“Psychological warfare is probably man’s oldest weapon, aside from bare hands. In using it in today’s dirty, secretive wars, or in the future, the important thing to remember is that it is a weapon and that a weapon has its own unique use and its own effect.”
—Col. Edward G. Lansdale, “Military Psychological Operations: Part 11,” lecture delivered at the Armed Forces Staff College, Norfolk, Virginia, in March 1960
Kayfabe: the portrayal of staged events in professional wrestling as real. Using the pro wrestling lexicon to describe American politics is increasingly apt. The distinction between "kayfabe" and "fake" is subtle yet significant. In wrestling, sometimes the blood is real, and occasionally, performers deviate from the script.
At its core, the language of wrestling serves as a prism, splitting the bright line between the sacred and profane into its elemental parts, revealing the metaphysics that divide public and private sorcery. Wrestlers, akin to magicians wielding their unique language, conjure an exclusive sphere that separates them from the larger world. This vernacular, infused with the flavor of the carnie, draws its lineage from the circus. ‘The work’1 whether in the carnival or in the psychotronic war, requires deception. Mundus vult decipi: the world wants to be deceived.
National politics is kayfabe writ large, the images within the squared circle are titanic. Wrestler Trump built the wall with his own hands, the Corpse Biden is a cyborg sent to humiliate the crowd, telling them to take the UFO vaccine. The fiction overwhelms the constraints of reality, and the feelings suplex the facts. All this is revealed in the grimoire of the kinetic clown.
This PSYWAR primer should also serve as a prism, splitting apart the spectrum of legible concepts, so that we may salvage a few beams of light. At this very moment, when the lens of ‘common sense’ is orbiting the notion that ‘weaponized agencies’ are indeed engaged in hybrid warfare against the American people, all terms related to ‘PSYOP’ have started to distort as they undergo 'kayfabulation'.2.
Reminder, a very similar transmutation occurred in 2016 with the "deep state". Now, people must resort to using the "permanent state" or “the regime” to avoid losing status and credibility. Regrettably, we can expect many more useful words and phrases to be drawn into the rhetorical vortex in the upcoming election cycle. To preempt this and establish some solid ground away from the quagmire of 2024's "meme magic," I present to you this concise PSYWAR Primer.
This primer's structure rests on one fundamental question: if the intelligence community is indeed executing psychological warfare campaigns on the American populace, isn't it crucial for us to investigate their techniques?
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has a history of engaging in efforts to influence public opinion, both at home and abroad. These actions were supposedly countermeasures against the activities of Communist organizations during the Cold War, or more recently, against "Russian web brigades." This involvement included funding various organizations, establishing "fronts" or "cut-outs", planting news stories, and leveraging mass media assets.
The CIA reportedly had ties with numerous journalists and media organizations (Operation Mockingbird), which drew scrutiny during Congressional investigations in the mid-1970s. In its bid to shape narratives, the CIA has also collaborated with the entertainment industry, endorsing certain productions while rejecting others, and developing intimate relationships with certain film and game production studios.
Such efforts frequently involve some form of psychological operations, or "PSYOPS," which are designed to sway foreign adversaries or populations in favor of US military or political interests. However, these tactics have also been utilized domestically, whether to garner public support for new policies or to foster divisions within the populace. In essence, PSYOPS use targeted messaging, imagery, and information to elicit strong emotional responses, intended to stimulate action or induce passivity.
PSYOP managers have long understood that their messaging can utilize all classes of social communication simultaneously: an item of propaganda may severally inform, instruct, entertain, and persuade. In addition, a film, TV program, video game, or comic book may be identified as “transparent PSYOP” and still be considered a success. There are usually sub-goals in most propaganda programs and the most common are also the easiest to achieve: demoralization, confusion, agitation and division.
In today’s media landscape, where large media companies are directly plugged into political parties or intelligence communities, there is no distinction between entertainment and propaganda. Understanding the mechanisms and implications of psychological warfare is critical in navigating the complex landscape of the modern mediasphere.
The historical case studies of socio-technical interference by US entities in foreign countries, and the genealogical progression of these tactics from government-run operations to privatized endeavors, reveal an alarming trend. As the terms "psychological warfare" and "PSYOP" undergo 'kayfabulation', become contested meme-words rather than serious analytical concepts, it's important to reclaim the discourse and dissect the operations behind these terms. Thus, in the face of increasing domestic psyops, reducing our 'known unknowns' about these tactics becomes vital to maintaining psychosecurity3.
Operation Wandering Soul
Perhaps one of the better-known “supernatural” PSYWAR campaigns, Operation Wandering Soul was a psychological warfare operation conducted by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. The aim was to exploit the traditional Vietnamese belief in "linh hon" or "wandering souls," which are spirits of those who die violent deaths away from their family homes, believed to wander the battlefields. The U.S. Army's 6th Psychological Operations Battalion created a haunting soundtrack known as "Ghost Tape Number 10," which consisted of eerie voices, moans, and shrieks, designed to instill fear in the enemy.
This audio was broadcast from loudspeakers mounted on helicopters, boats, or by specialist infantry, typically at night. The audio included sounds of crying women, a child calling for her father, and voices of fallen soldiers pleading with their former comrades to abandon the conflict. There were instances when the tape seemed to have worked, with reports of soldiers defecting after hearing it.
The overall effectiveness of this operation was mixed. In some cases, instead of creating fear, the tape provoked enemy forces to open fire toward the source of the sound, which ironically helped expose their positions. In spite of its variable success, similar psychological tactics have been employed in subsequent U.S. military campaigns. Some argue that such outlandish methods are becoming more prevalent, as the military increasingly utilizes psyops to persuade both domestic and foreign populations to support their causes. This shift is particularly noticeable as these audiences begin to experience "psyop fatigue".
The following excerpt is from "Ghost Tape #10”:
Tragic ... how tragic
My friends, I come back to let you know that I am dead ... I am dead
I am in Hell ... just Hell
It was a senseless death. How senseless ... how senseless
But when I realized the truth, it was too late ... too late
Friends ... while you are still alive ...
There is still a chance that you can be reunited with your loved ones
Do you hear what I say?
Go home ... Go home friends
Hurry ... If not, you will end up like me
Go home my friends before it is too late…Go home! ... Go home friends!
! Ve Di ! ... ! Ve Di Ban !
!! VE DI !! ... !! VE DI !!
{More Moans From the Afterlife}
—USASOC History Archives, “Vietnam War Collection.” Fort Bragg, NC, 1967
Though Operation Wandering Soul is often depicted as a wacky departure from the normal operating procedure, it was based on an already well-established genealogy of “combat anthropology”. During WWII, when the United States reached the Philippines, it had to manage the Japanese who were battling Huk rebels. The U.S., post-WWII, continued efforts to control the region, setting up a US-sponsored government and preparing an army to counter the Huks.
Lt. Col Edward G. Lansdale, a former ad executive and Air Force officer, arrived in 1950 as part of the CIA's covert operations. His blend of on-ground operations, propaganda, and political maneuvers became the blueprint for modern psychological warfare.
Noticing that soothsayers and astrologers were popular in Vietnam but their predictions were not published, Lansdale suggested creating an almanac for 1955 featuring predictions from renowned astrologers and other mystical figures, particularly those predicting a bleak future for the Communists. This almanac was sold at a low cost in the North, ensuring it didn't appear as propaganda.
Incredibly, the hastily prepared almanac successfully predicted certain events in 1955, including strife in Communist areas, conflict within the Communist leadership, and the violent quelling of farmers who opposed poorly implemented land reforms. The almanac quickly became a bestseller, with even a large reprint selling out immediately. It was reportedly the first of its kind in modern Vietnam.
These “hyperstitional”4 tactics were implemented in concert with more conventional approaches. Lansdale also manipulated the political environment, convincing Defense Secretary Ramon Magsaysay to run for presidency with CIA backing. When Magsaysay won in 1953, the CIA controlled his governance, writing speeches and policies, and manipulating public perception of their puppet regime. They even launched smear campaigns against Magsaysay's political rivals. This is also where the CIA practice of “preference cascading” policymakers with planted articles finds its roots:
“One inventive practice of the CIA on behalf of Magsaysay was later picked up by Agency stations in a number of other Third World countries. This particular piece of chicanery consisted of selecting articles written by CIA writer-agents for the provincial press and republishing them in a monthly Digest of the Provincial Press. The Digest was then sent to congressmen and other opinion makers in Manila to enlighten them as to ‘what the provinces were thinking’”
—Killing hope : US military and CIA interventions since World War II ,Blum, William
Overall, Lansdale's pioneering work in psychological warfare significantly influenced U.S. operations and effectively facilitated the CIA's control of the Philippines during the latter half of the 20th century.
The Ascendancy of the Trickster in American Psywar
Conventional military men think of combat psywar almost exclusively in terms of leaflets or broadcasts appealing to the enemy to surrender. Early on, I realized that pyswar had a wider potential than that. A whole new approach opens up, for example, when one thinks of psywar in terms of playing a practical joke.
"PRACTICAL JOKES” BY General Edward Gary Lansdale, The Art and Science of Psychological Operations: Case Studies of Military Application. Volume Two
The preceding quote was taken from In the Midst of Wars: An American's Mission to Southeast Asia, an autobiographical account, detailing Lansdale's experiences during his assignments in the Philippines and South Vietnam. His efforts to employ a more nuanced, "hearts and minds" approach to combating insurgencies and his disagreements with conventional military strategies offer insight into the complexities of PSYWAR’s 20th century evolution.
In the chapter titled "PRACTICAL JOKES”, Lansdale discusses his use of humor as a countermeasure against Communist and authoritarian regimes. He recounts an anecdote from Europe where he used a laxative-laced hot beverage to distract demonstrators from violence.
Next, Lansdale narrates his use of local superstitions in the Philippines to boost the effectiveness of psychological warfare. For example, he manipulated the fear of an 'asuang', or vampire, to persuade a local Huk (Hukbalahap, a Communist guerrilla movement in the Philippines) squadron to relocate their base. This strategy defused a standoff with local politicians who were apprehensive about potential attacks if government troops were moved.
“A combat psywar squad was brought in. It planted stories among town residents of an asuang living on the hill where the Huks were based. Two nights later, after giving the stories time to circulate among Huk sympathizers in the town and make their way up to the hill camp , the psywar squad set up an ambush along a trail used by the Huks. When a Huk patrol came along the trail , the ambushers silently snatched the last man of the patrol , their move unseen in the dark night. They punctured his neck with two holes, vampire-fashion, held the body up by the heels, drained it of blood , and put the corpse back on the trail.”
His pacing is notable; he escalates directly from schoolboy antics to 'combat psywar squads' LARPing as vampires. The next example he presents involves his application of the "Eye of God" technique. This strategy, which originated during World War II, uses real-time intelligence to demoralize enemy forces.
A stark example occurred during the siege of Caen. A German officer would be identified by name and informed that his refusal to surrender marked him as the next target for artillery. Shortly after, an artillery shell would strike his residence or command post. Similarly, during the air-tank procedure, loudspeaker-equipped tanks would communicate with German soldiers, who were concealed in defensive positions but visible from above. The broadcast would claim to see individual soldiers, narrate their current actions, state that their situation was hopeless, and order them to surrender. Both instances showcased the potent use of up-to-date combat intelligence about the enemy.
Lansdale recounts how this method was employed in the Philippines against Huk guerrillas, albeit with minimal equipment—U.S. Navy loud-hailers (bullhorns) scrounged from Washington. These devices were initially intended for infantry use, but they were found to be effective in light aircraft flying at low altitudes. In one instance, an officer used this method to broadcast messages to a Huk squadron being pursued. He called out Huks by name and made them believe there was a traitor among them, leading to internal distrust and the execution of suspected members.
Apparently, the "eye of God" term reminded Lansdale of the ancient Egyptian practice of painting guardian eyes over pharaoh tombs to ward off grave robbers. He personally sketched and passed a similar design to the Philippine Army. These were surreptitiously painted on town walls during the night, facing the homes of suspected Huk supporters, creating an atmosphere of watchfulness and suspicion, ”[t]he mysterious presence of these malevolent eyes the next morning had a sharply sobering effect.”
As a footnote… remember humor-even if it is a grim practical joke that only you can afford to smile at. Humor is often the test of a good psychological operation, since humor is constructed on the frailties of mankind-and skilled playing on these frailties increases the effectiveness of the psychological weapon. Those of you who know of Admiral Miles’ operations in China should recall the risks his Chinese agents took to wall-paint slogans poking fun at the Japanese. In some instances, the main motivation of volunteers who risked death doing this was the appeal of playing a prank.
—Edward Geary Lansdale, “Practical Jokes,” in U.S. Department of the Army, Psychological Operations (Army Pamphlet 525-7-1)
Operation Mongoose, officially sanctioned by the Kennedy Administration in November 1961, aimed at creating the conditions that would lead to the overthrow of Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba. It was a direct response to the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion earlier that year and reflected the intense Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet-aligned Cuba. The operation involved a variety of covert activities, including economic sabotage, political propaganda, and support for anti-Castro Cuban exiles. Lansdale was heavily involved in the PSYWAR aspects of the operation, one of his plans was characterized as follows:
"I'll give you one example of Lansdale's perspicacity. He had a wonderful plan for getting rid of Castro. This plan consisted of spreading the word that the Second Coming of Christ was imminent and that Christ was against Castro (who) was anti-Christ. And you would spread this word around Cuba, and then on whatever date it was, that there would be a manifestation of this thing. And at that time—this is absolutely true—and at that time just over the horizon there would be an American submarine which would surface off of Cuba and send up some star shells. And this would be the manifestation of the Second Coming and Castro would be overthrown * * * Well, some wag called this operation—and somebody dubbed this—Elimination by Illumination." (Parrott, 7/10/75, pp. 49, 50)
—Alleged assassination plots involving foreign leaders : an interim report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, United States Senate
Edward Lansdale's unconventional psychological warfare techniques, often involving humor or shock tactics, have had a profound impact on the U.S. military, with his strategies being included in army training manuals long after his retirement. This spirit of the trickster was evident in the CIA’s early LSD research.
Dr. Gottlieb, who viewed LSD's temporary effects as a potential asset in covert operations, initiated a series of in-house experiments within the CIA. The drug was surreptitiously given to unsuspecting staff members to understand its effects in real-life settings, causing disruption in thought processes and erratic behavior. This unconventional testing regimen even included dosing each other's drinks without forewarning, leading to numerous unexpected and at times, adverse reactions.
When they finally learned the hallucinogenic ropes, so to speak, they
agreed among themselves to slip LSD into each other’s drinks. The target
never knew when his turn would come, but as soon as the drug was ingested
a TSS colleague would tell him so he could make the necessary
preparations—which usually meant taking the rest of the day off. Initially
the leaders of MK-ULTRA restricted the surprise acid tests to TSS
members, but when this phase had run its course they started dosing other
Agency personnel who had never tripped before. Nearly everyone was fair
game, and surprise acid trips became something of an occupational hazard
among CIA operatives. Such tests were considered necessary because
foreknowledge would prejudice the results of the experiment.Indeed, things were getting a bit raucous down at headquarters. When
Security officials discovered what was going on, they began to have serious
doubts about the wisdom of the TSS game plan. Moral reservations were
not paramount; it was more a sense that the MK-ULTRA staff had become
unhinged by the hallucinogen. The Office of Security felt that the TSS
should have exercised better judgment in dealing with such a powerful and
dangerous chemical. The straw that broke the camel’s back came when a
Security informant got wind of a plan by a few TSS jokers to put LSD in
the punch served at the annual CIA Christmas office party. A Security
memo dated December 15, 1954, noted that acid could “produce serious
insanity for periods of 8 to 18 hours and possibly for longer.” The writer of
this memo concluded indignantly and unequivocally that he did “not
recommend testing in the Christmas punch bowls usually present at the
Christmas office parties.”—Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History Of LSD by Martin A. Lee, Bruce Shlain
Amidst the CIA's covert LSD experiments, some agents found themselves profoundly affected by the drug's hallucinogenic properties, with experiences ranging from euphoric enlightenment to terrifying paranoia. Despite such repercussions, the MK-ULTRA team's fascination with LSD's potential as a weapon grew. This reckless experimentation resulted in a tragic incident when Dr. Frank Olson, an army scientist exposed to LSD during a work retreat, fell into severe depression and paranoia, eventually leading to his death in a supposed suicide.
The trickster image was most vividly represented in the character John Mulholland, a renowned stage magician, who was intricately involved in the MKULTRA project. Mulholland was reportedly contracted by the CIA to write a manual on "the art of deception" and perform other operationally supportive activities as needed. This engagement was mainly due to his expertise in sleight-of-hand tricks, which the CIA saw as a valuable asset for introducing chemicals to unsuspecting subjects and for distracting people's attention. Mulholland's work for the CIA also included advising and training personnel in deceptive techniques and potential applications of hypnosis, despite his personal skepticism towards hypnosis. His involvement in MKULTRA was revealed through discussions with key individuals in the project and through receipts of payments for his services. (Albarelli 2009)
The presence of the trickster influence was also apparent in the CIA’s development of politically sensitive ‘action figures’. In an unconventional attempt to counter Osama bin Laden's influence, the CIA secretly developed a bin Laden action figure around 2005, named "Devil Eyes". The figure was designed with a heat-dissolving material that would reveal a demonic-looking bin Laden, aiming to scare children and their parents away from his real-life persona. To accomplish this, the CIA enlisted the help of Donald Levine, a former Hasbro executive with extensive contacts in China where the toys were manufactured. Though the CIA claims the project was halted after the development of three prototypes, there are reports that hundreds of the toys were produced and shipped to Karachi, Pakistan, marking a unique instance of the CIA's "influence operations".
A Washington Post article from 1999 revealed the rise of “digital morphing” technologies in the military (what we now call deep fakes), especially for psychological operations (PSYOPS). In the late 90s, scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico had already developed a "voice morphing" technology that could clone speech patterns, enabling them to fabricate convincing audio statements.
The article reported that the Pentagon was considering the use of this technology for strategic PSYOPS, including creating fake videos of enemies in compromising situations. One such suggestion involved creating a holographic image of Allah to urge Iraqis to rise against Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War.
The trickster archetype's influence on American psychological warfare has been significant and enduring. Lansdale’s DNA is manifested in many of today’s prevailing psywarfare tools. Notable is the trickster’s propensity for deception, from exploiting local superstitions to manipulating advanced technologies to create digital delusions. As we advance into the era of alternate reality games (ARGs) and artificial intelligence, understanding the trickster's role in psywar becomes crucial to navigating potential manipulations that blur the boundaries of reality and illusion.
The 1950 Rand Memorandum
“From the days of Xerxes, who told the Greeks that when the Persians shot off their arrows they shut out the light of the sun, military strategists and propagandists have tried to capitalize on the superstitious foibles of the enemy. In an ancient Chinese military campaign, one commander tried to destroy his opponent's forces with an army that included large detachments of sorcerers.”
—The Exploitation of Superstitions for Purposes of Psychological Warfare, RAND, J. M. Hungerford
Project RAND, which eventually evolved into the RAND Corporation, was established in Santa Monica, California. The Air Force initiated Project RAND in 1946 as a dedicated facility for the operational examination of weapons systems and warfare technology. In 1947, with the formation of its social science division, psychological insights were incorporated into the research agenda targeting the analysis of warfare strategy.
Under the guidance of Hans Speier, the Social Science Department (SSD) at RAND Corporation focused on research related to psychological warfare and studies of political elites during its initial years. Speier believed the SSD's main role was to inform foreign policymakers on how they could modify the behavior of Soviet and other “totalitarian elites”. He acknowledged the challenge in influencing foreign elites through psychological warfare but emphasized the importance of studying it. To achieve this, he proposed an analysis of the political behaviors, intentions, calculations, and the rule stability of these elites. This concern is evident in the SSD's early publications, which have significantly impacted foreign policy through research on political elites.
The SSD, which began operating in July 1948, recruited mostly sociologists and political scientists who had worked in psychological warfare during World War II. Many of these scientists were traditionalists as opposed to the math-driven simulations that RAND, trained in qualitative and historical methods of analysis. The division conducted various studies focusing on immediate foreign policy concerns. These studies used a diverse range of approaches, including text analysis, interview analysis, comparative analysis, psychoanalysis, and the examination of operational procedures, among others (Bessner 2014).
One of the first products of this approach was The Exploitation of Superstitions for Purposes of Psychological Warfare by J. M. Hungerford. The article highlights various unconventional tactics used During World War II, examples where both sides tried to exploit the natural wartime interest in the supernatural. For instance, the Germans sent astrologers to France to spread fear through dire predictions. They also used magic lanterns to project images onto drifting clouds.
During World War II, both the Allies and the Axis powers manipulated the prophecies of French astrologer Michel de Nostredame (Nostradamus) to support their respective propaganda efforts. A notable instance involved Walter Schellenberg, Hitler's Chief of Counter-Intelligence, preparing and dropping leaflets featuring Nostradamus's threatening quatrains over France. The Germans went further, printing tens of thousands of booklets in multiple languages, each containing doctored versions of Nostradamus's prophecies. One such manipulated quatrain claimed that Hitler, having achieved more victories than deserved, would be assassinated by six men in the night, “the German leader dies, naked and without his armor.” Goebbels' diary entries from March, April, and May of 1942 make numerous references to the propaganda campaign:
The enemy is now making use of horoscopes in the form of handbills dropped from plane, in which a terrible future is prophesized for the German people. But we know something about this ourselves! I am having counter-horoscopes worked up which we are going to distribute, especially in the occupied areas.
In the United States astrologists are at work to prophecy an early end to the Fuehrer. We know that type of work as we have often done it ourselves. We shall take up our astrological propaganda again as soon as possible. I expect quite a little of it, especially in the United States and England.
Berndt has drawn up a plan demonstrating how we could enlist the aid of the occult in our propaganda. We are really getting somewhere. The Americans and English fall easily for that type of thing. We are therefore pressing into our service all the experts we can find on the occult prophecies; etc. Nostradamus must once again submit to being quoted.
Meanwhile, in the United States, the FBI kept a file of suspected Axis-agent astrologers and fortune-tellers, arresting some. The Allies also produced propaganda designed to exploit superstition. They dropped leaflet horoscopes in occupied countries predicting a German defeat. In Italy, British army magicians used their talents to scare Italian peasants, effectively disrupting German transport.
In light of this evidence, Hungerford concludes, that it seems that superstitions, which can be heightened during times of war due to increased feelings of insecurity and fear, could potentially be exploited in the event of future conflicts. Although it's hard to measure the extent of these tendencies, it is likely that superstition thrives in an atmosphere of tension and uncertainty. Individuals may seek solace in non-rational beliefs, like carrying a good-luck charm or passing on a chain letter, in an attempt to gain some semblance of control over their fates (Hungerford 1950).
In discussion of future applications, Hungerford gives us an embryonic version of “predictive programming”:
“There would seem to be two major directions which attempts to exploit popular superstitious ideas might take. The first would involve using fortune-telling, astrology, and any of the occult techniques for guessing the future to predict dire events likely to befall the enemy. It should be relatively easy to devise general prophecies of eventual disaster…”
Speculative fiction continuums, networks of texts all based on shared preconceptions, lexicons, and symbolic grammars, could easily be considered “occult techniques for guessing the future”. It can be illuminating to examine these quaint suggestions as the first hints of modern cybernetic warfare. For instance, in the chain letter is a faint impression of the exploitation of semiotic derangement, coupled with virality:
The second common type of superstition which might be exploited is the popular acceptance of devices and practices calculated to ward off harm. Chain letters instructing the recipient to make several copies of the letter and pass them on to friends would fall into this category. Such letters may pose nuisance problems for the enemy governments in that they consume time that could more profitably be spent on war tasks. If widely disseminated, they may overburden the postal system* Instructions on what to do to appease fortune should be devised with emphasis on acts which will be of greatest annoyance to the enemy government.
Such “instructions” need not be explicit, they could be embedded in the aesthetic protocols of memes. Both suggestions focus on creating a sense of depression and a paralysis of communication lines.
”Superstition” can be thought of as semiotic derangement. In other words, it is folk wisdom in an unconscious or disordered state. Altering an individual’s information environment can have psychophysical effects, leading to a disorganized intention, and perhaps even a state of “self-fulfilling prophecy”. From a folkloric perspective, the chain letter could be considered a kind of “spell” or “curse” which introduces disorder into the cognitive faculties. It initiates a form of parasitic life within the recipient’s mind, causing them to replicate the letter. If the recipient had some form of psycho-security in place, like a rich and vital folk tradition, the parasitic text could be instantly “dispelled”.
Sense Organs Of the State
“The apex of propaganda came from America’s entertainment industry, which had the infrastructure to reach the audiences of the world. The First Motion Picture Unit was established during the Second World War and nested within the then named U.S Army Air Forces. The motion picture infrastructure established and dominated by Hollywood would continue to be a pillar of influence throughout the world into the modern era.”
—Holzmann, A. F. (2020). Artists of War: A History of United States Propaganda, Psychological Warfare, Psychological Operations and a Proposal for Its Ever-Changing Future. US Army Command and General Staff College.
Hollywood has always been first and foremost an instrument of psychological warfare. During World War I, the American film industry emerged as a significant force in propagating war propaganda, having relocated largely from New York to Hollywood. The War Cooperation Committee of the Motion Picture Industry was set up, chaired by influential director D. W. Griffith, who directed the influential film "Birth of a Nation". Prominent stars such as Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and William Hart were featured in films like "The Great Liberty Bond Hold-up" and "The Little American", which were designed to generate patriotic sentiment and anti-German feelings (Taylor 2003).
Highlighting the stark artificiality of the nascent “military-entertainment complex,” we can turn to the example of "cinema's first sex symbol," Theda Bara. The fact that Hollywood's inaugural embodiment of libido was a vampire perhaps provides the most powerful symbolic signal in film history. The newly born wonderland was a strange, clumsy beast. Its first films were propaganda, its first sex symbol was a hoax. Theda Bara produced 35 films during the span of WW1, but she was famous before a single fan stepped into a theater: “Bara generally takes her place in film history as the primordial exemplar of a star whose fame had more to do with aggressive marketing campaigns and industry manipulation of moviegoers than with her work and merit. In contrast to earlier performers, who were appreciated by audiences because of their film appearances, Bara went from obscurity to household name status with unprecedented rapidity, thanks to a media saturation publicity campaign: a seemingly instantaneous Theda-mania exploded before most audiences were able to see her first film.” (Hain 2015)
Perhaps because of the strange preoccupation with parasitic goblins, the government's Committee on Public Information (CPI) wasn't entirely satisfied with Hollywood's output and began producing its own films. It generated over 60 official films with purposes ranging from military recruitment to historical record-keeping, representing the CPI's belief in “patriotic education.” One notable participant was Edward Bernays, who subsequently became a theorist emphasizing the significance of propaganda in the administration of democracy, the “father of public relations”.
Amid the fervor of World War I press freedom and other forms of expression were summarily suspended through a series of laws. Notably, the Espionage Act of 1917 applied broadly to all expressions. This law instituted penalties of up to $10,000 in fines and up to twenty years of imprisonment for those convicted of deliberately making or conveying "false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United States". It also criminalized acts that willingly incited "insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty" in the military or navy, or intentionally hindered recruitment and enlistment.
Historians James R. Mock and Cedric Larson described the effect of this “perception management” on a typical farm family in the Midwest:
”Every item of war news they saw—in the country weekly, in magazines, or in the city daily picked up occasionally in the general store—was not merely officially approved information but precisely the same kind that millions of their fellow citizens were getting at the same moment. Every war story had been censored somewhere along the line— at the source, in transit, or in the newspaper offices in accordance with ‘voluntary’ rules established by the CPI.” (quoted from Sweeney 2001)
Bernard Stiegler's theories of ‘Cinematic Time’ propose the idea that our ability to experience a single time-based event repeatedly points towards a system of "technical retention" or what he calls "tertiary retention". This is different from just simply remembering (primary retention) because our perception of the same event can evolve each time we experience it. This could only be possible with a tool or technique that allows us to replay the event, like a film.
Stiegler further suggests that this tertiary retention forms an integral part of our memory and our perception of time - past, present, and future. He posits that we are born into a world already infused with this tertiary memory. This tertiary category of memory is called "epiphylogenetic memory" or "epiphylogenesis", which is external and separate from our individual brain-based memory (epigenetic) and our inherited evolutionary memory (phylogenetic).
This third memory type, encapsulated in tools and technology, constitutes our past, a past that we haven't personally experienced but inherited through cultural and technological artifacts. Stiegler posits that modern man is defined by this process of epiphylogenesis and that through it, he creates time, inventing a future derived from these cinematic residues.
The programming industries, and more specifically the mediatic industry of radio-televisual information, mass-produce temporal objects heard or seen simultaneously by millions, and sometimes by tens, hundreds, even thousands of millions of ‘consciousnesses’: this massive temporal co-incidence orders the event’s new structure to which new forms of consciousness and collective unconsciousness correspond. (Stielgler 2008)
In order to “mass-produce temporal objects” more efficiently during WW1, the US Army Signal Corps was formally established as an official film unit. Even though its reputation would grow more significantly during World War II with the enlistment of leading Hollywood professionals, the novice army cameramen of 1917-18 nonetheless managed to create compelling films, including notable productions like "America's Answer" (1918) and "Our Colored Fighters" (1918) (Taylor 2003).
In 1942, the Army Air Force's First Motion Picture Unit (FMPU) was established in Culver City, California, under the leadership of Chief 'Hap' Arnold and Hollywood producer Jack Warner. The unit's mission was to create 'training, operational, and inspirational films' that portrayed the activities of the Army Air Force during World War II. However, an implicit aim was also to cultivate a unique identity for the Air Force. The FMPU, which handled everything from writing and filming to animation and special effects, created over 300 films during the war, thereby crafting a cinematic portrayal of Air Force identity centered on heroic actors and technological spectacle.
These films were distributed widely, reaching not only their own forces but also civilian audiences on the home front, thereby using the big screen to shape the narrative and identity of the Air Force (Hamilton & O’Gorman 2008). The sheer scale of their output was able to “perpetuate a cinematic sense of Air Force identity that would ultimately contribute to the realization of Air Force” as an entity separate from the Army Air Force (Cunningham 2005). In other words, the Air Force itself was founded as a “cinematic entity”.
Another such media-based organism also got its start in the FMPU:
“Captain Ronald Reagan, His first assignment in the Unit was that of Personnel Officer, a very important job, since men were enlisting for the Unit every day. Their records had to be set up, and he was their personal contact for questions or any information in their behalf. He was also on the staff responsible for working out the Table of Organization which was most important, because the whole structure of the Unit depended on that. Later, he was appointed Adjutant and performed those military duties with a high degree of consistency and zeal.” (Siegel 2017)
Postwar, the semiotic protocols and techniques developed in the FMPU formed the basis for visual representations of the United States' nuclear agenda. The Cold War ushered in an era of huge advancement in paramedia artifact5 production, in the form of films, photography, and animation. Additionally, there was an increase in secret projects that served strategic aims of surveillance and propaganda. One such project was the Lookout Mountain Laboratory (LML).
Lookout Mountain Laboratory (LML) was much more than a film studio, it was a strategic tool that represented the United States' nuclear techno-mythos through film, serving both surveillance and domestic propaganda agendas. Its inception was to observe and document atomic weapons tests, but it quickly evolved into a global camera operation and film studio, applying experimental cinematography techniques to create impactful images.
LML was not merely a government version of an industrial fılm studio like those at General Electric or General Motors. Rather, as its name suggested, it was a government laboratory, the site of ambitious experiments in fılm and other technologies of visual representation. It did early work with Cinemascope, Vista Vision, 3-D photography, new forms of high-speed photography, and stereophonic sound. LML worked with 16 mm, 35 mm, and even 70 mm fılm; it produced volumes upon volumes of still photographs; it had an active animation department, staffed by Disney veterans, among others; and worked with various sorts of special effects, including optical printing work.
—The Sensibility of the State: Lookout Mountain Laboratory’s Operation Ivy and the Image of the Cold War “Super”
Headquartered at 8935 Wonderland Avenue, nestled in the Hollywood hills in Laurel Canyon, LML was a fully equipped, self-contained film studio. The studio, active until 1969, comprised various facilities like a still photography laboratory, two screening rooms, and 17 climate-controlled vaults. Over 250 personnel staffed the studio, many of whom were drawn from the neighboring Hollywood studios.
“A total of 10 short films were made, each focusing on ways secrets could be leaked and the importance of confidentiality. (Apparently only one survives, available on YouTube.) In each film, Monroe was tacked on to the end, cooing “I hate a careless man.” There she was, in all her glory, smiling broadly in her bathing suit and saying her line — and then she was gone. Jolting as it was, the message was clear: If you wanted a chance to sleep with Marilyn Monroe, you’d better keep your mouth shut.” (Beauchamp 2018)
During the height of the Cold War, LML functioned as a central hub in the global technetronic surround, offering a space where military, political, scientific, and technical personnel could convene to discuss the nuclear narrative. It was innovative in its use of visual representation technologies and recruited a wide range of talents, including Hollywood veterans, scientific experts, and military professionals. Many high-profile Hollywood figures, such as Ronald Reagan, Marilyn Monroe, Jimmy Stewart, Walt Disney, and Alfred Hitchcock, were granted top-secret security clearance to work on projects at LML. Thus, the laboratory represented a unique intersection of science, technology, art, and culture, playing an instrumental role in the representation of the nuclear era.
Throughout its operational period, LML produced a minimum of 19,000 classified films and videos, with content ranging from footage of nuclear tests to film briefings for the intelligence community and the Pentagon. These films were primarily designed for military training, strategic planning, and propaganda. Most were not intended for public consumption. However, the American public was the target audience of many of these productions, signifying the integral role of LML in shaping public perception of the United States' nuclear agenda.
Hamilton & O’Gorman (the first and only “LML scholars”) state that “[c]ameras were therefore not only machines by which to see but also machines that produced artifacts that could be seen; and these artifacts, through rhetorical negotiations, could become means of establishing a common collective vision”, or in other words, without these carefully constructed images, there is no evidence that nuclear weapons exist.
Operation Ivy, United States Air Force Lookout Mountain Laboratory, Air Photographic Charting Service, Hollywood, California.
The LML was a laboratory where the modern state first conceived itself, then in Petri dishes of light and sound, grew its oneiric organs by which it made itself legible. For the average person, living in this timeline with 32 "broken arrow" events - occasions when a nuclear weapon has been misplaced - and enduring 80 years under the phantom of the nuclear holocaust, the 'A-Bomb' has always been a 100% media artifact.
The 280 mm Gun at the Nevada Proving Ground, U.S. Air Force Lookout Mountain Laboratory, Hollywood, California, USA
The appearance of the thermonuclear weapon necessitated a reshaping of the state's sensibility, its ability to sense, be sensed, and establish a common sense. The American Cold War state sought to render itself sensible in light of the emerging thermonuclear age through media of the senses, such as sound, word, and image (Hamilton & O’Gorman 2016).
The Super reconfıgured the intensional logics of the American Cold War state, moving America inexorably toward an awful destiny, setting the state against the citizenry, and initiating legitimation crises both within and before the state. It thus brought about a new “distribution of the sensible,” to use Jacques Rancière’s phrase, a reconfıguration of the “self evident facts of sense perception” and a redistribution “of spaces, times, and forms of activity.”
-The Sensibility of the State: Lookout Mountain Laboratory’s Operation Ivy and the Image of the Cold War “Super”
The specter of the thermonuclear weapon caused a reconfiguration of what was considered sensible, altering perceptions of reality and reshaping the collective understanding of the state.
In fact, the greatest effect of the ‘A-Bomb” has been as a psychological weapon. In comparison to two Japanese cities, this asymmetrical deployment has been far more devastating. By 1954, P. Wylie observed that “a huge fraction of the public, perhaps the majority, already displays clinical symptoms indicative of hysteria and predisposing to panic”. In Panic, Psychology, and the Bomb, published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Wylie examined the ways in which suppressed fear can evolve into various actions or lack thereof. This suppressed fear can reveal itself in forms such as hysterical blindness, paralysis, and other neurotic responses, with the affected individual often being oblivious to their genuine fear.
Applying this analysis to a broader context, Wylie implied that large groups of 1950s Americans display similar behavioral patterns, driven by the terror associated with nuclear warfare. Wylie contended that the pervasive apathy he observed wasn't rational or justifiable considering the threat at hand, he asks “Is not a good part of that immense ‘apathy’ a sign of hysterical paralysis?”
Wylie shares a striking experience in Baltimore where people were in denial of the presence of air-raid shelter signs in their own city, to the degree that they were literally invisible, according to him a manifestation of their repressed atomic fears. “Nearly all were aware that other cities displayed air raid shelter signs. But only one person in more than a hundred had ‘seen’ the Baltimore signs— though the eyes of everyone had fallen upon them innumerable times” (1954).
He attributed this phenomenon to a form of "mass hysteria," or "hysterical blindness," which occurred because acknowledging the signs would mean acknowledging their fear of Baltimore being destroyed in an atomic attack. Wylie notably linked another form of atomic hysteria, which he referred to as "fugue," to the escalating belief in "flying saucers." According to him, millions of his contemporaries believed in the existence of these saucers, thinking that higher beings were visiting Earth to save us from ourselves, particularly due to our atomic experiments. The author asserts that this belief in "Saucer Salvation" is a hysterical response born out of anxiety.
In ‘Psychological Reactions to the Nuclear War Threat’ (1987), the authors conducted three studies on individuals who were found to be psychologically healthy and normal. The study emphasized that the prospect of nuclear war was causing people to retreat into a state of disinterest, numbness, or denial, reinforcing theories such as 'psychic numbing', 'blotting out the idea', and 'veil of denial'. If you ever wondered how we got here, this is it. It wasn’t just that the boomers were eating lead paint chips and breathing in leaded gasoline. The ‘psychic numbing’ of the cyber age was prefigured by the nuclear.
Psychic Numbing As a Service
The concept of "psychic numbing" has been well-defined in relation to the nuclear age. It's characterized by "exclusion, most specifically exclusion of feeling... there is first blocking of images, or of feelings associated with certain images because they are too painful or unacceptable... second is the absence of images, the lack of prior experience in relation to an event... when numbing occurs, the symbolization process... is interrupted" (Lifton and Falk, 1982).
“Psychic numbing becomes nuclear numbing and reflects the fact that there is no way for the human mind adequately to grasp the threat posed by ‘the destructiveness, evil, and absurdity of the nuclear devices’. Because of the energy directed toward dealing with the unimaginable threat of nuclear weapons, the mind becomes less functional in attending to the matters of everyday life, thus creating morbidity.” (Jacobs 1989)
Robert J. Lifton, a psychoanalyst and psychohistorian, conducted extensive research on the psychological effects of nuclear weapons (Lifton, 1967). He first identified a psychological syndrome among survivors of the Hiroshima bombings in 1945, marked by a perpetual confrontation with death, emotional suppression through psychic numbing, survivor guilt, and persistent distrust.
Lifton later expanded his research to examine the broader psychological implications of living under the constant threat of nuclear annihilation. In his work "The Broken Connection: On Death and the Continuity of Life" (1979), Lifton explored how the nuclear age and its potential for extinction affected individuals. He described "threats to the sense of historical continuity posed by the mere existence of the weaponry, and some of the resulting patterns of psychic numbing on the one hand and of worship of the nuclear deity (the phenomenon of 'nuclearism') on the other" (Lifton, 1979, 7).
Living in the nuclear age significantly impacted how people perceived history and the future, as traditional avenues to immortality—procreation, historical memory, and the perpetuation of civilization—were threatened by these weapons. This led to a "broken connection" between past and future, which Lifton believed contributes to the alienation and emptiness of modern society (Jacobs 1989).
This altered sense of history and of the future, of being disconnected from the stream of time, is one that is all too familiar in the age of “surveillance capitalism”. In 2015, S. Zuboff wrote in her essay Big Other:
Google’s tools are not the objects of a value exchange. They do not establish constructive producer consumer reciprocities. Instead they are the ‘hooks’ that lure users into extractive operations and turn ordinary life into the daily renewal of a 21st-century Faustian pact. This social dependency is at the heart of the surveillance project. Powerful felt needs for effective life vie against the inclination to resist the surveillance project. This conflict produces a kind of psychic numbing that inures people to the realities of being tracked, parsed, mined, and modified – or disposes them to rationalize the situation in resigned cynicism (Hoofnagle et al., 2010). (2015)
The only issue with Zuboff's analysis is that by the time one finishes describing it, "surveillance capitalism" becomes indistinguishable from "luxury space communism" and upon further scrutiny, it might even be called "transsexual AI divinity." This issue is particularly noticeable given that these "capitalist" tech corporations essentially function as fronts for the Pentagon. Furthermore, the driving motive for many involved is not solely profit, but rather power, control, and virtual forms of immortality.
Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has provided a thought-provoking analysis of Google's leadership, political ideologies, and global aspirations (Assange, 2014). In "When Google Met WikiLeaks," Assange recounts his experience meeting with Google representatives, including Chairman Eric Schmidt and the Director of Google Ideas, Jared Cohen. Their discussions centered around WikiLeaks, geopolitics, and technology. However, Assange later discerned that his visitors might have closer ties to the U.S. State Department than he initially suspected. After WikiLeaks informed the State Department about a potential leak, Assange received a request for confirmation from Schmidt's partner, Lisa Shields. This correspondence hinted at an unexpected connection to the U.S. government. Assange began to entertain the suspicion that Schmidt might be performing unofficial diplomatic duties for Washington, a notion further bolstered by Schmidt's subsequent visits to China, North Korea, and Burma. Assange ultimately theorized that the U.S. State Department had used the meeting to gather intelligence about WikiLeaks' operations.
This theory has been more or less confirmed over time. In 2021, the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI), led by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, drafted a report to Congress advocating for an increase in AI research and funding, without banning AI-powered autonomous weapons. Despite acknowledging privacy and civil liberties concerns, the report largely supports the expansion of the U.S. government's and military's research into AI, calling for the Department of Defense to achieve "military AI readiness" by 2025. Critics have expressed concerns about potential AI-driven surveillance states, lack of transparency in AI decision-making, and fears about replacing human law enforcement with AI-powered alternatives. Despite privacy concerns, the commission also pushed the "urgent need" to use AI for national security purposes, especially against "foreign and domestic terrorists operating within our borders."
A 2021 investigation uncovered Eric Schmidt's connections to an under-the-radar AI contractor. The report highlighted the close relationship between Google and the Obama administration, with frequent White House visits by Google representatives, leading to the moniker "Google.gov". During Obama's presidency, over 250 Google employees transitioned between roles in the company and the government, and Eric Schmidt was among them.
But Google’s ties to the military-research complex and the CIA go even deeper. Sergey Brin and Larry Page developed the foundational technology for Google while at Stanford University in 1994, with funding from the Digital Library Initiative, supported by NSF, NASA, and DARPA. Throughout the development process, Brin reported to Dr. Bhavani Thuraisingham and Dr. Rick Steinheiser, both associated with a US intelligence community research program. Thuraisingham, working for MITRE Corp., managed the Massive Digital Data Systems initiative, sponsored by the NSA, CIA, and the Director of Central Intelligence, which provided seed funding to Brin's project. Google's technology, including the "PageRank" system, was developed under the CIA-NSA-MDDS program and with additional funding from NSF, IBM, and Hitachi. Senior US intelligence representatives oversaw Google's development until its official founding in 1998, suggesting the Pentagon and intelligence community provided substantial seed funding and guidance for Google's formation.
The CIA's early satellite imagery software, EarthViewer, was used for operations in Iraq and eventually evolved into what we know today as Google Earth and Google Maps. In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital firm, invested in Keyhole, the company that developed the initial prototype of the digital map software in 2001. Google acquired and renamed EarthViewer in 2004, developing it into Google Earth, whose features were later incorporated into Google Maps. When Google acquired Keyhole, they also brought on board Rob Painter, an executive from In-Q-Tel who had been sitting on Keyhole's board of directors. This acquisition further strengthened the connection between Google and the realms of U.S. intelligence and defense contracting.
In 2022, it was reported that Google has been recruiting a significant number of ex-CIA professionals, many working in politically sensitive areas within the company and influencing what users see in their search results. Notably, the trust and safety department, which governs content on Google's platform, employs several of these hires. Its vice president, Kristie Canegallo, was previously President Obama's Deputy White House Chief of Staff for Implementation and is now the Chief of Staff at the Department of Homeland Security.
Nuclear numbing evolved into surveillance numbing and now, further still, into cybernetically-induced paralysis. Today, we inhabit a world where these insidious forces are omnipresent, shaping our perceptions and dictating our perceived values and norms. As “surveillance coomerism” leverages personal data for increasingly obscure objectives, we find it being used to micro-target individuals for algorithmic coercion, cook up “social finance” slavery schemes, forge “soul-bound tokens,” kill people in real life and feed the global brain. Data has become the new oil. But what constitutes this coveted resource? It's nothing less than an aggregate of the intimate details of people's lives, akin to a “literal mining of subjectivity.” (Lemov 2016)
The Psychotronic Hydra
“The development of weaponry based on new physics principles; direct-energy weapons, geophysical weapons, wave-energy weapons, genetic weapons, psychotronic weapons, etc., is part of the state arms procurement program for 2011-2020,”
—Russian Defense Minister Anatoli Serdjukov, 2012, Voice of Russia
In a 1998 article, titled "The Mind Has No Firewall" Lieutenant Colonel Timothy L. Thomas (USA Ret .), an analyst at the Foreign Military Studies Office, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, proposes a “new” viewpoint on information warfare, suggesting that the human body and mind, like any data-processing system, can be manipulated, deceived, and even incapacitated.
The human body, with its myriad data processors such as the brain, heart, and peripheral nervous system, has been likened to a computer, susceptible to external influences that can change or alter its natural state. Examples include strobe lights causing epileptic seizures or certain wavelengths affecting human behavior.
In traditional information warfare theory, the focus lies primarily on hardware systems like computers, satellites, and military equipment. However, the author argues that this approach overlooks the human body as an integral part of information processing.
In the article, Timothy L. Thomas also highlights the existence of potential 'wonder weapons' (acoustics, microwaves, lasers) designed to manipulate or alter the body's psychological and data processing capabilities, as well as the potential for a new type of warfare, termed "psychotronic war", which targets the mind and body. He quotes a recent article that states that scientists are “searching the electromagnetic and sonic spectrums for wavelengths that can affect human behavior.”
Thomas’ argument was that the contemporary definition of "information warfare" falls short when the individual soldier, rather than equipment, becomes the target. The need to protect the mind and body in the same way we safeguard hardware systems with firewalls is emphasized, implying a potential shift in future warfare tactics and defense mechanisms.
In classic US military doctrine, the only human-related element considered in information warfare is psychological operations (PSYOP). These operations aim to influence the information and decision-making processes of adversaries. However, if the ultimate goal of information warfare is to affect the information-dependent process, whether human or automated, then the human body's data-processing of internal and external signals is a significant aspect of information warfare. Foreign researchers, like Russian Dr. Victor Solntsev, suggest that humans should be viewed as an open system, interacting with their environment through information flows. Changes in a person's physical environment could potentially affect their psycho-physiological state, consciousness, and even their ability to operate a computer effectively. The potential for such effects underscores the need for a broader understanding and approach to information warfare.
In late 2016, a group of U.S. diplomats, intelligence officials, and military personnel stationed in Havana, Cuba, began experiencing unexplained and often debilitating neurophysiological and cognitive symptoms, similar to those of traumatic brain injury but without any apparent cause. Symptoms ranged from headaches, dizziness, and fatigue to nausea, anxiety, and cognitive difficulties. Interestingly, many affected individuals noticed relief upon changing locations. While initial theories suggested a range of causes, from sonic weapons and microwaves to mass hysteria, recent research points towards intentional attacks.
These incidents became known as the "Havana Syndrome," with victims even including children and pets. For years, the cause remained a mystery, with numerous theories attempting to explain the phenomenon. However, Dr. James Giordano, a neuropathologist who was among the Department of State-appointed scientists investigating the Cuba cases, declared in his 2018 brief for the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM)/J5 Donovan Group SOFWERX: "This is intentional, this is directed, this seems to be a beta test of some type of a viable neuroweapon." Furthermore, an in-depth 2020 report from the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) implied that the most credible explanation for this type of incident is some variant of directed energy (DE).
These clusters of symptoms without a known cause or apparent traumatic incident were termed "unconventionally acquired brain injury" (UBI) by the USSOCOM, and more recently, as "Anomalous Health Incidents" (AHI) by the Secretary of Defense in 2021. The attacks in Cuba are among the first openly disclosed and officially acknowledged instances of “neuroweapon” use. Neuroweapons are devices specifically designed to target the brain or central nervous system, with the intent of influencing a person's mental state, capabilities, and ultimately behavior in a predictable way. “There are probably a couple of hundred incidents across the U.S. government and across the globe,” current CIA Director William Burns stated in July 2021.
The history of neuroweapon development is shrouded in darkness. However, one example serves to re-contextualize the discussion: Project Pandora, initiated in response to the Soviet irradiation of the American Embassy in 1965, a major classified initiative aimed at investigating the biological effects of electromagnetic frequencies. One of its subprojects, Project Bizarre, focused on exploring the potential control of human behavior through low-level, selectively modulated microwave radiation. The project found significant effects on monkeys after extended exposure, including degradation in cognitive functions and alterations in time perception.
Joseph C. Sharp, the primary scientist for Project Bizarre, managed to recognize words transmitted via "voice-modulated microwaves". The project also suggested that the Soviets might have been attempting to drive the US Embassy staff insane through microwave exposure. However, this research has been “contradicted” by numerous studies since the 1970s, coinciding with increased investment in microwave infrastructure.
In 1975, Don R. Justesen, a renowned neuropsychologist and the head of Laboratories of Experimental Neuropsychology at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Kansas City, unintentionally disclosed information pertaining to national security. In Microwaves and Behavior, he discussed the impacts of microwaves on the behavior of living organisms:
An article by Don Justesen from 1975 refers to an experiment by Joseph Sharp and Mark Grove at the Walter Reed Army Institute, which apparently showed that speech could be transmitted using the MAE. Sharp and Grove were able to understand nine out of ten words that they had recorded and then transmitted as ‘voice modulated microwaves’ (Justesen, 1975). This was also suggested in 1976 DIA report (US DoD, 1976: VIII), as well as in the aforementioned NLW report (US DoD, 1998). The US Army also referred to a MAE-based ‘voice-to-skull’ device on a webpage, claiming that the technology was already in use as an electronic scarecrow (Weinberger, 2008b).
Additionally, infamous MKULTRA doctor Ewen Cameron conducted experiments involving the use of microwaves on patients to monitor behavioral changes. Pandora researcher Robert O. Becker suggested that microwave exposure could cause central nervous system disturbances and interfere with decision-making capacity, leading to chronic stress.
Since Project Pandora, there have been numerous narratives surrounding 'psychotronic' or electromagnetic ‘mind control’ weapons. Rumors surfaced after the fall of the Berlin Wall that the Stasi used X-ray beam weapons to induce cancer in dissidents as part of their Zersetzung harassment protocol. Though it's hard to prove the extent of the current use of such weapons, there's a growing confidence that electromagnetic mind control might be feasible in the near future. This has led to concerns about the potential for remote mind control experimentation or "touchless" psychoterrorism, as the technology of "harassment RF" expands.
The BRAIN Initiative, launched in 2013 by President Obama, aimed to increase our understanding of the human brain. It drew inspiration from the Human Genome Project and hoped to map the brain's 100 billion neurons. The project involves a collaboration between various scientific communities, organizations, and universities, with an initial plan to commit $300 million annually, from both public and private sectors.
DARPA is a leading investor in the BRAIN initiative. They are specifically interested in neuro-performance enhancement and have been at the forefront of brain-computer interface technology. Ostensibly, they aim to develop communication links to the brain that do not require surgery, opening up possibilities such as immersive training, better interaction with AI systems, and increased cognitive performance.
Back in 2008, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded a project at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) with a $4 million grant. The goal was to explore the concept of "synthetic telepathy," a communication method that would use brain-generated signals indicative of "intended speech," eliminating the need for spoken words. This ambitious project aimed to identify unique brainwave patterns corresponding to individual words and establish these patterns' universality across different users to reduce the need for extensive device training.
This has evolved into its next-generation non-surgical neurotechnology (N3) program. In 2019, Batelle won a bid for a DARPA contract to develop bi-directional brain control technology. Battelle's N3 concept, called BrainSTORMS (Brain System to Transmit Or Receive Magnetoelectric Signals), involves the creation of a nano-transducer that can be injected into the body and directed to a specific brain area to perform a task, facilitated by a helmet-based transceiver.
One would have to be cartoonishly naïve to think that this research is not “dual use”, possessing the potential to be weaponized. Indeed, the U.S. military branches are extensively investing in neuroscience due to its potential applications in warfare. The focus of research varies between branches:
U.S. Air Force (USAF): Leads research to enhance warfighting and peacekeeping capabilities, focusing on neuroscience for decision-making and neuromorphic computing, along with human performance enhancement via collaborations with academia and the private sector.
U.S. Army (USA): Focuses on developing capabilities through understanding soldiers' cognitive states via EEG data and exploring non-lethal weapons. An ambitious 'synthetic telepathy' project aims at brain-to-brain communication.
U.S. Navy (USN): Manages Science and Technology (S&T) programs through the Office of Naval Research (ONR) for both Navy and Marine Corps. Research focus includes auditory neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience of perception and attention, and computational neuroscience, aiming at brain-based intelligent systems development.
U.S. Marine Corp (USMC): Via the Joint Intermediate Force Capabilities Office (JIFCO), facilitates the development of non-lethal weapons, many of which utilize directed energy with potential impacts on the brain.
U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM): Leads in neuro S&T research for cognitive enhancement, having previously attempted to establish a Center of Excellence in Operational Neuroscience. Current initiatives include wearable devices for cognitive training enhancement and the Human Enhancement Operator (HEO) concept for cognitive improvements. USSOCOM also explores risks from the weaponization of neuroscience, including neuroweapons.
Potential interest in the application of the biomedical sciences to conflict settings is no longer necessary limited to wars fought between states, but may also extend to today’s asymmetric conflicts where the armed forces of technologically advanced, weaponised states may be set against groups of ‘insurgents’. Potential interest in the application of the biomedical sciences to conflict settings is no longer necessary limited to wars fought between states, but may also extend to today’s asymmetric conflicts where the armed forces of technologically advanced, weaponised states may be set against groups of ‘insurgents’.
—Novel neurotechnologies: intervening in the brain, Nuffield Council on Bioethics
In 2021, Robert Grenier, a former CIA officer, posited that domestic extremists in the U.S., like those who "stormed the Capitol", should be treated as an insurgency. This would warrant the implementation of counterinsurgency tactics similar to those used in Afghanistan and Iraq. Concurrently, various "weaponized agencies" have been attempting for years to redefine disorderly conduct and trespassing as "domestic terrorism". The proposed but failed "Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2022" would have acted as a "Patriot Act" targeting American citizens. Nowadays, terms like "insurgent" and "domestic terrorist" are used interchangeably with "anti-government" and "extremist".
In 2019, it was revealed that the FBI had been engaging in paranoid conspiracy theories, suggesting that individuals who question mainstream narratives were secretly a domestic terror threat. The level of schizophrenia required to release such a document in a post-Epstein world is concerning, to say the least.
The Quest For ‘Social Radar’
The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has been steadily working on creating a 'social radar', a technology aimed at predicting political instability, conflicts, and changing population trends. The ambitious project, backed by organizations like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Office of Naval Research (ONR), and others, leverages vast political, economic, sociocultural, personal, and biometric data. The goal is to predict future alliances, relationships, and movements by understanding societal perceptions. Various experts, including mathematicians, engineers, computer scientists, linguists, intelligence analysts, and social scientists, are contributing to this effort.
In 2006, the Office of the Secretary of Defense initiated a series of directives that resulted in the creation of the Human Social Culture Behavior (HSCB) Program. This program aimed to develop a scientific foundation and related technologies for modeling human, social, and cultural behavior, aiding the Department of Defense (DoD) and the US Government in understanding and operating effectively in the "human terrain" during unconventional warfare and other missions.
Other Pentagon agencies and research centers also started funding similar initiatives, emphasizing quantification, predictive modeling, and computational systems. By 2010, almost all branches of the armed forces and DoD’s research centers had begun experimenting with sociocultural modeling for training military personnel, analyzing intelligence, and predicting future conflict scenarios (Gonzalez 2015).
In the past five years, the Pentagon has supported a multitude of projects, distributing billions of dollars to defense corporations, university-based academics, and federally-funded research centers for sociocultural modeling. Funding has been used for basic research, as well as the development of products like software packages, video games, databases, visualization tools, virtual training platforms, and other technologies useful for combatant commands, troops on the ground, and other DoD 'customers'.
The Department of Defense (DoD) identified a significant gap in the area of 'sociology/anthropology for irregular warfare and support ops' around 2010. To address this gap, DoD awarded numerous contracts to companies like Aptima, a defense contract firm based in Massachusetts. Aptima specializes in sociocultural modeling and forecasting, having carried out various projects such as SCIPR, a software program that determines cultural identities and predicts popular responses to hypothetical US military actions, and STAR (Semantic Temporal Association Retrieval) and MIST (Models of Information and Sentiment Transmission), designed to “extract entities and high-level concepts” and to find “memes, or units of cultural information about the attitudes and opinions”. Then there is FACETS (Forecasting Activity through Cultural, Epidemiological, and Temporal Semantics), which would “forecast likely opinion changes of individuals and groups [in response] to certain events. . . . [It] will be rooted in theories of social identity and influence to better shape the sociocultural landscape of a given population.” (Gonzalez 2022)
One of Aptima's most publicized projects was E-MEME, a software that uses epidemiological models to track the movements of 'infectious' ideas through Twitter, blogs, and other electronic media. Aptima's use of epidemiological models posits the spread of ideas as comparable to the spread of viruses. The goal of this approach was to better understand how sentiment can spread over time and place to influence susceptible populations.
Since 2008, the Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, and Prediction (SBP) Conference has served as a multidisciplinary platform that brings together researchers and practitioners from a variety of fields. The purpose is to identify and discuss social computing and behavioral-cultural modeling. The conference's goal is to provide a platform where researchers can share their knowledge and understanding of "social computing" and behavioral-cultural modeling techniques, along with their applications. This includes gaining insights into human behavior through computational models, which can aid in areas such as policymaking, understanding societal trends, and enhancing online social interaction. Major federal agencies funding the conference include the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), the Army Research Office (ARO), the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Office of Naval Research (ONR). (SBP 2013)
By 2010, all branches of the armed forces (excluding the Coast Guard) and the Defense Department's research centers were experimenting with sociocultural modeling for various purposes including training military personnel, analyzing intelligence, and predicting future conflict scenarios. Billions of dollars have since been distributed to defense corporations, academics, and research centers for sociocultural modeling (Gonzalez 2022).
DARPA and the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), the rebranded Office of Total Information Awareness, have made significant strides over the past decade with implications reaching far and wide. Since 2011, with the inception of initiatives like the Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC), Strategic Social Interaction Module (SSIM), and Narrative Networks programs, DARPA acknowledged the importance of social identities, cultural norms, and narratives in gathering valuable intelligence about individuals. The program manager of SMISC provided the following description:
Technology areas particularly relevant to SMISC are shown here grouped to correspond to the four basic goals of the program as described above:
1. Linguistic cues, patterns of information flow, topic trend analysis, narrative structure analysis, sentiment detection and opinion mining;
2. Meme tracking across communities, graph analytics/probabilistic reasoning, pattern detection, cultural narratives;
3. Inducing identities, modeling emergent communities, trust analytics, network dynamics modeling;
4. Automated content generation, bots in social media, crowd sourcing.
In March, the Pentagon quietly established a new internal division called the Influence and Perception Management Office (IPMO), which operates in the realm of strategic and operational influence and perception management. Despite lacking an official announcement or detailed explanation from the Department of Defense, the IPMO is expected to play a significant role in information warfare, both domestically and internationally.
The Influence and Perception Management Office will serve as the senior advisor to the USD(I&S) for strategic and operational influence and perception management (reveal and conceal) matters. It will develop broad thematic influence guidance focused on key adversaries; promulgate competitive influence strategies focused on specific defense issues, which direct subordinate planning efforts for the conduct of influence-related activities; and fill existing gaps in policy, oversight, governance, and integration related to influence and perception management matters.
—Fiscal Year 2023 Budget Estimates Office of the Secretary of Defense
The director of the IPMO, James Holly, previously served in the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), known for its covert operations. JSOC has a history of operating under a veil of secrecy, often working in conjunction with the CIA. The IPMO's memo suggests involvement in propaganda operations to influence foreign defense-related decision-makers in alignment with U.S. interests.
The Smith-Mundt Act, enacted in 1948, prohibited the domestic dissemination of "public diplomacy" or propaganda by the State Department. The Defense Department also adhered to this requirement. However, in 2012, the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act was introduced and later incorporated into the National Defense Authorization Act. This amendment allowed for the circulation of propaganda within the United States.
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Now that the US resembles an anarcho-tyrannical banana republic, with contested elections, deteriorating infrastructure, dystopian measures to combat "misinformation," and the branding of the monoparty's political opponents as "domestic terrorists," it's absolutely reasonable to infer that the strategies once deployed abroad against third-world countries are now being applied to US citizens. Even without the revelations of the “Twitter Files™”, many have long suspected that America's various political police forces, those "weaponized agencies," have long been conducting illicit psychological warfare campaigns, among other hijinks.
Indeed, we are witnessing full PSYWAR saturation, even “mid”6 e-girls can command an army of weaponized simps. The US military has moved to exploit this situation with a new strategy to recruit Generation Z by utilizing attractive young women in uniform who post sexually suggestive content on social media platforms like TikTok and Twitter. PSYOP ad novissimum! Terms like “gaslighting” and “psyop” have been beaten into a semiotic pulp. Even cursory sentiment analysis finds that there really are no more, “normies,” your average person has been pseudo-initiated into some degree of conspiracism.
In this carnivalesque information environment, a PSYWAR primer is a valuable tool to have. Although “facts and logic” may be on your side, “works and magic” wins the audience. Reclaim the jester for yourself, after all, there's a peculiar aptness to the deployment of wholesome hijinks as a counterpoint to the nihilistic “irony” of regime golem and their algorithmically deformed online discourse. Recall what that arch-jester General Lansdale said: “Remember humor— even if it is a grim practical joke that only you can afford to smile at. Humor is often the test of a good psychological operation since humor is constructed on the frailties of mankind”.
In professional wrestling parlance, 'a work' refers to an event, action, or narrative that is pre-planned, rehearsed, and scripted for the purpose of storytelling and entertainment. This can include match outcomes, feuds, character personas, and promos. 'Work' is essentially part of the performance art and theater of professional wrestling, and its purpose is to engage and captivate the audience
The process through which a naturally occurring dialogue or terminology is transferred into a realm of discourse, where it becomes manipulated, exaggerated, or staged, resulting in a caricatured, surreal, or excessively partisan representation.
Psychosecurity refers to the concept of resistance or vulnerability of the human mind to influence operations, particularly those that use symbols to shape beliefs and perceptions. It measures how susceptible a person or a group is to manipulation or persuasion through communication, often in the form of symbolic representations, like words, images, or memes. In a broader sense, psychosecurity reflects the resilience of an individual or a group to manipulation or deception, particularly in the context of information warfare, social media influence, and other related areas.
The term "hyperstition" is a blend of "hyper" and "superstition," coined by the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU) of the University of Warwick. It's a concept used to describe the action of successful ideas in the arena of culture and thought, particularly in relation to the capacities of certain kinds of ideas to bring about their own reality. In essence, hyperstition represents a form of fictional idea or belief that, once it gains cultural traction, has the power to influence reality and bring about the conditions it imagines. It's a form of feedback loop where fiction and reality influence and alter each other.
Ostensibly real objects or phenomenon that exist mostly as media artifacts, or self-replicating media-based parasite. “A complete meme.”
In the current digitally-driven attention economy, female attractiveness is a key factor in determining who succeeds and who fails. At its worst, this phenomenon can lead to the exploitation of certain women. For example, some women who are considered “very attractive” may be exploited for their looks, while those who are deemed “ugly” may receive pity clicks or become part of a virtual freak show. Meanwhile, the majority of women who find themselves in between these two extremes—the “mids”—can often find themselves invisible. These mids don’t receive the recognition and number of followers as those on either end of the attractiveness spectrum. Without the allure of being considered "very attractive" or the morbid fascination associated with being deemed "ugly," mids may have a harder time developing a substantial online presence and these middling-attractive women can be forgotten in the lukewarm sea of mid-iocrity.
Clearly the domestication of humans is a dynamic and multifaceted process one of which you have done significant research on. For that I very much thank you. As I have come to understand the process in greater detail I see how it is difficult to impossible to speak to "normal*" people about it. If you explain it basically, they look at you as if you were a "conspiracy theorist". If they manage to have patience enough for a long version ( which is still like drinking water out of a fire hose unless you teach it over a period of months) it can still be very overwhelming.
It took me years.. years.. to understand the magnitude of control. Now, I know I cannot comprehend just how far the mechanisms of mass society formation go because most relevant information is classified and what is public is obfuscated or omitted. What can be inferred is that we live in a glass prison full of human versions of Pavlov "s bells.
With that being said, I know you mentioned you cannot change people with facts but humor could have a element to play. I could not help but think of Vermin Supreme and was curious if the absurdity of it was part of his tactics. This is just a thought of course, the entire sacred clown concept is new to me and I am now studying thanks to you.
Previous I had put an asterisk next to normal people as I have a question. What constitutes a "normie" is not the same as a decade ago. As you mentioned, most people now have varying elements of conspiratorial beliefs. I suspect the conspiritainment industry has been promulgated to muddy those waters on purpose. This tends to flow into this "post-truth" world we live in where legitimate questions and accusations of conspiracy/agenda ( most of this has been said openly in the progenitors own words but it isnt believed. Denial is a bitch) are folded into the garbage put out by the Industry. Where I am going with this..
Previously when they fostered dissent in the system i could see where they were attempting to "steer" or "nudge " these people to. Usually people were folded back into trusting the apparatus by some new "movement ". Tea Party anyone? However, it seems to be they are steering people deliberately into an "insurgent" definition, conspiratorial minded and distrustful that could fall under something like the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act. It appears as though this is the beginning of the end game to exert open control or rather, eliminate those of the species who still have wild type and not domesticated tendencies. Although, I do not know for sure. I am just taking what I see and am attempting to guess as to what the trajectory of this process is going. Perhaps this is something you are going to cover in the future, but I will ask anyways. So what do you think?
Incredible, thank you for all your effort collecting this information, the sheer volume and density of your writing means I'm always taking notes and pacing the room, thinking about what I've just read.