Leonard Cohen, Operative? (Ann Diamond material)

[tapitsbo]

These alleged beliefs of the Sabbataeans bring to mind all sorts of tantric hijinx a la Evola's "The Yoga of Power" and a million other "data points"

[nashvillebrook]

Started reading Ann Diamond's "My Cold War" for the parallel with the "gifted" thread (so many intersections on RI lately), and I have to say this is a rich read. Don't let the godawful cover design deter you. The cover of this book screams "f'n nutz vanity project" -- but the book itself is well written and tells a compelling story. It still might be a f'n nutz vanity project, but it's well written and compelling.

I have the ear worm from Mr. Robot, but this design makes me hear Afrika Bambaataa & John Lydon - World Destruction.

[guruilla]

Glad you are reading/digging it and agreed about the cover. I just spoke to Ann in two sessions, over 5 hours in all, for next podcast, and a lot of this background came up (I haven't read My Cold War).

Talking to her was the first time that MKULTRA became absolutely, experientially real to me. Up until this point, even tho intellectually I knew it was true, it had always felt like a rumor.

[nashvillebrook]

I feel the same way about the program, that it doesn't seem like it could be real. It might have something to do with age. I was born in 66. But my parents and grandparents talked about "brainwashing" as if it were a real thing to worry about. They also hung out with some real characters including L. Ron Hubbard, so who knows what sorts of crazy shit they were into. I was adopted by my grandmother, and she had an irrational fear that I was going to be abducted at any minute. It was something that followed me around from kindergarten through high school. She was convinced there were "bad actors" behind every bush. I was convinced she was neurotic, and watched too much garbage on tv.

[nashvillebrook]

Glad you are reading/digging it and agreed about the cover. I just spoke to Ann in two sessions, over 5 hours in all, for next podcast, and a lot of this background came up (I haven't read My Cold War).

Talking to her was the first time that MKULTRA became absolutely, experientially real to me. Up until this point, even tho intellectually I knew it was true, it had always felt like a rumor.

I was just looking at your podcasts -- you've got some good gets! Temple Grandin! Wow!

Does Ann fall on the spectrum, or did she have thoughts about that? This probably goes in the gifted thread, but when I was first tested my (adopted) mother wanted to know "what end of the stick" I was on, b/c I didn't speak until I was four. Didn't go through a babbling stage. I think it was b/c I was surrounded by adults, and I probably didn't want to sound like a child. So when I started talking, it was in full sentences, like an adult. I just saved it all up. She clearly thought that wasn't normal.

[guruilla]

Does Ann fall on the spectrum, or did she have thoughts about that? This probably goes in the gifted thread, but when I was first tested my (adopted) mother wanted to know "what end of the stick" I was on, b/c I didn't speak until I was four. Didn't go through a babbling stage. I think it was b/c I was surrounded by adults, and I probably didn't want to sound like a child. So when I started talking, it was in full sentences, like an adult. I just saved it all up. She clearly thought that wasn't normal.

Ann & I did talk about LC having an autistic quality in those early years (see the doc, "Ladies & Gentlemen...")

This could be something to include int he gifted thread, the element of neurodiversity and how central it is to the selection process, training, etc. Certainly there are overlaps between high intelligence, neurodiversity, and "psychic" abilities (and of course, MK ULTRA).

Changing the subject slightly, I did an amazon search for books on Cohen and was surprised how many there are; mostly complete list here:

Leonard Cohen: Prophet of the Heart Apr 1991
by L. S. Dorman

Various Positions: A Life of Leonard Cohen Sep 23 1997
by Ira B. Nadel

The Concise Leonard Cohen Aug 1997
by Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen Came So Far for Love Apr 1 1997
by Paul Barrera

Leonard Cohen May 27 2000
by David Sheppard

Leonard Cohen: Hallelujah: A New Biography Nov 1 2009
by Tim Footman

Leonard Cohen: A Remarkable Life Oct 1 2010
by Anthony Reynolds

The Song of Leonard Cohen: A Portrait of a Poet, a Friendship and a Film Dec 17 2013
by Harry Rasky

I'm Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen Aug 27 2013
by Sylvie Simmons

Leonard Cohen: Everybody Knows Sep 16 2014
by Harvey Kubernik

Leonard Cohen: Almost Young. A Tribute Jul 23 2014
by Michaela Angermair

On Tour with Leonard Cohen Dec 9 2014
by Sharon Robinson and Larry "Ratso" Sloman

Leonard Cohen: 101 Success Facts - Everything You Need to Know About Leonard Cohen Jan 31 2015
by Nicholas Hood

A Broken Hallelujah: Rock And Roll Redemption And The Life Of Leonard Cohen Mar 24 2015
by Liel Liebovitz

Leonard Cohen: Still the Man Jul 16 2015
by Hugh Fielder and Colin Irwin

then there’s

Leonard Cohen 1970
by Michael Ondaatje

which seems to be out of print & unreviewed, oddly coz Ondaatje is major author

then there’s these titles, again most in the last few years:

In every style of passion: The works of Leonard Cohen Nov 1996
by Jim Devlin

Leonard Cohen: In His Own Words Mar 1999
by Jim Devlin

Hydra and the Bananas of Leonard Cohen Sep 19 2003
by Roger Green

Dylan and Cohen: Poets of Rock and Roll Apr 1 2004
by David Boucher

Leonard Cohen: One of Those Guys 2009
by Robert Humphrey. Signed Copy.

Ilustrisimo Sr. Cohen / Illustrious Mr. Cohen: 24 canciones de Leonard Cohen ilustradas / 24 Illustrated Songs...Dec 2011
by Alberto Manzano and Luis Eduardo Aute

Leonard Cohen: The Music and the Mystique May 1 2012
by Maurice Ratcliff

The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of "Hallelujah" Dec 4 2012
by Alan Light

Last Year's Man: Leonard Cohen: 5 (Summer Singles) Jul 22 2014
by Jason Schneider

So Long, Marianne Jun 1 2014
by Kari Hesthamar, Translated by Helle V. Goldman

Leonard Cohen and Philosophy: Various Positions Oct 7 2014
by Jason Holt

Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen: Interviews and Encounters Apr 1 2014
by Jeff Burger

Leonard Cohen: An Illustrated Record Dec 29 2015
by Editors of Plexus

alt. title for these ones:

A Broken Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen's Secret Chord May 15 2014
by Liel Leibovitz

Leonard Cohen: A Life in Art Apr 1 1994
(Nadel)

and a curiosity:

When the Earth Was Flat: Remembering Leonard Cohen, Alden Nowlan, the Flat Earth Society, the King James Monarchy...Aug 31 2013
by Raymond Fraser

plus a number of song lyric collections & the like

the mind boggles!

also this by FCC intriguing/ominous title:
The Energy of Slaves Jan 1 1972
by Leonard Cohen

What struck me about all these books, besides the sheer number of them, was how many came out in the past six years.

Maybe it’s because LC is getting old and could pop off at any time, so a) get these out while he’s still alive to comment b) expect sales boom when he dies

The other possible explanation is that LC's handlers have anticipated the crumbling of the cover-story via people like Diamond and are shoring up the walls with a dirge of misinfo and veneration.

At this point LC is pretty much canonized, which is striking in contrast to other surviving luminaires, such as Neil Young, who AFAIK aren’t treated with such gushing reverence. (Is even Dylan?)

(Having done a search for Neil Young there is an equivalent number of books, so I guess it’s just the nature of the biz to flood the market. But even so. My guess is none of these books mention LC's involvement in the McGill experiments)

[tapitsbo]

interesting that Mathis' material on Cohen was published shortly after Diamond's "The Man Next Door"

can't wait for the podcast

[justdrew]

awww, come on.

I don't see a single clear "uh oh" moment in any of what's been posted. I see a man with a rare gift, namely, the money needed to live a life as he saw fit, largely. Still requiring income. and caught up in a wide variety of the changing spasms of society as we know it to be, ie: full of strange characters with questionable motives and interests. So in the early 80s he had a "phase" I think he's said some thing about it, directly. He bought the place on Hydra early, way early. Totally in keeping with the concept of a writer/playwrite/songwriters retreat. Hydra has a history of being deep in the Greek Independence struggle. It's a sensible choice as such things go. and he probably got the place cheap when he bought it. I seriously doubt he was bringing in major income until the mid-90s. He could VERY easily have been forgotten like so many others from his era. So he was interested in the heritage he was born into, big deal, who wouldn't be?

Also, I think some of the stories that have been told are a little on the silly side. I seriously doubt he was ever so broke as to be driving around in a shitty tshirt and van trying to hook up with a 20+ years-past old flame.

TL;DR - I don't see ANY smoking gun here and I suspect MOST to 100% of these "questions" arise from the convicted criminal thief woman who he trusted and who stole his money for over a decade as being the sole source.

Ultimately - I don't think you can really do justice to his career rebirth without considering that the 'fans' bringing that rebirth were very nearly 100% the same people who were also fans of Nick Cave.

[guruilla]

awww, come on.

I don't see a single clear "uh oh" moment in any of what's been posted. I see a man with a rare gift, namely, the money needed to live a life as he saw fit, largely. Still requiring income. and caught up in a wide variety of the changing spasms of society as we know it to be, ie: full of strange characters with questionable motives and interests. So in the early 80s he had a "phase" I think he's said some thing about it, directly. He bought the place on Hydra early, way early. Totally in keeping with the concept of a writer/playwrite/songwriters retreat. Hydra has a history of being deep in the Greek Independence struggle. It's a sensible choice as such things go. and he probably got the place cheap when he bought it. I seriously doubt he was bringing in major income until the mid-90s. He could VERY easily have been forgotten like so many others from his era. So he was interested in the heritage he was born into, big deal, who wouldn't be?

Also, I think some of the stories that have been told are a little on the silly side. I seriously doubt he was ever so broke as to be driving around in a shitty tshirt and van trying to hook up with a 20+ years-past old flame.

TL;DR - I don't see ANY smoking gun here and I suspect MOST to 100% of these "questions" arise from the convicted criminal thief woman who he trusted and who stole his money for over a decade as being the sole source.

Ultimately - I don't think you can really do justice to his career rebirth without considering that the 'fans' bringing that rebirth were very nearly 100% the same people who were also fans of Nick Cave.

Consider me gobsmacked. Out of curiosity: are you now or have you ever been a Cohen fan?

[guruilla]

Cameron wrote that mental illness was transmitted generationally; thus, the re-occurrence of mental illness could be stopped by remodeling and expanding existing concepts of marriage suitability, as well as the quarantine of mentally ill individuals from the general population. The only cure for mental illness, he theorized, was to eliminate its "carriers" from society altogether.

Cameron believed that mental illness was literally contagious - that if one came into contact with someone suffering from mental illness, one would begin to produce the symptoms of a mental disease. For example, something like rock music could be created by mentally ill people and would produce mentally ill people through infection, which in turn would be transmitted to the genes. Thus, this group would have to be studied and controlled as a contagious social disease. Police, hospitals, government, and schools would need to use the correct psychiatric authority to stop mental contagions from spreading. Cameron also hoped to generate families capable of using authority and techniques to take measures against mental illness, which would later be apparent in Cameron's MKULTRA and MKDELTA experiments.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Ewen_Cameron

[tapitsbo]

Now I'm imagining someone whose psyche was split in such a way that they were able to hold onto the beliefs summarized above while simultaneously using them as a cover for even more depraved ideas and agendas!

[justdrew]

awww, come on.

I don't see a single clear "uh oh" moment in any of what's been posted. I see a man with a rare gift, namely, the money needed to live a life as he saw fit, largely. Still requiring income. and caught up in a wide variety of the changing spasms of society as we know it to be, ie: full of strange characters with questionable motives and interests. So in the early 80s he had a "phase" I think he's said some thing about it, directly. He bought the place on Hydra early, way early. Totally in keeping with the concept of a writer/playwrite/songwriters retreat. Hydra has a history of being deep in the Greek Independence struggle. It's a sensible choice as such things go. and he probably got the place cheap when he bought it. I seriously doubt he was bringing in major income until the mid-90s. He could VERY easily have been forgotten like so many others from his era. So he was interested in the heritage he was born into, big deal, who wouldn't be?

Also, I think some of the stories that have been told are a little on the silly side. I seriously doubt he was ever so broke as to be driving around in a shitty tshirt and van trying to hook up with a 20+ years-past old flame.

TL;DR - I don't see ANY smoking gun here and I suspect MOST to 100% of these "questions" arise from the convicted criminal thief woman who he trusted and who stole his money for over a decade as being the sole source.

Ultimately - I don't think you can really do justice to his career rebirth without considering that the 'fans' bringing that rebirth were very nearly 100% the same people who were also fans of Nick Cave.

Consider me gobsmacked. Out of curiosity: are you now or have you ever been a Cohen fan?

Yeah, I like his work. The first few albums are impeccable, and they all have art least one or two standouts. For me it's not heavy rotation material, but always good in the right time/place/mood.

but hey, I did skim a bit, maybe I missed the "smoking gun"

[guruilla]

When has anyone here known there to be a "smoking gun" in matters of covert-ops &social engineering?

It was my impression the phrase was meant to illustrate the absurdity of expecting hard evidence to be left lying around by professional criminals?

[justdrew]

When has anyone here known there to be a "smoking gun" in matters of covert-ops &social engineering?

It was my impression the phrase was meant to illustrate the absurdity of expecting hard evidence to be left lying around by professional criminals?

I guess I just mean "main reason to be suspicious" instead of "smoking gun" then.

anyway, I don't think 'smoking gun' refers to clear evidence, it's just a 'fact' - there's a smoking gun... but - that doesn't tell us who or what fired it, what kind of bullet it shot, who or what was hit by that bullet, etc.

[guruilla]

THE LIMINALIST # 31: I KNOW WHO YOU ARE (WITH ANN DIAMOND)

http://auticulture.com/the-liminalist-31/

Parts one and two of a four-part epic exploration with author and survivor Ann Diamond.

Part one: Intro by Jasun, psychic engineering and amnesia, the danger of hypnosis, healing through talking and writing, the Whitley Strieber vortex, the MKUltra program, Ann’s background in Quebec, Nazis in Quebec, liberal politics, fascist governments, & military intelligence, Kenneth Hertz, Ewen Cameron and the McGill experiments, LSD brainwashing, secret files in the library, the local artist community’s involvement in MKUltra (Allan Moyle, Stephen Lack), the Air Force connection, Ann’s early memories of torture, Cameron’s downfall and the closing of MKUltra, satanic ritual abuse in underground military base, Ann’s account being published by McGill and winning prize, finding confirmation accounts from other survivors, the CKLN conference and testimonies of MKUltra survivors, Dr. Mengele at McGill in 1962, the perks of entering the MKUltra program, gifted children, Strieber’s disguised narrative, Communion and the engineering of Strieber as a lifetime actor, accelerating evolution through trauma, the engineering of a generation, destroying files, more survivor testimonies, encoded programming, Clinton commission investigates experiments in human radiation testing in 1994, Ann’s family under attack, nocturnal aural hallucinations and psychic driving, a black hole in the family history, meeting Leonard Cohen, Cohen’s powers of musical mesmerism, just one of those things?, showcasing the worst cases of mind control abuse, random encounters with Cohen, Cohen in the Allan Memorial hospital, Ann’s childhood out of body experience, entering Cohen’s circle, sparring in the kitchen, becoming real with Cohen.

Part Two: “The Pied Piper of Montreal.”

Ann on on-again, off-again love affair with Leonard Cohen, Cohen-worship on Hydra, the Nikos Ghika palace and the Cohen curse, Henry Miller’s The Colossus of Maroussi, Cohen’s Rothschild backing, adopting Ann as a stray waif, Cohen in Hampstead meeting Jacob Rothschild, Cohen the storyteller, the CIA & cultural warfare in Greece, Life magazine and Operation Mockingbird, Filed Commander Cohen’s strange revolutionary timing, writing “Chelsea Hotel” in Asmara, life at Bill’s Bar, Cohen’s strange affinity for Ronald Regan, Cohen’s extreme rightwing politics, “Reagan’s In, Lennon’s Out,” Cohen in Tel Aviv, supporting the bombing of the King David hotel, “kill or be killed,” speaking literally and being taken for a poet, Jimmy Savile and glamor magic, auto-absolution via veiled confession, psychological manipulation and the trauma mechanism, being backed by power, brazenly exploring the dark side, learning from Lord Byron, Cohen’s stand-up poetry act and the mirth response, MKUltra imagery in “Teachers,” gorillas in the room, the JFK assassination, Marita Lawrence, & the Cuba connection, MKUltra kids, human-engineered synchronicity, assigned to a generation, Cohen’s abiding interest in young people, The Ernie Game, the Pied Piper of Montreal, Arthur Lipsett and Ryan Larkin, the MKUltra train of fame and fortune, David Cronenberg and crimes of the future.