For all those nutters who cry “Conspiracy theory” whenever it is stated that the CIA have ever done anything wrong, here is a story from that impeccably conservative source, the Daily Telegraph:
A 50-year mystery over the ‘cursed bread’ of Pont-Saint-Esprit, which left residents suffering hallucinations, has been solved after a writer discovered the US had spiked the bread with LSD as part of an experiment.
In case you are wondering, it is not drugs. It is a Heavy Piece of ENGINEERING
Tony
Keep Up
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl7zjAdJyZQ
Tony
I then a got a bit worried after thinking about using Gary McKinnon’s hacking skills and thought I better write this on the Main Man’s Personal Diary with a pen on his paper, so they wouldn’t bomb the truck with their Drones
No it is not a Very Powerful Laser Machine That We Can Paint The Sky With.
We’ve Already Got One of Those.
Its Not Dr. Judy Wood’s Directed Energy Weapon Either
– Because there is No Way It Would Work
No its something much better than that.
It doesn’t Destroy Anything.
It does the Opposite.
Tony
Tony: May I kindly offer you the same advice I sadly had to give to a very old friend who is now drowning, and almost beyond hope. Switch to a pint or two of water every now and then. When he does so, I can get some sense out of him for a while.
Some people never came back: the heavenly singer, Shelagh MacDonald, for instance. Others created great art as a result of their experiences. Others say it’s wonderful and terrible at the same time.
It can trigger overt psychosis (eg. Syd Barrett), particularly but not exclusively in those predisposed (by family history, for example).
But both fluellen and parky have made very good points. The CIA were certainly systemically involved in cocaine-Contra trafficking in the Americas and it is entirely credible that they may well have been involved in pouring heroin into the inner-cities of the USA to complete the destruction of the Black Power movement and the Black Panther Party.
We have never come to terms, though, with psychedelia as a concept. There tends to be a censorious knee-jerk reaction anytime one alludes to it in any context; I’ve had this idiotic, patronising and somewhat machismo attitude from some reviewers and others in relation to some of my stuff. This is to be expected.
Anonymous and stern 1980s psychologist: at the risk of sounding partonising myself, please have a cup of tea on me, and try to develop both a sense of the absurd and of humour; some find that it’s good for their sanity. Tony: please don’t have any more cups of tea. But do put on ‘Mass in F Minor’ and go searching for the Ancient Mariner.
Not surprisingly… an article like this will encourage us all to reminisce about our experiences and narrow misses with mind-altering substances. I have to say that it is the only evidence I have that there is more to this universe than meets the scientific eye. Of course, it isn’t objective so it doesn’t count as evidence. Such is the nature of reductionist science.
But the matter that got prominence on the media yesterday was Karl Rove condoning waterboarding… as ever, with a neocon, the news being presented unchallenged.
I suspect that many in the UK will go with this news item, and say “yeah… he’s right, make the b******* suffer”. I suspect that an opinion poll in the UK over the next few days will show that more support the use of torture on terrorist subjects.
It’s that media narrative again… and that’s what – in a democracy -should (but isn’t) being challenged.
Suhayl, thanks for mentioning Shelagh McDonald. Hadn’t heard of her, but listening now to “Dowie Dens of Yarrow.” Yes, what a voice. Will look out for her albums.
I’ve encountered a similar reluctance to discuss the psychedelics among literary types. There is a sense in which they seem to be “hidden in plain sight.” Many contemporary writers have derived inspiration from them, and kept quiet about it. Anyway…
Certainly the CIA has previously has explored the potential of psychedelics for use as mind control and as a “truth serum” – the MKULTRA programme. So, I wouldn’t completely rule out the possibility of them dosing a village. It’s just that in this case the evidence isn’t particularly strong.
The ergot fungus which may have infected the rye grain used to make the bread is very similar to LSD. So the case is likely to have been of interest to the CIA, as indicative of the possible uses of these drugs. It doesn’t follow that they infected the bread themselves. If they had there would be a major diplomatic row. And the French don’t seem to be bothered.
the above was posted by me.
I think this is an interesting thread. I’ve interviewed lots of people who’ve done acid, and read the Doors of Perception, and Storming Heaven, but never had any desire to try it. I did take (a carefully calculated) 6 locally grown shrooms once; they made me feel light & clear & laughter-filled for ten minutes.
As Leary said, the ‘set’ is vital. And he was taking top quality stuff. On the other hand, it doesn’t necessarily result in anything great, or in anyone great; Ken Kesey, perhaps, but he’d have been like that anyway, one suspects.
Yes, I don’t see why the French town can’t have been ergot: it was supposedly behind the Salem witch burning hysteria, and other such stuff, wasn’t it? It would be like the CIA to claim credit.
In fact I hear from the ground that ‘soldiers’ in Iraq & Afghanistan these days are quite likely to be off their tree on speed; a very aggressive, cheap drug and much more suitable. Or alcohol.
fluelen, excellent reasoning. Sadly it won’t matter. Because Craig Murray and his band of misfits will believe anything put into print by writers for World Net Daily.
Hopefully they’ll stay away from so-called “evidence” that Obama wasn’t born in the U.S., as you can see how easily they will believe anything.
Larry, please, consider dropping something, somewhere, sometime.
But maybe you already have.
Why are you so very committed to defending absolutely everything – even on relatively humorous threads like this one – to do with the US hard state? Even members of the US hard state don’t all try to defend everything it’s ever done! And why is your attitude and tone so aggressive? There’s no need. Just put your point-of-view, man.
‘Band of Misfits’ is a real compliment, you know. Better than ‘Band of Conformists’, any day. I’d rather be ‘Miss Fit’ than ‘Miss Universe’.
fluelen, you’re right about some literary types. It’s a post-1980s thing. Yeah, Shelagh Mac is now allegedly living in various Homeless Hostels in Glasgow. Tragic story.
fluellen: which contemporary writers, do you think?
“so very committed to defending absolutely everything”
Just on this very page I stated my belief that the CIA should basically be reworked.
I just find it funny how you silly people believe anything as long as it’s from one source and reflects badly on America.
Criminalisation of the psychedelic substances intensifies the problem that they pose. It is a divisive policy.
It is my impression that various societies have formalised or ritualised the use of psychedelics, such that experienced users guide novices through their early experiences. Such a structure is outlawed by criminalisation.
So more novices have bad experiences, we hear more horror stories, and the authorities gain justification for their policies.
Prohibition does not work and it has produced a plethora of drugs. Nowadays the punishments to society, according to a UN study, are more draconian than the effects of the drugs themselves.
maybe Larry would like to tell us something about cannabis dispensaries in California and how much extra taxes this move brings to the coffers of the most indebted state of the Union?
At least it would give him an incentive to big it up with us misfits here, no more need to be insulting.
Larry,
you’re describing a reaction. With so much corporate media supporting the hard US position, so much historical evidence of its disasterous outcomes, so many instances of suppression at the time, a small group of commenters with limited public exposure tend to over react.
US influence is invasive. The previous thread was about the “islamification” of the UK. I’ve seen far more Americanisation of the UK than Islamification, yet it is far less controversial.
Suhayl writes, “‘Band of Misfits’ is a real compliment, you know. Better than ‘Band of Conformists’, any day. I’d rather be ‘Miss Fit’ than ‘Miss Universe’.”
Agreed – nicely put.
‘It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society’ – Krishnamurti
By the way, posted this on a previous thread, after Tony’s comments: there’s a UK based internet TV channel which covers social justice issues just started:
http://visionon.tv/
Vronsky, sounds like a lovely frame of mind 🙂
technicolour – “fluellen: which contemporary writers, do you think?”
I think it would be wrong of me to name names. It can be a fun game speculating, and was a common topic in the 60’s apparently: “Yeah, that poet Ted Hughes, he KNOWS it.” Which is not to suggest that Hughes took LSD of course.
It’s a private thing, and if trippers don’t want to come out of the closet, so to speak, then I’m not going to “out” them.
“go searching for the Ancient Mariner.”
Douglas Adam’s book ‘Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency’ has an interesting riff on all that stuff (and how things might have turned out differently). If you’ve read the second part of Kubla Khan you’ll know all this already, of course 😉
http://tinyurl.com/yuddel
Technicolour,
thanks for the visionon.tv link. I found the following article, US school spied on student at home via school issued laptop webcam:
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/17/school-used-student.html
technicolour – I don’t think giving amphetamines to soldiers is a new development.
Clark – “reaction”. Yes. Norman Tebbitt’s “poisoned legacy of the permissive sixties”, and onwards. A lot of the analysis would be economic – which I’m not good at, but the 3-day week (and its causes) popped a lot of bubbles. I keep thinking the pendulum’s got to reach an end-point and start moving back some time, but I don’t know … socially, a lot of things have moved all, over the place, and still are, but the politics of it ? “There Is No Alternative”. Dead-ended.
peacewisher – torture, & “yeah… he’s right, make the b******* suffer”. I heard a fragment of a GWB speech a few years back, in which he flatly refused to deny that such things were being done, on the grounds that to be sure it wouldn’t happen would give “aid and comfort to the enemy”. He wanted people afraid of it, seemed to be the main point, with attempts at a “respectable” level of plausible deniability as almost an afterthought.
Pinochet. No-one expects the Spanish Extradition ! Maybe it never occured to any of them that they might ever want to visit any other countries anyway.
fluellen: OK, but I assumed you’d be guessing. Is it that bad a thing to admit to? I’m thinking of Huxley 🙂
Don’t know if this has been mentioned already….Weyburn in Saskatchewan Canada had a ‘custodial mental institution’ where inmates were experimented on with LSD among other things. Electric sock therapies and lobotomies were also played about with. No concept of informed consent…in a mental institution.
Sensory deprivation experiments were alos conducted at MicGill University in Canada, I understand, and the research helped inform some of the interrogation manuals produced by the CIA.
Whether or not there’s a link between ‘research’ done at Weyburn and the American’s, I don’t know.
It would be nice to discover how Canadian researchers through the Universities have been aiding in the formulation of US torture manuals, either deliberately or otherwise.
“Electric sock therapies”
It’s a variant of Godwin’s rule, perhaps. The sheer mention of acid is enough to make everything seem surreal.
Larry, you did indeed, I’d forgotten, point taken.
Richard, ‘The Electric Sock’ was a great band! The soul, no doubt, of The Electric Prunes’ (Mass in F Minor, I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night).
Suhayl, I vaguely remember that last title. It reminds me, I meant to follow you up a while back – you mentioned Blossom Toes (I think it was you ?). I lugged a massive open-spool taperecorder into school one day to play a John Peel session of theirs, in response to the music-teacher’s “What is this Underground Music you speak of ?”. “Peace Loving Man”, IIRC. Can’t remember a note/word of it, never heard anything of them since, or indeed thought of them, until you reminded me. Forty years, eh ?
Hey Fluelen…
You say:-
“If they had there would be a major diplomatic row. And the French don’t seem to be bothered.”
So, when the French intelligence is involved – you actually expect the French Government to focus the spotlilght on its own wrongdoing?
Actually – would just be like the BAE prosecution all over again. So, the French are smart – they are smart enough not to start what they know will never reach the end – becauase, the end comes full circle…
He Got It By The Way
I Reckon if He Bought It New it would cost over …..
There is an Exceedingly Good Chance It Will Work Perfectly
And if not it will be worth more in scrap metal value
If I can’t Encourage My Son to Buy Really Expensive Kit, That He Will Need To Expand His Business, For Next To Nothing…
Then I will have failed to pass on the skills learnt when I was a Kid, Growing up in a Terraced House in Oldham
I guess its called Capitalism
But not really, because he is not going to sell it, he is going to use it, if his next deal comes off
And may even employ a few people
Its amazing what you can do if you try when you are 21 years old and your Dad is shouting for you as if you are 7 years old on the football pitch about to score your first goal
Tony