessness and torture and many other processes that could be understood.

[00:05:25] But if it was possible to understand it, they wanted to understand it, both in order to protect U.S. service members when they might be held prisoner, but also potentially to use it as a weapon ourselves, as a country, and possibly to use it in interrogation. So they developed a program and committed money to this research.

[00:05:48] So MKUltra was a clandestine program, and it ran – it had at least about 150 sub-programs, and these ran through some cutout organizations or organizations that didn't – they were publicly used as fronts to cover up – they were used as conduits for CIA money.

[00:06:08] And many of these involved studies of everything from hypnosis to putting people in extreme states to psychological manipulation to, you know, could you really disassemble a human being and rebuild them according – perhaps even as a Manchurian candidate or an assassin. So it was very outlandish. Some of it involved real abuse. Some of it involved probably killing people. Several deaths have been documented.

[00:06:36] So that's a kind of summary of MKUltra. And in 1963, it was discontinued. Or so they say. Or so they say. I mean, the CIA has a way of rebranding things. Just as many – you just call it something different and you keep doing some of the things. Correct me if I'm wrong. I think the movie Manchurian Candidate came out in 62 with Frank Sinatra.

[00:06:58] And then after the Kennedy assassination, it was pulled and wasn't aired again on television to like – I think my mom told me this because she said she saw it the night my brother was born. So that would have been August the 75. Because there was rumors that Oswald or someone was – I don't know. I'm bits and piecing that from my memory. But that was kind of one of the theories around the Kennedy assassination. And Alan Dulles' fingerprints are all over that. Yes.

[00:07:28] This is true. And so Louis Jollyon West, who was – again, he was one of the first people to study the brainwashed POWs, the pilots. Later, he became one of the most prominent MKUltra scientists. And he was at the – oh, he examined Jack Ruby after Ruby killed Oswald. And Ruby never spoke coherently again. West was known for his facility with his ableness with hypnosis. He was an expert in hypnosis.

[00:07:55] He said he could create not just anesthesia in hypnotic states, but also basically he could create pain instead of relieving pain. And he could make people come up with ulcers or blisters on their skin just by telling them that they were suffering in those ways. He also was an expert in administering LSD and other psychotropics. So he apparently did this to Ruby and in his examination because – as he did to several other people.

[00:08:23] And Ruby became entirely incoherent and never really was able to focus again. And West wrote a long report on Jack Ruby. So there's some connection there that I actually don't – I haven't fully dived into. And didn't we just find out recently that a friend of ours' father was Jack Ruby's rabbi? Johnny Silverman. So weird. Our small little world. And when you said West, I had read about this guy West before. I didn't make the connection it was the same West. Yes.

[00:08:51] It all does tie up. I mean, so it's remarkable. So what are the odds of that? So West keeps popping up like in the cult world. It was Margaret Singer's partner. Margaret Singer is the one from the cult wars. Yeah. So that's really – We have her book. We have cults in there. And it's a good book. He was on the Warren Commission. So these are the people that – anyway, that's a whole other – So to go back to Manson. Yeah. It's just a big morass.

[00:09:17] But what I would say is that I just try to be cautious of what can we actually know because the CIA destroyed all of its records from MKUltra after its own general inspector evaluated the program in 63 and then said it was deeply unethical and it was impossible to continue. And then they destroyed all the records they could find, but they neglected to search their financial records or they just forgot. So the financial records are the only reason we really know about it.

[00:09:46] Plus, Louis Jolly and West, the same guy, he liked to keep records of everything in his personal papers. I'm sorry, but canceling a program because it's unethical from the CIA seems counterintuitive. It seems those are a feature for a lot of those programs. I think it's that – it's true. This is a good point. But the general inspector – but also the CIA, they were taking their own drugs, literally. I mean, Sidney Gottlieb was frequently dosing himself with acid.

[00:10:16] Some of the programs they were doing were so outlandish and surreal, you know, such as using prostitutes to lure mob members and people who had no – they were basically using people as human guinea pigs to see what would happen if you unwittingly dose them, watch them, have sex with someone they just believe was a prostitute, and then try to get them to confess to various things in that state of confusion and then taking notes. I mean, these were operations that were part of FK Ultra.

[00:10:44] So they were really taking part in this kind of hallucinatory reality that they were co-building. They were dosing each other with LSD, sometimes warning each other, sometimes not. And that's how one of the famous deaths occurred of their own chemists. All of these are longer stories. I won't – People need to read your book. The Good Shepherd gets into that movie, The Good Shepherd. Yeah. I don't know if you remember that. I've never seen that.

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[00:11:48] You've heard from our sponsors. Now, let's get back to a little bit culty, shall we? Okay. When it comes to cults and high control groups, very quickly, in 20 seconds, what are the steps to brainwashing? Well, so I would simplify it.

[00:12:06] I mean, there are the first and primary one that Robert J. Lifton wrote about that I think is still incredibly useful to think about is milieu control, which means the control within a situation of the information coming in and the information going out.

[00:12:20] And so a physical space, such as a prison cell or a remote cabin or just the kind of place where many people or a retreat center for self-development where you're separated out and the informational environment can be extremely controlled is usually where the first step, I suppose. For us, it was going to Albany, which, by the way, was very ungrounding for somebody like myself. No offense to people from Albany. Exactly.

[00:12:45] So I do think that before milieu control comes ungrounding in various forms, it's very easy to do. It can be falling off the playground slide, as Nippy was saying, in a certain way. Or it could be taking a different walk to work, meeting somebody. So these places one could be recruited. It could be you're destabilized from a breakup. Or say you're ungrounded in various ways, the recruitment appeal might get you into a room somewhere or at a dinner party or an event of some sort.

[00:13:14] And within that, the beginnings of, I suppose you could say this process begins of thought reform. You're exposed to, within the controlled environment, to certain texts or doctrines or arguments. One thing that's interesting is, like, there's a story that's told by Steve Hassan, the cult expert.

[00:13:36] And he was saying that when he was recruited, and many people say this, initially the doctrines he was exposed to by Moon were so boring. He was like, why are all these people here? What are they seeing in this? And he didn't see anything in it. And even people who were recruited. That was me. Yeah. You're like, I'm just not getting it. Get me out of here. Why is everyone so enthusiastic? Why is everyone kissing each other? Things like that.

[00:14:02] So there's a process by which, sometimes through sleeplessness, sometimes through just getting you to take the next step, you get drawn in further. And you become vulnerable in certain ways. And different people are different in how they become vulnerable. Yeah, one of them is going to get you. Right. So it has to probably cast a wide net because each of you would be susceptible in different ways and also have strengths to resist. Or to be skeptical in different ways.

[00:14:27] So it has to kind of generally, strategically, a group like that will probably exert a wide array of strategies. So some of the things that start to happen are people are assigned phrases to repeat. So techniques that encourage thought stopping. Or sometimes people are given biblical verses or verses from a poem or just a reassuring thing to repeat to yourself almost in a childlike way.

[00:14:55] Or that can actually be successful because meditation can involve the repetition of a certain type of phrase. There can be abuse of techniques such as meditation, breath work, yoga that are generally can have incredibly positive effects, but they can be abused in these circumstances. Just ways that people get drawn in. I don't know if this is fully helpful. No, we've done episodes on all those.

[00:15:19] And it's very consistent with, you know, one of the things we always say is every group has an extreme version of itself in some capacity. And oftentimes you don't know when you're in the extreme side of it. And maybe you go to the extreme side of it and come back to the center as some people can. They have enough self-awareness. So it's just knowing when that line gets crossed. Yeah. And I think that people have differential experiences.

[00:15:44] So often a group will be wise to shield maybe some of its more prominent members of, say, Scientology from knowing what's maybe not everybody really is aware. That's a really good point. Or, Sarah, like you were saying, you would not participate in certain things, but you were somewhat aware of them. This reminds me of a story by a man that I met at a cultic studies conference for ex-members. And he was saying that he got drawn into the children of God.

[00:16:12] And when they started introducing these new policies that said that children needed to be sexually initiated into, you know, as babies. As long as it was done in gentleness and there was no violence that this was part of the doctrine of their group, the sexual abuse and trafficking of children. That was not something he would ever do. But by this time, he was mid-level management in the cult. He was super invested and he had been drawn in over years.

[00:16:40] So it's not that he agreed with it, but he just didn't. The stakes were too high to disagree at that point. And it took him another 10 to 12 years to leave. And then when he did, to his credit, he's been very dedicated to exposing it and to supporting people who were sexually abused. Good. One of those people told me it was much appreciated because most members never did that. Right. Most people didn't go out of their way. Yeah.

[00:17:07] Children of God is probably one of the most horrific in terms of the sexual abuse of children and also the denial of it and the aftermath of the members. It's easy to notice extreme cases of brainwashing in cults and communist regimes. But what about the, air quote, soft examples we face every day? Are social media companies and advertisers brainwashing us? Yeah. That's really the stealth argument of the book.

[00:17:33] That's the argument of the book is that, but it's sort of going about it by looking at these earlier examples where we can see somewhat clearly what goes on because it's so physical. So even the emotional parts, I at least try to make clear from people's descriptions of the nature of abuse, the nature of trauma, the nature of addiction and how all these things kind of play a part. And then I try to identify these same dynamics in social media and in relationships people develop with AI chatbots.

[00:18:03] I use that as one area. And also in crypto investing, which was a chapter I really, I'm glad you enjoyed that because I thought it was fascinating. And I think I could easily write a whole book about it if I had time, but it's a complicated terrain, the world of crypto on one level. It really is. Yeah. It does participate in a whole, I mean, one, one tip off is it does have this whole language and I got fascinated.

[00:18:28] I did a bit of, maybe you could say field work studying and looking deep and listening to a lot of podcasts with people who use astrology to invest in crypto. And this might seem like an absurd thing, but they actually do very well using astrology to time their trades. But what they talk about is how they need to learn a language. It's very similar. You can hear one person talking to another and saying, you know, this is why you need to get into crypto.

[00:18:54] First of all, it has a whole vision of a adjuster world where we can trust. There's an activist vibe to it. Yeah. It has an ideal. It has a mission. Yeah. It has a whole mission to read. And there are genuine, so many injustices in the financial system, in the world, in the economic distribution that we find ourselves unfairness. So many people actually do think of crypto as this liberatory technology and that's not completely wrong. But you also see these dynamics where people get drawn in.

[00:19:24] They are taught to use a certain vocabulary. The vocabulary can function as a form of thought stopping. So it's very loaded. HODL. When crypto crashed, it went through its winter. People were saying, you know, to HODL, you have to hold on. You have to, they just keep telling each other these things and they even talk about smoking the hopium. And many of them actually have histories of being addicted. So you just see these patterns that are interesting.

[00:19:52] For more background on what brought us here, check out Sarah's page-turning memoir. It's called Scarred, The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, The Cult That Bound My Life. It's available on Amazon, Audible, and at most bookstores. Highly recommend, of course, because she's my wife. And now, a brief message from our Little Bit Culti sponsors. Remember, when you support our sponsors, you support our podcast. Break time's over, people.

[00:20:20] Let's get back to this episode of A Little Bit Culti. It's a good one. Super fascinating. And in awareness of your time, in the three minutes we've left, we'll send people to your book. And also, the two things I should touch on real quickly, I'd be remiss if we didn't, is just how you also pointed out that in your research, you realize that the word trauma or even PTSD was really late to the game.

[00:20:42] And I think that's super fascinating to understand that people, researchers, as I was looking at these prisoners of war, weren't even, like, trauma's so overused now. But looking back, it was so underused or not even used. And, like, looking at that concept in terms of cults and why people join and why they're in trauma to begin with and then how they get into more trauma. It seemed to take me 15 years just even to notice that, which is strange.

[00:21:14] I feel like. Probably because you were taking it for granted because you already knew about it, I'm guessing. I was taking it for granted, and also I thought, well, that's just so obvious. Why do I need to even point it out? And I also knew that, like, a friend of mine who's a psychiatrist who was trained in the 70s, he said he was trained to believe that in your lifetime you might run into one or two cases of trauma. And that would be someone who had survived a burn caught in a fire or someone who'd been shot in war.

[00:21:42] But these POWs, they did go through those things, and still psychiatrists didn't identify trauma as part of what had led to this seemingly bizarre capitulation to ideological thought reform. So that was interesting to me. And then I also think we live in a moment where, you know, people complain about trauma porn and the ubiquity of trauma. We think about trauma too much. But I don't think we think about it too much. I just think we still are misunderstanding it. Yes.

[00:22:12] I think that this book will really help people and also help people understand cults more. There was one particular quote that you said I wrote down because I thought this was great about someone describing their experience as being a dark hamster wheel of joylessness. And I think that's so apt because so many of the groups that we've studied, including NXIVM, is that we were at many times devoid of joy or struggling or suffering was the word they used if we weren't happy. And we were trying to, like, be happy because it was the science of joy.

[00:22:40] But it wasn't because there was something wrong with us. It was because we were being put into these terrible situations and we thought it was something wrong with us. Yeah. And I think your book really shines a really... It puts language to it. Yeah. It puts language to it. Sarah and I were not in Albany, New York. We were peripheral. And when we would go back to Albany, New York, it was very clear the people that lived in Albany... Were miserable. We were miserable compared to the rest of the organization. And I would joke with Sarah.

[00:23:08] I was like, I feel like every time I go to Albany, we're going to someone's funeral. And sometimes we were. Yeah. And it just was... People died. And this explains it. I mean, obviously we've figured it out, but this puts it in different contexts. Yeah. Thank you. And I want to thank you too as well because I think you do also put words to it in a really eloquent way. Just this puzzle that you didn't necessarily ask for. Exactly. Like, what? Yeah. Yeah. That's a really... That's a good... I like that.

[00:23:38] I like how you put that. We call the episode The Puzzle We Didn't Ask For. The Puzzle We Didn't Ask For. Understanding cults. Well, you know, it's funny. We're finishing up our book like literally today to send to the editor. And I wrote something in it. It's like you don't really get to pick and choose what you're going to stand for and when. The Puzzle We Didn't Ask For has been kind of our axe to grind. And the universe gives you lessons until you learn it. And that was... You know, it's one of hubris. It's one of naivety. It's one of arrogance. It's one of...

[00:24:08] You know, there's some positive aspects to it. But it certainly was put in our lap. The positive thing is that it is also one of potential self-knowledge. Yes. This has been for me too. This research... Wisdom. ...trajectory and also talking to people after the book has been. Good. Yeah, yeah. You got to go to Joe Rogan too. How cool. Yeah. Dax Shepard. I love that they're both obsessed with cults. We're definitely going to be reaching out to them when this book is done. And I would... With your permission, I'll check with you once it's written. But I want to put your...

[00:24:37] The specific part about ungroundedness into our explanation of how they get you. That would be wonderful. Yeah. It's meant to be for young people. So for them to read before they go to college. Before they log on to the World Wide Web. Where can people find you? Where's your book? Anything we miss that you want people to know? No, that was great. And I really enjoyed it. You can find me at... I'm building a website. That's RebeccaLamav.com.

[00:25:07] And it's... It'll be getting more and more things on it. But you can also just buy the book wherever. And there's an audio book as well that I hear is fun to listen to. Yeah, it is. I can vouch for that. I especially like it at 1.6 speed. I went to 1.5. Flirted with 1.9 here and there. That's impressive. I switched gears. I listen to all books very fast. But we have to. I wish we had another hour. I know.

[00:25:36] Because we didn't even touch on Edward Bernays and all that. We'll have to do that sometime. We'll definitely will. Well, I hope people read the book. I hope we stay in touch. And thank you for writing this very important book. It was great. I loved it. Thank you. Great to talk to you. Do you like what you hear on A Little Bit Culty? Then please do give us a rating, a review, and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Or even better, share this episode with someone who you think needs to hear it.

[00:26:05] Maybe they're in a cult. Maybe they're a little bit susceptible. Just share the love. Thanks. Thank you so much for talking with us, Rebecca. I'm sorry that you had to go to, I think she was teaching a class in Harvard, and we were literally keeping her from going to teach a class because we just had so much to ask her about. She gets to tell everyone she was on A Little Bit Culty. We get to tell everybody that she was on A Little Bit Culty.

[00:26:30] But seriously, brainwashing comes up so much on the show, Undo Influence, Mind Control, whatever you want to call it. It was really great to get an expert's perspective. We totally loved her book. I want to have her on again. We didn't get to touch on Edward Bernays. We didn't get to touch on so many things that set up the culture of brainwashing. And I can't wait to meet her because there's a lot of other conversations I want to have with her. We only touched on it at the end, but the book really does look at the history of the word trauma, not just brainstorming, and how that totally changed the understanding of—did I say brainstorming?

[00:27:01] Yeah, but you know. Brainwashing. I'm a little rag. The understanding of trauma and how that relates to brainwashing and— Also, she's in colleges. She's on ground zero for that stuff, so she has a lot of good insights that we kind of touched on. We should get her a copy of the book when it comes out. No doubt. And she can give it to her students to protect them, inoculate them. Inoculation. Also, one thing we didn't get to talk to her about that I want to mention is that, you know, we talk about this in our new book about the susceptibility of being indoctrinated.

[00:27:30] And what is that X factor about being open in the first place? This is a question that I had for her. What is it about somebody like myself who is open to personal development? I remember when I did NXIVM, I remember thinking, like, I have family members who I know need it, who have, like, extreme phobias, but would never take a five-day training because they're just not even open to, like, self-introspection or awareness, right? So, like, what is even the X factor of somebody who's willing to join the Army?

[00:27:59] Like, if you're going to study people like us who are susceptible, you know, some people— Well, I think everyone's susceptible. I know. I totally—that's a big part of what we talk about. But, like, is there—you know, there are people who willingly put themselves into—like, we signed up for this. I signed up for personal and professional development. That's what I signed up for. I didn't sign up for the other stuff. But the part that made me say, like, okay, let's look at myself. Like, there's lots of people who wouldn't even do that. They weren't susceptible to NXIVM. I would never join the Army.

[00:28:28] Ever. I almost did. Well, there you go. Why didn't you? Because I wanted to play football in college. Okay. So, everybody's got their own—that was your susceptibility. We didn't cover—oh, the other thing I really wanted to say. She made a comment about how when you understand trauma and PTSD that in many ways society right now has its own startle response. Did you catch that from the book? I did not, no. I mean, maybe I did.

[00:28:58] Elaborate? Well, if you have any sort of PTSD, which I certainly had after, especially DOS, but also leaving NXIVM, I had a really bad—I still do have a little bit of a startle response. Only when I'm driving and you're riding shotgun. So, you'll see this, yeah. People who have, you know, dealing with trauma, they have a—they startle easy—easlier. Easier? Easier. Easier is definitely a word. You can take the L out and we can move on with this podcast. Go ahead.

[00:29:23] And just understanding that for myself and then looking how society has like a startle response in the collective consciousness. Do you know what I'm talking about? Read the book. Read the book. I don't want to figure out the bus, but I really don't. If you don't know what I'm talking about, just read the book. Yeah. I don't know. It resonated with me. It's a quick read. I'm going to read it again. I'm going to use it as like a pamphlet. She mentions a lot of people that lay the groundwork for her that I'm certainly interested in their work.

[00:29:52] Decisions Uninformed through some other influence. I would encourage you to think again. That's a very diplomatic approach to me and my encouragement. I really think that Jane Borden's Cult Like Us, Mara Einstein's Hoodwinked, and Rebecca Lamar's now This Instability of Truth should be like a little— Trilogy. Trilogy, really. You get the DVD and you can put it in your trilogy set. We hope that you enjoyed the conversation as much as we did and that you're enjoying these also two-parters on Monday Thursday.

[00:30:22] Please let us know on the comments in Spotify if you're listening there, or please let us know on Instagram, or if you're on Patreon listening to this, please do let us know what you enjoyed about the episode. It always gives us ideas where to keep digging what rabbit holes to keep going down when we know what you like about the show. And share it with somebody who might be interested. That'd be great. All right, all right, all right. Bye now. Till next time.

[00:31:03] A Little Bit Culti is a Trace 120 production. Executive produced by Sarah Edmondson and Anthony Nippy Ames, in collaboration with Amphibian Media. Our co-creator is Jess Templtardy. Audio engineering by Red Cayman Studios, and our writing and research is done by Emma Diehl and Kristen Reeder. Our theme song, Cultivated, is by the artists John Bryant and Nigel Aslan. We'll be right back.