Tantra-Induced Delusional Syndrome ("TIDS")

[Simulist]

The moon trusts that the world will continue to go round on its axis, birds trust there will be berries and seeds to eat, trees trust the seasons will follow in the right order. Until we trust that things will unfold naturally then we are slaves to our doubts, fears and neurosis, to the constant chatter in our heads that says we are useless and don’t know anything. But we don’t make the sun to rise or set. The planet is in orbit and neither we nor Jesus or Buddha or any of the wise ones run the show. Our job is simply to surrender to the moment.

Second only to my partner of the past 21 years, that is the most beautiful thing I have seen all day.

Thank you, Eyeno!

[American Dream]

Moving in left-wing circles was nothing new for Ronald Stark. He had a knack for popping up wherever trouble was brewing. An American expatriate bumped into him on the streets of Paris during the peak of the Sorbonne uprising in 1968. In London he frequented the clubs and bars that were hangouts for dissident elements, and he made his first appearance in Milan during the "hot autumn" of 1969, when massive student demonstrations and labor strikes nearly paralyzed Italy. Furthermore, Stark was tight with the Brotherhood leaders who contributed money to the Weather Underground for Timothy Leary's prison escape.

ACID DREAMS, THE COMPLETE SOCIAL HISTORY OF LSD: THE CIA, THE SIXTIES, AND BEYOND Martin A. Lee, Bruce Shlain - 1992



A Book Review of David Black's Acid: A New Secret History of LSD

Cue David Black's Acid: The Secret History of LSD. Those still under the impression that history is little more than the sum total of visible events will greet Black's book with incredulity: the synchronistic connections described in just one paragraph can amaze:

"For laundering, [Bill] Hitchcock used the facilities offered by the fiscal paradise of the Bahamas, where he already had a private account at the Castle Bank and Trust. This laundromat [Castle Bank and Trust] for Mafia narcotics trafficking had been co-founded by Edward Halliwell, a CIA asset involved in Air America and Civil Air Transport. These 'airlines' were agency front companies for flying heroin around the Burma Triangle to bankroll covert operations in Indo-China. He made arrangements for the Brotherhood [of Eternal Love, the Californian LSD manufacturing/trafficking organization described in Tendler and May's book of the same name] at Resorts International, a conduit for huge amounts of Mafia money, and at the Fiduciary Trust Company, an offshoot of Investors Overseas Services, headed by the notorious and crooked financier Bernie Cornfeld." (p. 18)



And what about Bernie Cornfeld? Nothing less than sugar daddy to Heidi Fleiss: you can quickly see how this nebulous web of synchronicity starts to add up.

The implications present in Black's book reach to the highest echelons of political power: not only does Black detail the complete history of the CIA's experimentation with LSD in its covert MK-ULTRA project, but we learn that John F. Kennedy's implied mistress, Mary Pinchot, was "turning on" a lot of higher-ups in Washington, D.c. with LSD supplied by Timothy Leary. When Kennedy was assassinated, Pinchot allegedly phoned Leary in a panicked state and said, 'they couldn't control him anymore. He was changing too fast... They've covered everything up." (p. 61). In October 1964, Pinchot was shot to death in a Georgetown apartment in what appeared to be a "professional hit."

The linchpin of Black's book, however, is the "international man of mystery" Ronald Stark. Stark's involvement with LSD trafficking began in the summer of 1969, when he approached the "hippie mafia" the Brotherhood of Eternal Love with an offer to bankroll their activities:

"In his talks with the Brotherhood, Stark impressed them with his knowledge of scams: smuggling drugs in consignments of Japanese electrical equipment, his use of business fronts in West Africa, and moving money through a maze of shell companies set up by his lawyers on various continents.

However, [Stark] projected himself as interested in a lot more than money. He had a mission, he explained, to use LSD in order to facilitate the overthrow of the political systems of both the capitalist West and communist East by inducing altered states of consciousness in millions of people. Stark did not hide the fact that he was well connected in the world of covert politics. He intimated, for example, that he had contacts with the Tibetan freedom fighters loyal to the Dalai Lama and with the Japanese Mafia who could help smuggle LSD into Tibet and dose the Chinese occupiers... however, the Idylwild hippies could not have possibly guessed that Ron Stark operated on four continents and compartmentalized his international activities so that those he did business with - be they American hippies, Lebanese warlords, corporate lawyers, British scientists, Japanese Mafioso or Italian train-bombers - would have little knowledge of his 'other' activities. He could speak ten languages fluently and had the 'bottle' [of LSD], cunning, charm, and knowledge to pass himself off in various situations as a businessman, chemist, doctor, art collector, drug dealer, political activist and even as a Palestinian guerilla." (p. 20-21)


Ronald Stark

One of the most interesting sections of the book details Stark's involvement with the "acid gang" responsible for the production of most of the UK's LSD during the 1970's. "Operation Julie" eventually brought the gang down, but the story behind this operation is interesting in its own right. Of all of the characters in Black's book, only the "Julie" chemists Richard Kemp and Christine Bott are as intriguing as Stark: Kemp, once described as a "one in a million brainiac" by a fellow prison inmate, was a Cambridge-educated chemist and left-wing radical who hoped that LSD would inspire societal revolution. Kemp and Bott believed "...industrial society will collapse when the oil runs out and that the answer is to change people's mindsets using acid. They believe LSD can help people to see that a return to a natural society based on self-sufficiency is the only way to save themselves." Kemp was also responsible for a dramatic breakthrough in LSD manufacture, which was responsible for the "Julie" acid being the cleanest and strongest ever seen on a large scale in the UK.


Kemp and Bott
(taken from Lee & Pratt's Operation Julie)

The web of synchronicity deepens yet again when Kemp's association with the famed DNA co-discoverer Francis Crick is revealed:

"Dick Kemp told me he met Francis Crick at Cambridge. Crick had told him that some Cambridge academics used LSD in tiny amounts as a thinking tool, to liberate them from preconceptions and let their genius wander freely to new ideas. Crick told him he had perceived the double-helix shape while on LSD."

It was clear that Dick Kemp was highly impressed and probably bowled over by what Crick had told him. He told me that if a man like Crick, who had gone to the heart of human existence, had used LSD, then it was worth using. Crick was certainly Dick Kemp's inspiration."

Like Kemp, Stark remains an enigmatic figure throughout the book, and we never get much more than speculation as to who he actually is. Was he a CIA asset? Scion of an ultra-wealthy family? Between Stark's connections to radical groups on four continents (a mind-boggling list that includes the Weather Underground and the IRA) it is difficult to imagine that Stark was not an intelligence asset of some sort: he appeared to operate above the law. At the same time, he evidently exhibited some fuzzy political sympathies that definitely leaned in the direction of "One World Universalism." Stark's apparent tendency to latch on to "convenient" causes is all too indicative of someone operating as an agent of an Illuminati-type organization: if he did have a political agenda, it was certainly a bit more obtuse and sophisticated than anything revolving around simple "national liberation". Black also infers that Stark maintained connections to the P-2 Masonic Lodge in Italy, but the extent of his involvement is not clear.

Perhaps Stark's political orientation can be distilled from one of his few known influences: Robert Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress:

"He saw it as a revolutionary 'handbook', every bit as inspirational as the writings of Che Guevara. Heinlein's novel, a hard-boiled political fairytale set in the year 2075, is about a penal colony on the Moon. The million inhabitants - who are housed in huge domes containing artificial atmospheres - are either Earth deportees or their descendents. They cannot return because once their bodies adapt to the Moon's gravity they can never readapt to the gravity of Earth. This lunar prison is brutally administered by a United Nations-appointed governor, who the revolutionaries try to overthrow. One of them, a character called 'the Prof', explains:

...revolutions are not won by enlisting the masses. Revolution is a science for the few who are competent to practice it. It depends on correct organisation and above all, on communications.'

The conspiracy starts with three people... these three in turn recruit two other people to form three new cells. This recruitment process continues until a large network of cells is built up. The advantage of the structure is that if cell members do not know each other's sub-cells, then they cannot give them away if captured. The drawback is that if a single cadre is arrested and cannot resist interrogation, then the enemy can arrest the half-a-dozen comrades he or she knows and thus reach the sub-cells. This, it becomes possible for the authorities to break the revolutionaries' chain of command and communications.

A more sophisticated system discussed in Heinlein's book is a pyramid-of-pyramids setup - a sort of 'Internet' without the computers:

'Where vertices are common, each bloke knows one in an an adjoining cell... Communications never break down because they run sideways as well as up and down. Something like a neural net.'

Damage can be stemmed and repaired because the cell member who discovers a breach in the network can pass warnings without having to know who receives the messages.

The notion of revolutionary organisation as an imitation of a 'natural' and 'organic' hierarchy is not new. Historically, August Blanqui, the most accomplished revolutionary conspirator in 19th century France, had very similar ideas about revolutionary organisation. In Heinlein's futuristic vision, however, the notion is given a neat twist: the conspiracy is helped by a miraculous super-computer, which is so powerful and complex that it 'wakes up' and becomes 'self-conscious'. The computer develops a sense of 'humour' about the 'stupidity' of the colonial administration, plus a 'rational will' to overthrow them.

The conspirators use the computer to set up front companies and fraudulently appropriate funds on the terrestrial stock exchanges. They then use the money to set up secret facilities for development of revolutionary war technology. In this scenario, then Big Brother's Brain, a scientific rationality, can be detached from ruling class control and harnessed to the revolution.

As a 'rational anarchist', the Prof believes that the concept of the State has no existence except as 'physicall exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals.' This implies that collaboration with the state is justifiable as a disguise within the strategy of systematic deception of everyone apart from those who are required to be 'in the know' for particular functions.

Stark's keen interest in these ideas is perhaps a pointer to his modus operandi. And if he really did think of himself as a revolutionary who could make use of state agencies and capitalist technology on his own terms, he was not unique in the history of politics. In the 1840's, Pierre Proudhon, a founding father of French socialism (and opponent of Blanqui), dismissed the problem of secret police spies and provocateurs in his movement. Such actions, he claimed, were 'irrelevant' to someone such as himself: a 'new man... whose style is not the barricades but discussion, a man who could sit at a table with the chief of police each evening and take all the spies in the world into his confidence.'

In Ron Stark's case, operating very much in the 20th century, political activism went far beyond discussion. Whilst he could sit at all sorts of tables, he had a certain liking for barricades as well.' (p. 149-151)

In a more base sense, the highly intelligent Stark was probably just

having quite a bit of fun: between leading his jet set lifestyle (which included a Manhattan apartment replete with original Picasso paintings), setting up front companies to facilitate the manufacture of LSD, and inhabiting a social milieu replete with the most colorful "characters" that one could imagine, his life was certainly worthy of fiction. Stark was clearly motivated by profit, but if he could justify his actions with idealism, then all the better. Idealism mixed with lucre finds its most potent expression in the drug ideologue: yes, he's helping people find God, but he's also a capitalist.

In close, Black's book comes with my highest recommendation: not only is the subject matter fascinating, but it's a first-rate piece of journalism. What follows is Black's own synopsis of the book from Lobster Magazine:

-~-~-~-~-~-~-

Operation Julie revisited: the strange career of Ron Stark, parapolitical alchemist
David Black

Operation Julie, a nation-wide police investigation of LSD production, was launched in 1976. Two years later, although some 60 members of the British 'microdot conspiracy' had been convicted, Detective Inspector Dick 'Leapy' Lee was dissatisfied. The operational commander of 'Julie', Lee was interested in the international connections of the network, but was blocked from probing them by the powers-that-be. One major player he was especially interested in, New Yorker Ronald Stark, was suspected of having CIA connections.

Ron Stark (1938-84) was first convicted in 1962 for making a false job application for government service and imprisoned for parole violation. Between 1967, when his net wealth was recorded as $3000, and 1968, Stark somehow became a millionaire and moved to a flash residence in Greenwich Village. To some he claimed he to be the scion of the super-rich Whitney family; to others he was the son of a rich bi-chemist. Stark spoke of having studied biochemistry at various Ivy League universities and of having quit a top secret post at the Department of Defense during the Kennedy administration because the work 'disgusted' him. One scientist who knew Stark says he claimed to have been attached to the CIA 'mind control' project - later revealed as MKULTRA.(1)


The Brotherhood of Eternal Love
Stark had world-wide business interests in pharmaceuticals. Behind his various 'legit' fronts, by 1969 he had become one of the world's leading suppliers of LSD, produced at his illicit labs in Europe. Stark also plugged himself into the counter-culture. In America he hooked up with the Brotherhood of Eternal Love (BEL), a Californian motorcycle gang who had transformed themselves, under the influence of LSD and the inspiration of Timothy Leary, into a registered 'church'. By 1969, the BEL had a sizeable share of the market for a less godly, but hugely lucrative business, LSD and marijuana.(2)

The BEL were short of materials and the capital investment needed to continue LSD production,when, in August 1969, Ron Stark visited their commune with a large bottle of pure liquid LSD, enough for up to ten million trips, and explained that he needed a secure outlet in the US for the LSD he was producing in Europe. He also declared his intention of facilitating the overthrow of both Western capitalism and Eastern Communism by inducing altered states of consciousness in millions of people and claimed that he had a contact with the Dalai Lama's Tibetan freedom fighters and could get the Japanese mafia to smuggle LSD to dose the Chinese occupiers.(3)

The authors of Acid Dreams, Martin and Lee and Bruce Shlain, note that Ron Stark's 'fateful appearance at the Idylwild ranch', coincided with certain 'unpleasant changes'. Some of the old guard had to 'retire' after skirmishes with the law, notably Stanley Owsley, the maker of 'Orange Sunshine', his protg, Tim Skully (who had originally wanted to give acid away free), and superbrat, Bill Mellon-Hitchcock, the BEL's money-launderer. Not long after Stark turned up, BEL founder, 'Farmer John' Griggs died of poisoning in circumstances his friends regarded as suspicious.(4)


Stark in Britain
Before clinching the deal with the BEL, Stark had been making some contacts in England among the radical psychiatry movement of R.D. Laing and the Tavistock Institute. One of these was David Solomon, an American researcher and writer on LSD and cannabis. Solomon had been working with Richard Kemp, a drop-out science student, and his partner, Dr. Christine Bott, to synthesize some powerful liquid cannabis. Solomon had also obtained a supply of the LSD base, ergotamine tartrate, for a shot at LSD production, and Kemp managed to make some at a makeshift lab in Liverpool.

Shortly after meeting Stark in Cambridge in Summer 1969, Solomon invited Kemp to come meet 'a man with a million dollar inheritance'. Stark convened a meeting at the Oxford and Cambridge Club on London's Pall Mall with Kemp, Simon Walton, Stark's Scots assistant, plus Solomon and his friend Paul Arnaboldi (then famous as 'Captain Bounty' in the TV chocolate ad). The Great British LSD Plot was thus hatched within weeks of Stark's first meeting with the Brotherhood in California. Stark also introduced Kemp to the Brotherhood's chemists, Nick Sand and Lester Freidman. Kemp was soon working wonders at Stark's lab in Paris and in the first run turned out a kilo of LSD.(5)

In May 1970 Kemp and Stark, with the BEL's chemists, held talks lasting four days on the future of the 'Atlantic Brotherhood'. Kemp was unhappy. He had been assigned to work on a new project to synthesize THC to make a new brand of liquid cannabis as strong as LSD and as cheap to produce. But money promised was not forthcoming, Stark discouraged visits by Kemp's partner Christine Bott, and Kemp felt 'sexually harassed' by the bi-sexual Stark. Worse, Kemp had been pulled up by British Customs during a trip with Walton from France in Stark's Ferrari to buy equipment. During a search of the car, the Customs had found documentation of a massive purchase of the LSD base, ergotamine tartrate, but failed to see its significance.(6)

When Stark moved his laboratory from Paris to Orleans, he claimed he had been warned about an impending raid on the lab when, 'by chance', he ran into an old pal who worked with the CIA station in London. By this time Kemp had had enough and decided to quit working with Stark. He returned to England in late 1970 and teamed up with Henry Todd, an accountant recruited by David Solomon. In mid-1971, as production began in Britain and the distribution network was being set up, Stark crossed the Channel in one last attempt to dissuade Kemp from branching out independently.(7)

When differences between the 'idealist' Kemp and the 'bread-head' Todd became unresolvable - Todd wanted to dilute the elixir to boost profts - it was decided to split into two independent networks. Todd centred his operation on the Thames Valley, while Kemp and Christine Bott moved out of London to North Wales and set up a lab with Paul Arnaboldi at Plas Llysin near Carno.(8) Amazingly, for the first half of the seventies, the British Acid Underground - thanks to to Stark's role as catalyst - happily churned out hundreds of millions of tabs to satisfied customers, without anyone in authority realising how big the business had become.


The BEL scatters
Following a series of raids on the BEL in America, by early 1973 the authorities estimated that some 20 members were in hiding or in exile - including Stark. Timothy Leary ended up in Afghanistan, after fleeing the US, but the US Embassy evidently knew he was coming and got the Afghan authorities to deport him back to the USA. Ron Stark visited Afghanistan at least once with a plan to set up BEL facilities for making hallucinogenic THC derivative from Afghan hash oil. Thanks to Kemp's efforts, Stark had worked out the first eight of the fourteen stages of the THC synthesis. Stark had a minister of the Afghan regime in his pocket to set up a penicillin factory as a front, and a 'contact' with the US embassy: the BEL's chief hash supplier in Kabul, Aman Tokhi, worked there as a 'maintenance supervisor'.(9)

Stark had taken over Bill Mellon-Hitchock's role in the BEL of money-launderer and procurer of LSD production materials. In 1972 Stark's lawyer in Paris, Sam Goekjian, who had drawn up the charters for Stark's front companies, was investigated by IRS agents and asked about Stark's BEL connections. The DEA, who had just rolled-up much of the BEL network in the US, organised a follow-up raid on Stark's Belgian laboratory on the campus of Louvain le Neuve, near Brussels, but Stark escaped, spiriting away the BEL's investments for his own purposes.(10)


An Inspector Lee calls
In November 1974 Inspector 'Leapy' Lee,(11) who had been running Operation STUFF (Stop Unlawful Free Festivals) in Thames Valley, began to have doubts about the official view on LSD use. According to the Home Office, annual seizures of 20,000 tabs means that 'the use of LSD in Britain was restricted to a small number of people'. Lee approached the Central Drugs Intelligence Unit (CDIU), who 'denied having any information which showed LSD to be a problem'. It would take Lee another three years to fully discover that 'since 1970 an illicit organization had been manufacturing around 20,000,000 tiny LSD tablets [a year] and selling them to two-thirds of the world'.(12)

After his arrest in 1977, Richard Kemp insisted that all of the links between the British networks and the BEL had been broken in 1970. 'Leapy' Lee, however, knew that Ron Stark had passed through London in Spring 1973 while on the run from US authorities and had obtained a false passport here.(13) Lee wanted to find out more but was blocked from on high; possibly, he suspected, to prevent questions arising as to why action hadn't been taken years earlier. He had learned that the Home Office drugs inspectorate had submitted a report as early as 1971 which noted the exports of tartrate to America from Britain and furthermore suggested that LSD microdots seized across the world 'originated from one common source which, in all probability, was somewhere in Britain.'


First hints of the Welsh connection
In Spring 1975, when evidence began to point towards an LSD supply source in Wales, Lee learned that the Central Drugs Intelligence Unit had been withholding information from him on 'a number of leads pointing to an LSD conspiracy in the United Kingdom....the information had been withheld from all drug squads except the Metropolitan.' Lee learned that a year previously Dectective Inspectors Godfrey and O'Hanlon of the CDIU had travelled to Canada to hear Kemp's former tableteer, Gerry Thomas, name Kemp, Bott and Solomon as LSD con-spirators. On returning, O'Hanlon was suspended and subsequently sentenced to eight years imprisonment for corruption. D.I. Godfrey did initiate an investigation of a trip by Solomon to Switzerland to meet Leary; but, in Lee's words, the Met then 'botched' a raid on Solomon's London home and missed some documents he had concerning Leary's secret negotiations over a contract for his book On the Run. Godfrey and CDIU lost track of Richard Kemp and Christine Bott.(14)

Lee discovered that an investigation as far back as 1971 had been getting near the truth but had collapsed when the gang under surveillance by the Thames Valley Squad and Customs were robbed of money and drugs by officers of the Met.! According to Detective Constable Martyn Pritchard of the Julie squad, the 1971 investigation did reveal enough to register suspicions 'that a big LSD factory was in business.'(15)


Cue the spooks
That the security services regarded LSD as an issue of 'national security' was confirmed when Lee began to follow leads on Ron Stark and discovered that the security services had been on the trail before him. When Lee went to see the security services about the loan of some high-tech surveillance equipment, he briefed them on 'the suspected international level of LSD trafficking and, more particularly, the probable involvement of terrorist groups like Baader-Meinhof and the Angry Brigade'. Lee had noticed that the network he was investigating had 'a cell-like structure similar to that used by terrorist groups'. Lee was referring to the system of pre-arranged meetings places and dead letter-box drops in tins buried under trees to deliver the LSD to the distributors and collect payment.(16)

Lee had begun to suspect terrorist connections when, during surveillance of the Let-It-Be Commune in Wiltshire, a car used by a dealer suspected of working for the LSD network turned out to have been 'linked' in some (unspecified) way to the West German Red Army faction. A check on an associate of the distribution network in Wales showed him to be 'an associate of the Angry Brigade'. Although none of those arrested in Operation Julie were charged with political offences, the supposed 'terrorist connection' did emerge in the pre-trial press coverage. The Daily Mirror ran a piece on how Kemp and his colleagues were 'allegedly' preparing to put LSD into the water supply.(17) Documents from police files on the defendants' alleged political views were also circulated to the media. Richard Kemp, for example, was described as a 'left-wing revolutionary ... his motive for suspected acid activity: a catalyst of British revolution by youth brought on by the use of LSD'. Kemp told the police that he had supported festivals such as Windsor and Glastonbury and had given money to Release, the drugs legal help-line, and had supported 'Head politics' (but refused to name which groups).(18)

In fact the only drug dealers of an significance during this period with terrorist 'connections' of whom we know were Howard Marks - through the maverick Irish 'republican' Jim McCann - and Ron Stark. According to Tendler and May's book on the BEL, FBI reports passed on to the DEA in California and to the British police 'only showed what Stark was not, not what he actually was'. Inspector Lee's informant, 'Nancy', 'strongly suspected that Stark was involved with the CIA and had friends in the American Embassy'.(19)

In 1972 Hamilton Macmillan, an MI6 officer and nephew of the former Tory Prime Minister, recruited Howard Marks, his old chum from Balliol College, Oxford, to spy on Jim McCann, a hash smuggler whom MI6 believed was a Provisional IRA contact in Amsterdam. Macmillan gave no indication that he knew Marks was already doing business with McCann, or that he knew Marks' name and address had turned up in the address book of arrested IRA volunteer, Dutch Doherty. (The address had been passed onto Doherty by McCann). MI6 did not appear to realise that the IRA had rejected McCann's efforts to involve them in drugs and that he was using his contacts with republican activists to boost his credibility as a smuggler.(20) Macmillan's scheme went awry when Marks decided to let McCann in on the secret of his 'deal' with MI6. (MI6's admitted involvement later sank the prosecutions of both men.) When the police learned of Marks' operation after his disappearance in 1974, they suspected that until 1973 he had been dealing with the BEL, and from then on with its remnants.

Ron Stark was not far from Marks' and McCann's scene. In 1971 McCann had taken two American journalists from the London-based 'head' magazine, Frendz, to Belfast, and, while showing them round, tried to fire-bomb Queens University and got them all arrested and charged. It was one of the Americans, Alan Marcuson, who subsequently put McCann in touch with Marks through another old Oxford friend, Graham Plinston.(21) In London, Stark, who was sniffing around radical circles, contacted the solicitor representing the American pair. He expressed some interest in McCann and promised financial support, which never came to anything.(22) Stark was thus poking his nose into the Marks-McCann operation nearly two years before MI6's Macmillan recruited Howard Marks.


The questions asked but not answered
Stark was in prison in Italy in 1977 when Macmillan was posted to the British Embassy in Rome. Macmillan would have been in an ideal position at the MI6 station there to help Lee obtain the documents seized by the Italian police when they arrested Stark in 1975.(23) But the papers didn't arrive until a year after Lee made the request, by which time his investigation was being wound up. Stark's papers included formulas for the synthesis of LSD and THC, some of which were identical to Kemp's; documents on the BEL's tartrate dealings in England; letters to Stark at his laboratory in Belgium from Charles Adams, an 'economic counsellor' at the American embassy in London; and draft letters from Stark to Wendy Hansen, American vice-counsel in Florence which discussed the possibility of a coup in Italy (for which, he said, conditions, were not yet ripe).(24)

This raises this question: if Stark, the catalyst of the British LSD explosion, was an American asset, would his agency have allowed him to break the law and endanger the national security of America's most senior partner in NATO? The answer might be 'yes' if the agency had a joint covert operation with their British counterparts - say in the area of 'counter-terrorism' - which was important enough to justify the risks. Stark was in prison in Italy from 1975-79 following his involvement with a gang of drug-dealing fascist terrorists. But he rubbed shoulders in prison with leading members of the Red Brigades, while maintaining contact with secret intelligence agencies on the outside. He is suspected by some of involvement in the Moro kidnapping.

In 1979 Stark appealed against his 14 year sentence. According to the judge who granted him bail and thus allowed him to flee Italy, 'an impressive series of scrupulously enumerated proofs' suggested 'that from 1960 onwards Stark belonged to the American secret services' and had 'entered the Middle East drug world in order to infiltrate armed organisations operating in that area and gain contacts and information about European terrorist groups' - a statement which raises as many questions as it answers.(25)


Notes

1. Stewart Tendler and David May, Brotherhood of Eternal Love- From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia; the Story of the LSD Counterculture, Panther, London 1984 pp. 174-5; Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain, Acid Dreams: The CIA, LSD and the Sixties Rebellion, Groven Weidenfeld, New York, 1985 p. 249; Martin A. Lee, 'Rasputin of LSD' in National Reporter, Fall 1988;Dick Lee and Colin Pratt, Operation Julie, W.H. Allen, London 1978 p. 71

2. Tendler and May, op. cit. pp. 174-5

3. Lee and Shlain op. cit. p. 248

4. Lee and Shlain op. cit. pp. 245-6; Tendler and May op. cit. p. 160. See also Timothy Leary's Flashbacks - an Autobiography, 1983.

5. Lee and Pratt op. cit. p. 350; Tendler and May op. cit. pp. 177-82. Lee and Shlain (p. 288) mistakenly credit Kemp rather than Stark with having produced the kilo Stark took to Idlywild. In fact Stark and Kemp barely met and didn't begin working together on LSD until the end of 1969.

6. Lee and Pratt op. cit. p. 377

7. Tendler and May op. cit .p. 186; Lee and Pratt op. cit. p. 337

8. Ibid. p. 50

9. Tendler and May op. cit. p. 230

10. Ibid. pp. 171

11. For those without a detailed memory of pop trivia, a 'Leapy Lee' had one hit record in Britain around this time. Hence Lee's nickname.

12. Lee and Pratt op. cit. pp. 12-18

13. Ibid. p. 290

14. Ibid p. 47. See also Cox, Shirley and Short, The Fall of Scotland Yard, Penguin, 1977.

15. Martyn Pritchard and Ed Laxton, Busted!, Mirror Books, London, 1978

16. Lee and Pratt op. cit. p. 100

17. The Leveller April 1978

18. Lee and Pratt op. cit. p. 290.

19. Ibid p. 337

20. David Leigh, High Times, Heinemann, London 1984, p. 68

21. Ibid. pp. 40-50

22. Tendler and May, op. cit. p. 274

23. Jonathan Bloch and Patrick Fitzgerald, British Intelligence and Covert Action, Brandon, Kerry, Ireland, 1983, pp. 223-5 and 258

24. Lee and Pratt op. cit p. 334; Philip Willan, The Puppet-Masters: the Political Use of Terrorism in Italy, Constable, London, 199, p. 312.

25. Willan, op. cit.p. 309; Lee and Shalin op. cit. p. 281; Martin A. Lee in National Reporter, Fall 1988

[American Dream]

[American Dream]

MAY BE TRIGGERING TO MK SURVIVORS

EXCERPTS FROM:

The Hidden Tragedy of the CIA's Experiments on Children

11 August 2010 H.P. Albarelli Jr. and Dr. Jeffrey S. Kaye, t r u t h o u t | Investigative Report

http://www.truth-out.org/the-hidden-tra ... ldren62208

(Link may not be working...)

From early 1940 to 1953, Dr. Lauretta Bender, a highly respected child neuropsychiatrist practicing at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, experimented extensively with electroshock therapy on children who had been diagnosed with "autistic schizophrenia." In all, it has been reported that Bender administered electroconvulsive therapy to at least 100 children ranging in age from three years old to 12 years, with some reports indicating the total may be twice that number. One source reports that, inclusive of Bender's work, electroconvulsive treatment was used on more than 500 children at Bellevue Hospital from 1942 to 1956, and then at Creedmoor State Hospital Children's Service from 1956 to 1969....Despite publicly claiming good results with electroshock treatment, privately Bender said she was seriously disappointed in the aftereffects and results shown by the subject children. Indeed, the condition of some of the children appeared to have only worsened. One six-year-old boy, after being shocked several times, went from being a shy, withdrawn child to acting increasingly aggressive and violent. Another child, a seven-year-old girl, following five electroshock sessions had become nearly catatonic.

Years later, another of Bender's young patients who became overly aggressive after about 20 treatments, now grown, was convicted in court as a "multiple murderer." Others, in adulthood, reportedly were in and of trouble and prison for a battery of petty and violent crimes. A 1954 scientific study of about 50 of Bender's young electroshock patients, conducted by two psychologists, found that nearly all were worse off after the "therapy" and that some had become suicidal after treatment. One of the children studied in 1954 was the son of well-known writer Jacqueline Susann, author of the bestselling novel "Valley of the Dolls." Susann's son, Guy, was diagnosed with autism shortly after birth and, when he was three years old, Dr. Bender convinced Susann and her husband that Guy could be successfully treated with electroshock therapy. Guy returned home from Bender's care a nearly lifeless child. Susann later told people that Bender had "destroyed" her son. Guy has been confined to institutions since his treatment.

To their credit, some of Dr. Bender's colleagues considered her use of electroshock on children "scandalous," but few colleagues spoke out against her, a situation still today common among those in the medical profession....

About the same time Dr. Bender was conducting her electroshock experiments, she was also widely experimenting on autistic and schizophrenic children with what she termed other "treatment endeavors." These included use of a wide array of psycho-pharmaceutical agents, several provided to her by the Sandoz Chemical Co. in Basel, Switzerland, as well as Metrazol, sub-shock insulin therapy, amphetamines and anticonvulsants. Metrazol was a trade name for pentylenetetrazol, a drug used as a circulatory and respiratory stimulant. High doses cause convulsions, as discovered in 1934 by the Hungarian-American neurologist and psychiatrist Ladislas J. Meduna....

Here it should be noted that, during the cold war years, CIA and Army Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) interrogators, working as part of projects Bluebird and Artichoke, sometimes injected large amounts of Metrazol into selected enemy or Communist agents for the purposes of severely frightening other suspected agents, by forcing them to observe the procedure. The almost immediate effects of Metrazol are shocking for many to witness: subjects will shake violently, twisting and turning. They typically arch, jerk and contort their bodies and grimace in pain. With Metrazol, as with electroshock, bone fractures - including broken necks and backs - and joint dislocations are not uncommon, unless strong sedatives are administered beforehand....

CIC interrogators working in Germany would be assisted in their use of interrogation drugs by several "former" Nazi scientists recruited by the CIA and US State Department as part of Project Paperclip. By early 1952, the CIC's Rough Boys would routinely use Metrazol during interrogations, as well as LSD, mescaline and conventional electroshock units....

Dr. Bender Discovers LSD

In 1955 and1956, Dr. Bender began hearing glowing accounts about the potential of LSD for producing remarkable results in children suffering mental disorders, including autism and schizophrenia. Bender's earlier work with electroshock therapy had brought her into contact with several other prominent physicians who, at the time, were covert contractors with the CIA's MK/ULTRA and Artichoke projects. Primary among these physicians were Drs. Harold A. Abramson, Paul Hoch, James B. Cattell, Joel Elkes, Max Fink, Harris Isbell and Alfred Hubbard. Some of these names may be familiar to readers. Dr. Abramson, a noted allergist who surreptitiously worked for both the US Army and CIA since the late 1940s, was the physician Frank Olson was taken to see, shortly before his murder in New York City in November 1953. About a year earlier, Drs. Hoch and Cattell were responsible for injecting unwitting New York State Psychiatric Institute patient Harold Blauer with a massive dose of mescaline that killed him. Dr. Elkes was one of the earliest physicians in Europe to experiment with LSD, having requested samples of the drug from Sandoz Chemical Co. in 1949. Elkes was a close associate of Dr. Abraham Wikler, who worked closely with Dr. Harris Isbell at the now-closed Lexington, Kentucky, prison farm, where hundreds of already drug-addicted inmates were given heroin in exchange for their participation in LSD and mescaline experiments underwritten by the CIA and Pentagon. Elkes worked closely with the CIA, Pentagon and Britain's MI6 on drug experiments in England and the United States.

Dr. Fink, who was greatly admired by Bender, is considered the godfather of electroshock therapy in the United States. In the early 1950s and beyond, Fink was a fully cleared CIA Project Artichoke consultant. In 1951, CIA officials under the direction of Paul Gaynor and Morse Allen of the agency's Security Research Service (SRS) that oversaw Artichoke, worked closely with Fink in New York City in efforts to thoroughly explore the merits of electroshock techniques for interrogations. The CIA was especially interested in the use of standard electroshock machines in producing amnesia, inducing subjects to talk and making subjects more prone to hypnotic control. According to one CIA document, Fink told officials "an individual could gradually be reduced through the use to electroshock treatment to the vegetable level."....

Other physicians whom Dr. Bender consulted about the effects of LSD on children were Drs. Ronald A. Sandison, Thomas M. Ling and John Buckman. These three worked in England at both the Chelsea Clinic in London and Potwick Hospital in Worcestershire, outside of London. Sandison is credited with having been the first person to bring LSD into England, this in 1952 after he met Albert Hofmann in Basle, Switzerland, at the Sandoz Chemical laboratories. Hofmann handed Sandison a box of around 600 ampules, each containing 100 micrograms of LSD. Back in England, Sandison shared his psychedelic bounty with associates Drs. Ling and Buckman. Before the year was out, Sandison also turned Hubbard on to LSD, guiding Hubbard through his first trip. Sandison also began a new treatment program at the Gothic-looking Potwick facility that he dubbed Psycholytic Therapy. His program's patients were mostly schizophrenics. In 1958, an LSD treatment unit was established at Potwick. Over the years, it has been reported that the CIA, MI6 and the Macy Foundation secretly helped finance the unit. Dr. Elkes helped by raising about $75,000 for the unit's operation. For the next ten years the unit administered over 15,000 doses of LSD to about 900 patients....

Dr. Bender's LSD Experiments on Children

Shortly after deciding to initiate her own LSD experiments on children, Bender attended a conference sponsored by a CIA front group, the Josiah Macy Foundation. The conference focused on LSD research and featured Dr. Harold A. Abramson as a presenter. In 1960, Abramson conducted his own LSD experiments on a group of six children ranging in age from five to 14 years of age. A few short months after the Macy Foundation conference, Dr. Bender was notified that her planned LSD experiments would be partially and surreptitiously funded by the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology (SIHE), another CIA front group then located in Forest Hills, New York. The Society, headed by James L. Monroe, a former US Air Force officer who had worked on top-secret psychological warfare and propaganda projects, oversaw about 55 top-secret experiments underwritten by the CIA. These projects involved LSD, ESP, black magic, astrology, psychological warfare, media manipulation, and other subjects. Apparently, Bender's work with children and LSD raised some concerns at the CIA's Technical Services Division (TSD). A 1961 TSD memo written to Monroe questioned the "operational benefits of Dr. Bender's work as related to children and LSD," and requested to be kept "closely appraised of the possible links between Dr. Bender's project and those being conducted under separate MK/ULTRA funding at designated prisons in New York and elsewhere."

In 1960, Dr. Bender launched her first experiments with LSD and children. They were conducted within the Children's Unit, Creedmoor State Hospital in Queens, New York. The LSD she used was supplied by Dr. Rudolph P. Bircher of the Sandoz Pharmaceutical Company. (Dr. Bircher also provided Bender with UML-491, also a Sandoz-produced product, very much like LSD but sometimes "dreamier" in effect and longer lasting.) Her initial group of young subjects consisted of 14 children diagnosed schizophrenic, all under the age of 11.....

Army CIC interrogators working with the CIA at prisoner of war camps and safe house locations in post-war Germany on occasion used Metrazol, morphine, heroin and LSD on incarcerated subjects. According to former CIC officer Miles Hunt, several "safe houses and holding areas outside of Frankfurt near Oberursel" - a former Nazi interrogation center taken over by the US - were operated by a "special unit run by Capt. Malcolm S. Hilty, Maj. Mose Hart and Capt. Herbert Sensenig. The unit was especially notorious in its applications of interrogation methods [including the use of electroshock and Metrazol, mescaline, amphetamines and other drugs]." Said Hunt: "The unit took great pride in their nicknames, the 'Rough Boys' and the 'Kraut Gauntlet,' and didn't hold back with any drug or technique ... you name it, they used it." Added Hunt, "Sensenig was really disappointed when it was found that nothing had to be used on [former Reichsmarschall] Herman Goering, who was processed through the camp. Goering needed no inducement to talk."

Eventually, CIC interrogators working in Germany would be assisted in their use of interrogation drugs by several "former" Nazi scientists recruited by the CIA and US State Department as part of Project Paperclip. By early 1952, the CIC's Rough Boys would routinely use Metrazol during interrogations, as well as LSD, mescaline and conventional electroshock units.

Metrazol-like drugs are still used in interrogations today. According to reports from several former noncommissioned Army officers, who served on rendition-related security details in Turkey, Pakistan and Romania, drugs that produce effects quite similar to Metrazol are still used in 2010 by the Pentagon and CIA on enemy combatants and rendered subjects held at the many "black sites" maintained across the globe. Observed one former officer recently, "They would twist up like a pretzel, in unbelievable shapes and jerk and shake like crazy, their eyes nearly popping out of their heads."

In 2008, at the behest of US Sens. Carl Levin, Joe Biden and Chuck Hagel and in reaction to a March 2008 article in The Washington Post, the Pentagon initiated an Inspector General Report on the use of "mind-altering substances by DoD [Department of Defense] Personnel during Interrogations of Detainees and/or Prisoners Captured during the War on Terror." It is not known if the investigation has been completed. Among the more famous recent cases of the use of drugs upon prisoners concerns one-time alleged "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla, who had originally been accused of wanting to set off a "dirty bomb." The charge was later forced, but Padilla was held in solitary confinement for many months and forced to take LSD or other powerful drugs while held in the Navy brig in Charleston, South Carolina.

The government has gone to great efforts to keep the public uninformed as regards use of drugs on prisoners. In an article by Carol Rosenberg for McClatchy News in July 2010, Rosenberg reported that, when covering the Guantanamo military commissions trials, when the question of "what psychotropic drugs were given another accused 9/11 conspirator, Ramzi bin al Shibh, the courtroom censor hits a white noise button so reporters viewing from a glass booth can't hear the names of the drugs. Under current Navy instructions for the use of human subjects in research, the undersecretary of the Navy is described as the authority in charge of research concerning "consciousness-altering drugs or mind-control techniques," while at the same time is also responsible for "inherently controversial topics" that might attract media interest or "challenge by interest groups."

Read article here:

http://www.truth-out.org/the-hidden-tra ... ldren62208

[American Dream]

[In Timothy Leary's autobiography “Flashbacks”], Leary writes that “I was conceived on a military reservation, West Point, New York, on the night of January 17, 1920. On the preceding day alcohol had become an illegal drug.”

Leary goes on to state that his father, “Timothy, known as Tote,” was an Army officer teaching at West Point. To celebrate his son’s birth, “Tote poured an illegal recreation drug (Irish whiskey) from a silver pocket flask into the glasses of his friends: Captain Omar Bradley, Captain Geoffrey Prentice and Lieutenant George Patton.”

In turn, Leary wrote that his mother, Abigail, “talked to her friend General Douglas MacArthur, Superintendent of the Military Academy” and his father Tote’s commander. Leary then goes on to write that “Lt. Patton, a notorious womanizer, cut in” on MacArthur so he could dance with Abigail.

Leary later attended West Point himself, but quit to become a distinguished professor at Harvard University.

http://www.huliq.com/10282/timothy-lear ... xperiments

[American Dream]

http://kloncke.com/2010/08/04/dangers-of-compassion/

Dangers Of Compassion

AUGUST 4, 2010

by kloncke


You keep using that word.
I do not think it means
what you think it means.


Last night, at a Berkeley fundraiser for the East Bay Meditation Center, prominent Insight meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein gave a general talk on Buddhism, and as he spoke in his gentle, warm, candid, funny, luminously clever way, I felt a familiar tightening in my stomach.

The talk started out like this. There is tremendous suffering in the world. It’s not hard to see. War, oppression and destruction. But if we look closely, we find that the root of that suffering is in the mind. Greed, fear, and hatred. And it’s not just “other people” who have this greed, fear, and hatred; it’s us, too. Therefore, using Buddhist teachings, we turn our attention inward toward the mind/heart, healing suffering from the inside out.

Later, when asked whether his Buddhist practice could be formulated into a plan for social change, Goldstein said Yes: through compassion. Not a simplistic type of compassion, but a compassion that is born out of nearness to suffering. This is more difficult than it sounds, he noted, because our deeply ingrained habit pattern is to try to push suffering away from ourselves. Get rid of it. But in order to have strong, profound compassion, we need to go toward suffering. Without romanticizing it, but seeing it for what it is.

Now, I like Joseph Goldstein. I saw him speak once before at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center, and he’s hilarious and wise and a gifted storyteller. And on one level, I agree with what he said last night.

The problem, for me, was what went unsaid.

As Buddhists and dhamma practitioners, I would love to see us having more conversations about what compassion and social change actually look like: locally, on the ground, in practice. Because it’s too easy for us to invoke these words — compassion, inner work, social change — and assume that everyone is on the same page.

The truth is, we’re not all on the same page. And it’s not until after the event is over, on the subway ride home, when a gaggle of us start discussing in detail the relationship between inner and outer work, that these fundamental differences emerge, sharp and cold, like mountain peaks, from the soothing golden fog of Buddhist unity.

Here are a few of my disagreements with what I hear as spiritual liberalism, coming from my friends in dhamma. Again, even as we all work toward developing compassion and reducing global suffering, we have tremendously divergent views on what this means.

1. Mystified Mechanism. When we start doing the inner work of developing compassion and insight, our outer social justice work will automatically get good.

How? Sometimes folks talk about spirituality helping to reduce burnout, or converting the motivation of anger into the motivation of compassion. But while both are wonderful benefits, neither speaks to the testable effectiveness of the particular outer work itself.

2. Healing As (Total) Resistance. Smiling at strangers on the subway is resisting militarism.

Well, I disagree. Our healing work, spiritual work, and structural resistance work ought to inform each other, but they are not interchangeable substitutes. Mandela didn’t inspire a movement and challenge the status quo just by praying compassionately for the liberation of the oppressor. (Though he did that, too.)

3. Social Change Relativism. Together, a growing movement is working for peace and justice in the world. From green business to prison meditation to high-school conflict resolution programs on MTV, signs of hope and change abound.

Are all forms of progressive activism equally useful? No. But the shorthand of social change frequently obscures this fact. Coupled with a feel-good engagement paradigm, the ‘every little bit helps’ idea makes it very difficult to hold each other accountable for our political work and its actual outcomes.

4. Root vs. Radical. Radical political agendas fail to grasp the root cause of oppression: dualism. And ultimately, the best ways of overcoming dualism are through meditation and small-scale, intimate, interpersonal, compassion-building exercises.

Even if dualism is the “root cause” of oppression, that doesn’t make it the best or most actionable point for resistance, always. Besides: why is this idea of dualism so pervasive and tenacious, anyway? In large part because of the political and material structures (i.e. schools, economies, hierarchical religious institutions) that train human beings. Without changing the power relations governing those material structures, there’s little hope of giving non-dualistic living, and appreciation for inter-being, a real shot on a global scale.

5. Buddhopian Visions. Gandhi said it best: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Often, this gets construed to mean: build the best alternative society you can, and slowly it will change the entire society. Especially in Buddhist communities that prize extended retreat time, a decade of study with a realized Asian master, and this sort of removal from everyday householder affairs, there’s a danger of trying to build our sanghas into utopias, and assuming that they will automatically radiate peace and well-being into the world. Might be true on an individual or small-group level, but why should we believe that we can scale up well-being from personal transformation to world peace, without specific strategies for tackling enormous material systems?

[American Dream]

http://www.alice-miller.com/articles_en ... 116&grp=11

About Transference

by Alice Miller
October 14, 2008

At the beginning of our lives we were, as very small children, totally dependent on our parents. And we believed, we HAD TO believe, that we were loved by them. Even when we were abused we couldn't realize this. Then, after 4 years, we grew up and couldn't avoid suffering from being rejected, hated and treated cruelly. But as dependent children we still could not afford to FEEL this suffering, we were too small to deal with these feelings, thus we had to repress our rage, indignation, and our deep disappointment into our bodies. When we become adult, these repressed feelings stemming from the cruel treatment of our parents may come to the surface, but they are still connected with the small child's fear of being punished for every sign of rebellion.

Should we as adults be treated in the same way as our parents treated us as children, many of us - especially if we have been through therapy - can become aware of the cruelty endured before. But the knowledge of the whole amount of cruelty can still rest repressed because the terror happened when we had not yet a name for it. For this reason we need what we call "the transference", hating for instance another person instead of our mother or father.

The transference is unavoidable if we were once abused children. It can also be highly confusing. But it can be liberating as well if we are ready to see it as a consequence of our early life. If we have summoned the courage to look our outraged, hateful YOUNG parents in the eyes, and to feel the fear of the small child we once were, then the misleading, confusing and defensive role of the transference disappears. We can then strive to feel the fear of the small baby, scared to death by the two big human beings holding our body and soul in their hands and doing or saying to us whatever they wanted, totally careless about our future, about what consequences their abuse might have on our lives. They acted like robots, directed by their own childhoods, unable of any kind of reflection whatsoever.

If we don't want to become like them we must strive to SEE them as exactly as possible. We can use in this way the transference as a means for discovering the feelings of the small child that we once were and to deepen our understanding for him or her. At this moment the transference becomes our guide that will enable the small child in us to BELIEVE what their body KNEW it's whole life but his mind could never believe: that so much evil and hatred can be directed towards a small, innocent child only because the parents have endured the same and have never questioned this.

[American Dream]

[American Dream]

Why Buddhists Should Read Marx

By Andrew Cooper
(from Turning Wheel, Summer 1993)

http://sweepingzen.com/2011/06/15/why-b ... read-marx/




In the Zen Buddhist community in which I once lived, we began our meal chant: “Seventy-two labors brought us this food. We should know how it comes to us.” “How it comes to us” today is through a production system in which most of those seventy-two labors are performed by impoverished people who are exploited, marginalized, and oppressed. If we are to remember their labors in any meaningful sense, we should also remember the social circumstances of that labor. For our good fortune is bought at their expense.

These are not the best of times to recommend Marx. The failures of his legacy have been grotesque and cruel, and this is particularly true in Buddhist Asia. Nevertheless, it seems to me that for anyone seeking to understand things like poverty, racism, money, militarism, or the daily grind at work, some grasp of Marx is essential. Michael Parenti calls Marx a “social pathologist,” who analyzed the systemic misery of capitalist society, and this is how I think he is best approached. He tells us that this misery is neither natural nor inevitable; rather, it developed through historical processes involving class relations and economic forces. He is concerned with the means and consequences of the accumulation of wealth, but not only that. He also sheds light upon the nature of wealth itself: how it is created, its patterns of distribution, the way it shapes consciousness and culture.

If you think “greed, hatred, and ignorance” is an adequate analysis of our social ills, Marx will challenge you to look more deeply. And if you find him wrongheaded and stuck in his viewpoint, so much the better. Like Freud, his errors are legion. But again like Freud, he shows a way of looking at the world, beneath surface appearances, that undermines for good its taken for granted quality. And just as Freud is not just for Freudians, Marx need not be just for Marxists. Marx penetrates the hazy surface of everyday social-political life to show the underlying conflict between organized wealth and organized people.

The literary and social critic Walter Benjamin observed, “There is no cultural document that is not at the same time a record of barbarism.” The fruits of capitalist society can be enjoyed by some because of the labor of others who cannot enjoy them. Perhaps more than any other individual, Marx made explicit that record of barbarism, demystifying the vagueness of good fortune to show the actual exploitative conditions and oppressive relations that produce it. Misery inheres in the production system, and without the recognition of that, even the best intentions in the world will be hampered in changing it. But if one starts with the question, “How, in a democratic society, do wealth and power operate and accumulate in the hands of the few and to the harm of the many?” one can then better look for ways to change the pattern.

[slomo]

I reject both Buddhism and Marx, in favor of game theory: “This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games.” (William S. Burroughs).

If you believe that all matter has consciousness (as do I), then it follows that all matter engages in a game of one sort or another (lowering your energy state by trading electrons with your neighbors, getting enough high-energy organic matter from which to extract energy and thereby duplicate your genetic code, or fattening your asset portfolio so that you can maintain your posh lifestyle). It turns out that "love" and "forgiveness", as well as the formation of coalitions (molecules, colonies, packs, tribes, nation-states, whatever) are generally good strategies for "winning" whatever game you happen to be playing.

So, I reject the simplistic idea that “greed, hatred, and ignorance” are devils that can be vanquished, in the same way that I reject the idea that a historical process characterized by class conflict somehow constitutes an unnatural state of human existence. People are greedy because it can often seem like a better strategy (in the short run anyway), and class conflict occurs because tribe formation is natural and some tribes end up having more power than others. In short, this is just the way it is in our particular plane of existence. The fact that the late-stage consequences of monkey-brain strategy may collapse the biosphere (in its current state of complexity) is just part of the ongoing unfolding of the laws of this universe.

Of course, this worldview doesn't exactly leave much room for social justice, at least not without further elaboration. So, what I would propose is that the proponents of "social justice" examine very carefully what we mean by the terms "social" and "justice", and then, rather than appealing to abstract notions of goodness, instead figure out how to form the right strategies and coalitions to effectively manifest the desired change. Without magical thinking*. In this world, it always boils down to questions of power.

*Not to be confused with the type of magickal thinking recently expounded in John Michael Greer's recent essays, which I think can actually be helpful in personally orienting oneself towards meaningful action in the world.

[American Dream]

I reject both Buddhism and Marx, in favor of game theory: “This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games.” (William S. Burroughs).

If you believe that all matter has consciousness (as do I), then it follows that all matter engages in a game of one sort or another (lowering your energy state by trading electrons with your neighbors, getting enough high-energy organic matter from which to extract energy and thereby duplicate your genetic code, or fattening your asset portfolio so that you can maintain your posh lifestyle). It turns out that "love" and "forgiveness", as well as the formation of coalitions (molecules, colonies, packs, tribes, nation-states, whatever) are generally good strategies for "winning" whatever game you happen to be playing.

So, I reject the simplistic idea that “greed, hatred, and ignorance” are devils that can be vanquished, in the same way that I reject the idea that a historical process characterized by class conflict somehow constitutes an unnatural state of human existence. People are greedy because it can often seem like a better strategy (in the short run anyway), and class conflict occurs because tribe formation is natural and some tribes end up having more power than others. In short, this is just the way it is in our particular plane of existence. The fact that the late-stage consequences of monkey-brain strategy may collapse the biosphere (in its current state of complexity) is just part of the ongoing unfolding of the laws of this universe.

Of course, this worldview doesn't exactly leave much room for social justice, at least not without further elaboration. So, what I would propose is that the proponents of "social justice" examine very carefully what we mean by the terms "social" and "justice", and then, rather than appealing to abstract notions of goodness, instead figure out how to form the right strategies and coalitions to effectively manifest the desired change. Without magical thinking*. In this world, it always boils down to questions of power.

*Not to be confused with the type of magickal thinking recently expounded in John Michael Greer's recent essays, which I think can actually be helpful in personally orienting oneself towards meaningful action in the world.

Great stuff. I say though that as an alternative to "isms" which one believes in dogmatically, Buddhism and Marxism may be currents which transmit tools which are useful. For example, meditation and class analysis...

These are useful as applied by a conscious person who makes them their own values and decisions- just as the philosophy quoted above offers another permutation of this same theme.

It's all grist for the mill...

[American Dream]

http://consortiumnews.com/2011/10/28/ex ... istianity/

Explaining Wayward Christianity

October 28, 2011

The core crisis of Christianity is how could a religion based on the teachings of Jesus, who called for peace through love and generosity to the poor – and who disdained the rich – have grown so tolerant of war, greed and inequality. The Rev. Howard Bess traces this conundrum to the Church’s early days.

By the Rev. Howard Bess


Paul was Christianity’s first theologian, with his writings making up about half of the entire New Testament. Indeed, though Paul did not become a believer until years after Jesus’s crucifixion, Paul wrote before any of the four gospels describing Jesus’s life and teachings were committed to the written word.

Thus, Paul – more than anyone else – set the standard for what is required to be a Christian. And, in the 10thchapter of his letter to the Romans, he wrote these words: “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”


Paul, the Apostle

So, being a Christian was for Paul a matter of head and heart, not actions. By his standard, there is no amount of good deeds that can bring salvation. It is a matter of belief and belief only.

Paul’s standard has been challenged by some Christians over the centuries – and the New Testament’s Book of James stresses the value of good works – but never has Paul’s “head and heart” standard been dislodged as a central tenet of Christianity.

In the Fourth Century CE, under pressure from Roman rulers, the Church began to define what a Christian must believe, leading to the two dominant creeds, the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, both based on Paul’s standard.

Before the Council of Nicaea in 325, Christianity was incredibly diverse. However, even then, Paul’s insistence that Christianity was defined by head and heart was dominant. The central issue of the two creeds was what was to be confessed by Christians as their core beliefs.

The Apostles’ Creed, by tradition, has its roots in the 12 apostles of Jesus of Nazareth. However, there is no documented connection to first, second or third centuries CE. In the Fourth Century CE, the wording of the Apostles’ Creed was set and remains the Catechism of the Catholic Church, beginning “I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth…”

The Nicene Creed comes to us out of the Council of Nicaea, a gathering of Church leaders that was charged by Roman Emperor Constantine to settle once and for all what a person must believe to be saved and to be a full participant in the Kingdom of God. The key issue was the relationship between Jesus, the son, and God, the father.

It begins: “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God …”

Both the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed have the same structure. Even some of the wording is identical. And they have remained central to Christian teaching ever since.

The Protestant Reformation of the Sixteenth Century was a serious jolt to the world of Christianity, with the meaning and the necessity of the Reformation still debated. My own understanding is that Martin Luther was convinced that the Roman Church in practice had strayed from the “head and heart” standard of the Apostle Paul.

During the Reformation, the content of the long-established creeds was never in question. Instead, Luther believed that the Roman Church was compromising Paul’s formula for salvation through corrupt practices such as the selling of indulgences. Luther taught that salvation was a gift of God’s grace received through faith in Jesus Christ.

The depth of Luther’s convictions that salvation was by faith alone was made plain by his questioning of the inclusion of the Book of James in the Christian New Testament. James raised the question, “Can a person be saved by faith without works?” Luther’s response was to say the Book of James was unworthy to be included in the New Testament.

As a Baptist, my tradition is adamantly non-creedal, meaning every Baptist has the right to interpret the Christian faith. However, in the Baptist tradition, an individual dare not question Paul’s understanding of salvation by head and heart – without requirement of good works.

Believing that a person can become acceptable to God by good works or charity is the most offensive heresy imaginable. Yet, as far as we know, Jesus of Nazareth taught and lived a very moral and ethical life. He also called for peace and justice through love.

Though Christians with our lips confess that Jesus is Lord and pledge to follow his path, there are profound contradictions between the teachings of Jesus and the actions of many Christians.

How is it that our behavior is so out of step with the one we call “Lord?” With immunity of conscience, we fight and kill one another. We are motivated by greed and unbridled desire. Truth-telling is not honored. Hoarding material goods triumphs over generosity. Locks and high fences abound as though they can insure safety.

There are over 2 billion Christians in the world. Together, we have the power in numbers to bring peace, love, generosity and justice to the world. Collectively, we have the resources to make the world a much better place.

On Sunday, many Christians will recite in unison the Apostles’ Creed. Yet, nothing new and positive will happen on Monday since salvation is not tied to deeds, but only to faith.

Is it possible that Paul, Christianity’s first theologian, led us terribly astray?

[American Dream]

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ful ... mechanisms

The Essential Guide to Defense Mechanisms

Can you spot your favorite form of self-deception?

October 22, 2011 by Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Ph.D.




Defense mechanisms are a part of our everyday life. Even if you're not a Freudian by philosophy or training, you've got to admit that there's something to be said for the idea that everyone engages in some form of self-deception at least some of the time. The question is—can you detect the form of deception that you, your friends, colleagues, and family are using at any given moment?

We'll take a look at the 9 most common defense mechanisms but first, let's set the record straight on two counts. First, it was a Freud, but not Sigmund, who defined the defense mechanisms. Anna Freud defined in detail the defense mechanisms sketched out by her father in her book, "The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense." Second, defense mechanisms aren't just an unconscoius protective measure to prevent you from connecting with your ravenous instinctual desires. They also protect you from the anxiety of confronting your weaknesses and foibles. You can now add these two points to the 25 surprising facts about psychology I wrote about in an earlier post.


1. Denial. You can consider this the "generic" defense mechanism because it underlies many of the others. When you use denial, you simply refuse to accept the truth or reality of a fact or experience. "No, I'm just a social smoker," is a good example; similarly people can apply this to any bad habit they wish to distance themselves from including excessive alcohol or substance use, compulsive shopping or gambling, and the like. "Just say no," in this case means that you protect your self-esteem by failing to acknowledge your own behavior. Denial may also be used by victims of trauma or disasters and may even be a beneficial initial protective response. In the long run, however, denial can prevent you from incorporating unpleasant information about yourself and your life and have potentially destructive consequences.

2. Repression. One step above denial in the generic classification scheme, repression involves simply forgetting something bad. You might forget an unpleasant experience, in the past, such as a car accident at which you were found to be at fault. You might also use repression when you "forget" to do something unpleasant such as seeing the dentist or meeting with an acquaintance you don't really like. Repression, like denial, can be temporarily beneficial, particularly if you've forgotten something bad that happened to you, but as with denial, if you don't come to grips with the experience it may come back to haunt you.

3. Regression. From repression to regression—one little "g" makes all the difference. In regression, you revert back to a childlike emotional state in which your unconscious fears, anxieties, and general "angst" reappear. In Freud's theory of "psychosexual" development, people develop through stages such as the oral, anal, and phallic so that by the time they're five or six, the basic structures of personality are laid down. However, every once in a while, a person either reverts back to a childlike state of development. particularly under conditions of stress. That road rage you see when drivers are stuck in traffic is a great example of regression. People may also show regression when they return to a child-like state of dependency. Retreating under the blankets when you've had a bad day is one possible instance. The problem with regression is that you may regret letting your childish self show in a self-destructive way. Driving badly or refusing to talk to people who've made you feel bad, mad, or sad can eventually get you in worse trouble than what you had when you began.



4. Displacement. In displacement you transfer your original feelings that would get you in trouble (usually anger) away from the person who is the target of your rage to a more hapless and harmless victim. Here's the classic example: You've had a very unpleasant interaction with your boss or teacher, but you can't show your anger toward him or her. Instead, you come home and, so to speak, "kick the cat" (or dog). That's not very nice imagery, but you get the picture. Any time you shift your true feelings from their original, anxiety-provoking, source to one you perceive as less likely to cause you harm, you're quite possibly using displacement. Unfortunately, displacement may protect you from being fired or failing a class, but it won't protect your hand if you decide to displace your anger from the true target to a window or wall.

5. Projection. The first four defense mechanisms were relatively easy to understand. I think. Projection is more challenging. First, you have to start with the assumption that to recognize a particular quality in yourself would cause you psychic pain. Let's take a kind of silly example. For instance, you feel that an outfit you spent too much on looks really bad on you. Wearing this outfit, you walk into the room where your friends stare at you perhaps for a moment too long (in your opinion). They say nothing and do nothing that in reality could be construed as critical. However, your insecurity about the outfit (and distress at having paid too much for it) leads you to "project" your feelings onto your friends, and you blurt out "Why are you looking at me like that? Don't you like this outfit?" See how silly that was? In a less silly case, you might project your more general feelings of guilt or insecurity onto friends—or worse—people who don't know and love you with all your projected flaws. Let's say you're worried that you're not really very smart. You make a dumb mistake that no one says anything about at all, and accuse others of saying that you're dumb, inferior, or just plain stupid. The point is that no one said anything that in reality could be construed as critical. You are "projecting" your insecurities onto others and in the process, alienating them (and probably looking somewhat foolish as well).



6. Reaction formation. Now we're getting into advanced defense mechanism territory. Most people have difficulty understanding reaction formation, but it's really quite straightforward. Let's say that you secretly harbor lustful feelings toward someone you should probably stay away from. You don't want to admit to these feelings, so you instead express the very opposite of those feelings. This object of your lust now becomes the object of your bitter hatred. This defense mechanism could be subtitled the "lady doth protest too much," that wonderful quote from Hamlet. A less highbrow example is "Church Lady," the old Dana Carvey character from Saturday Night Live. Her secret obsession with pornography became reversed into her extreme scorn for all things sexual. In short, reaction formation means expressing the opposite of your inner feelings in your outward behavior.

7. Intellectualization. You might also neutralize your feelings of anxiety, anger, or insecurity in a way that is less likely to lead to embarrassing moments than some of the above defense mechanisms. In intellectualization, you think away an emotion or reaction that you don't enjoy feeling. For instance, rather than confront the intense distress and rejection you feel after your roommate suddenly decides to move out, you conduct a detailed financial analysis of how much you can afford to spend now that you're on your own. Although you aren't denying that the event occurred, you're not thinking about its emotional consequences.

8. Rationalization. When you rationalize something, you try to explain it away. As a defense mechanism, rationalization is somewhat like intellectualization, but it involves dealing with a piece of bad behavior on your part rather than converting a painful or negative emotion into a more neutral set of thoughts. People often use rationalization to shore up their insecurities or remorse after doing something they regret such as an "oops" moment. It's easier to blame someone else than to take the heat yourself, particularly if you would otherwise feel shame or embarrassment. For example, let's say you lose your temper in front of people you want to like and respect you. Now, to help make yourself feel better, you mentally attribute your outburst to a situation outside your control, and twist things so that you can blame someone else for provoking you.

9. Sublimation. We've just seen that people can use their emotions to fire up a cognitively-oriented response. Intellectualization tends to occur over the short run, but sublimation develops over a long period of time, perhaps even throughout the course of a person's career. A classic example is that of a surgeon who takes hostile impulses and converts them into "cutting" other people in a way that is perfectly acceptable in society. This is perhaps putting things in terms that are too extreme. More realistically, sublimation occurs when people transform their conflicted emotions into productive outlets. They do say that psychologists are inherently nosy (not true!!), but it's possible that people who go into human services fields to help others are trying to "pay forward" to compensate for difficulties they experienced in their early lives.


In short, defense mechanisms are one of our commonest ways to cope with unpleasant emotions. Although Freud and many of his followers believed that we use them to combat sexual or aggressive feelings, defense mechanisms apply to a wide range of reactions from anxiety to insecurity.

Which defense mechanism is most adaptive? In general, the more "mature" defense mechanisms include intellectualization, sublimation, and rationalization. According to research by George Vaillant, people who use these defense mechanisms more often than the others tend to experience better family relationships and work lives. You may never rid yourself of all your defense mechanisms, but at least you can grow from understanding what they can, and cannot, do for you.

[slomo]

http://consortiumnews.com/2011/10/28/explaining-wayward-christianity/

Explaining Wayward Christianity

October 28, 2011

The core crisis of Christianity is how could a religion based on the teachings of Jesus, who called for peace through love and generosity to the poor – and who disdained the rich – have grown so tolerant of war, greed and inequality. The Rev. Howard Bess traces this conundrum to the Church’s early days.

By the Rev. Howard Bess

...

I also reject Christianity.

However, Christianity is probably a little closer to my belief system than the other two (acknowledging American Dream's point that both Buddhism and Marxism have given us some useful tools).

It's not that I believe in any absolute principle of Good or of Evil. It's just that, from a heuristic perspective, the behaviors that Christianity (and, to be fair, some watered-down forms of Buddhism) encourages are those that confer long-term benefits. It makes sense to love your neighbor because the alternative - pissing in his well - doesn't really help the long-term relationship, and most useful and necessary things in the world of monkeys require long-term investment in relationships.

In other words, I do believe in karma. Not the magical thinking kind, where seemingly arbitrary punishments are meted out (e.g. Avici Hell for criticizing your guru), but simply that actions have consequences, and those consequences are typically nonlinear. In common parlance, bad deeds come back to bite you in the ass because people remember what an asshole you were.

There is also the compassion part (again, a nod to watered-down forms of Buddhism), but you can't teach that. You either experience compassion, or you don't.

[American Dream]

In other words, I do believe in karma. Not the magical thinking kind, where seemingly arbitrary punishments are meted out (e.g. Avici Hell for criticizing your guru), but simply that actions have consequences, and those consequences are typically nonlinear. In common parlance, bad deeds come back to bite you in the ass because people remember what an asshole you were.

There is also the compassion part (again, a nod to watered-down forms of Buddhism), but you can't teach that. You either experience compassion, or you don't.

Yes- and the classic psychopath does not experience much compassion, as described here:

Basic manipulative strategy of a psychopath

According to Hare and Babiak* psychopaths are always on the lookout for individuals to scam or swindle. The psychopathic approach includes three phases:

1. Assessment phase

Some psychopaths are opportunistic, aggressive predators who will take advantage of almost anyone they meet, while others are more patient, waiting for the perfect, innocent victim to cross their path. In each case, the psychopath is constantly sizing up the potential usefulness of an individual as a source of money, power, sex, or influence. Some psychopaths enjoy a challenge while others prey on people who are vulnerable. During the assessment phase, the psychopath is able to determine a potential victim’s weak points and will use those weak points to seduce.

2. Manipulation phase

Once the psychopath has identified a victim, the manipulation phase begins. During the manipulation phase, a psychopath may create a persona or mask, specifically designed to ‘work’ for his or her target. A psychopath will lie to gain the trust of their victim. Psychopaths' lack of empathy and guilt allows them to lie with impunity; they do not see the value of telling the truth unless it will help get them what they want.

As interaction with the victim proceeds, the psychopath carefully assesses the victim's persona. The victim's persona gives the psychopath a picture of the traits and characteristics valued in the victim. The victim's persona may also reveal, to an astute observer, insecurities or weaknesses the victim wishes to minimize or hide from view. As an ardent student of human behavior, the psychopath will then gently test the inner strengths and needs that are part of the victim's private self and eventually build a personal relationship with the victim.

The persona of the psychopath - the “personality” the victim is bonding with - does not really exist. It is built on lies, carefully woven together to entrap the victim. It is a mask, one of many, custom-made by the psychopath to fit the victim's particular psychological needs and expectations. The victimization is predatory in nature; it often leads to severe financial, physical or emotional harm for the individual. Healthy, real relationships are built on mutual respect and trust; they are based on sharing honest thoughts and feelings. The victim's mistaken belief that the psychopathic bond has any of these characteristics is the reason it is so successful.

3. Abandonment phase

The abandonment phase begins when the psychopath decides that his or her victim is no longer useful. The psychopath abandons his or her victim and moves on to someone else. In the case of romantic relationships, a psychopath will usually seal a relationship with their next target before abandoning his or her current victim. Sometimes, the psychopath has three individuals on whom he or she is running game: the one who has been recently abandoned, who is being toyed with and kept in the picture in case the other two do not work out; the one who is currently being played and is about to be abandoned; and the third, who is being groomed by the psychopath, in anticipation of abandoning the current "mark".



*Robert, Hare; Paul, Babiak (2006). Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work. ISBN 978-0061147890.