Project Monarch

Project Monarch, unfortunately, is many things to many people. At its most basic, it is one of the [Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]'s human experimentation projects, probably as part of [MKULTRA]. It has become something of a banner term for survivors and conspiracy theorists alike, which is to say that "Project Monarch" is sometimes used as a catch-all term for CIA experimentation in general (as, for that matter, is "MKULTRA" as well).

The severity of torture involved in a lot of the CIA's projects has lent Project Monarch something of an air of lunacy. Survivors of any kind are often not believed when they talk about their abuse, and this may be particularly true of survivors whose abuse included their government, specific political figures, the creation of many people inside their bodies, elaborate programming, and extreme and horrific physical, sexual, and mental abuse. On top of that, [ritual abuse] survivors - including governmental ritual abuse - are often set up to sound like their memories can't possibly be true, as we'll see a little later on. Here, we'll examine what Project Monarch may have been, some of the things that Project Monarch is said to have done, and exactly what evidence there is for all of that.

Disney, E.T., and the Wizard of Oz: What is involved?

The primary claims made about Project Monarch, from what I have read, are that it:

is a CIA-run mind-control experiment
involves intense programming and torture
creates an artificially-induced form of [multiple personalities]/[dissociative identity disorder]

Some secondary claims (i.e. those made with less frequency or which are in my opinion less relevant to the question of what people have experienced) include (but are not limited to) claiming that it:

includes "elite" government and Hollywood figures
is connected to Freemasonry, the Vatican, Satanists, and/or various other religious groups
is connected to Nazis or Nazism

Project Monarch: Content and Deliverance

Here we'll look at some of the most common elements attributed to Project Monarch and other government abuse, and look for any evidence of their truth.

CIA Plans

"I am a survivor of mind control experiments performed under the CIA's MK-ULTRA program. MK-ULTRA was established in [1953] to counter Soviet and Chinese advances in brainwashing and interrogation techniques and consisted of 149 subprojects contracted out to at least 80 institutions including hospitals and Universities. In [1977] [Director of Central Intelligence|Director of Intelligence] Stansfield Turner said the program was initiated because the Agency was confronted with 'learning the state of the art of behavioral modification at a time when the U.S. Government was concerned about inexplicable behavior of persons behind the '[Iron Curtain]' and American prisoners of war who had been subjected to so called brainwashing.'"⁴ -- Carol Rutz

As we've already seen, the MKULTRA subproject which attempted in part to create "multiple personality disorder" in children used (or at least the documents we have state their intention to use) nonconsensual electroshock, drugging, et cetera; all of these and more items discussed in this writeup tally perfectly with claims made by survivors.

Then there's [Ewen Cameron], who conducted CIA-financed psychiatric experiments where he "would drug his victims to sleep for weeks on end, waking them daily only to administer violent electric shocks to the brain."¹⁵ (There's that pesky electric shock thing again!) According to author Anton Chaitkin, "Patients lost all or part of their memories, and some lost the ability to control their bodily functions and to speak. At least one patient was reduced almost to a vegetable; then Cameron had the cognitive centers of her brain surgically cut apart, while keeping her alive."¹⁵

Cameron's principal interest, at least according to a Wikipedia article on this subject, was in something called "psychic driving," which they explain as "his theory on correcting madness, which consisted of erasing existing memories and rebuilding the psyche completely."²³ This dovetailed perfectly with the work being undertaken by the CIA.

The CIA was eventually brought to trial by the husband of one of his victims, in Orlikow v. U.S.; one of the prosecuting attorneys, James Turner, later wrote a report of the trial. The extensive testimony describing Cameron's work is graphic and horrifying.

Turner begins by sharing the documentation from the very beginning of Cameron's experiments:

"Early in 1957, Dr. D. Ewen Cameron, Director of the [Allan Memorial Institute] in [Montreal], submitted a formal grant application to the "[Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology]" a CIA front operating at the [Cornell University] Medical School in [New York City]. That application proposed to extend brainwashing experimentation which Cameron described as follows:
"i. The breaking down of ongoing patterns of the patient's behavior by means of particularly intensive electroshocks (depatterning).
"ii. [programming|The intensive repetition (16 hours a day for 6 or 7 days) of the prearranged verbal signal].
"iii. During this period of intensive repetition the patient is kept in partial sensory isolation.
"iv. Repression of the driving period is carried out by putting the patient, after the conclusion of the period, into continuous sleep for 7-10 days.
"Cameron also proposed to test drugs such as 'LSD 25 and other similar agents' in 'depatterning' his patients and to experiment with new methods of 'inactivating' the patient during the repetition of verbal signals with other drugs including [curare], a drug used in surgery to temporarily paralyze a patient's involuntary muscles.
"Cameron's application for funds was dated January 21, 1957 and on February 26, 1957 Gottlieb and other CIA officials approved the application in a Memorandum that simply repeats, without reasoning or explanation, the application virtually [in haec verba]. Shortly thereafter, [Sidney Gottlieb, the real-life "Q"|Gottlieb]'s deputy, Lashbrook, approved the first payment to Cameron."^Q

Ewen Cameron, who was already serving as president of the [American Psychiatric Association] (beginning in 1953 and serving until his death in [1967]), and who had helped to found the [Canadian Psychiatric Association]^T and served as president (concurrently with his CIA [atrocities|work], in [1958]-[1959|9]^S), subsequently helped found and served as the first president of the [World Psychiatric Association] ([1961]).

Then there's the case of "[The Finders]," whose [Washington, D.C.] headquarters held -- according to the U.S. Customs report on the matter -- evidence of [murder]; [child sexual abuse]; photographs of naked children with adult "Finders;" high-tech money transfers; references to activities in Africa, the Bahamas, China, Germany, Hong Kong, London, Malaysia, Moscow, North Korea, and North Vietnam; "detailed instructions for obtaining children for unspecified purposes (which) included the impregnation of female members of the... Finders, purchasing children, trading, and kidnapping;" and "a series of photos of adults and children dressed in white sheets and participating in a 'blood ritual'... the photos portrayed the execution, disembowelment, skinning and dismemberment of the goats at the hands of the children. This included the removal of the testes of a male goat, the discovery of a female goat's ‘womb’ and the ‘baby goats’ inside the womb, and the presentation of a goat's head to one of the children."ⁱ

But wait, there's more. They also found a warehouse which "contained a large library, two kitchens, a sauna, hot-tub, and a 'video room.' The video room seemed to be set up as an indoctrination center.... There were what appeared to be training areas for children and what appeared to be an altar set up in a residential area of the warehouse. Many jars of urine and feces were located in this area.” The report also noted "a systematic response to local newspaper advertisements for babysitters, tutors, etc. A member of the Finders would respond and gather as much information as possible about the habits, identity, occupation, etc., of the family. The use to which this information was to be put is still unknown."ⁱ

According to the U.S. News and World Report as well as the Customs agents themselves, when the agents sought to continue their investigation they were told that the entire investigation had been reclassified as a CIA internal matter, and that:

“The (Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department) report has been classified SECRET and was not available for review. I was advised that the FBI had withdrawn from the investigation several weeks prior and that the [FBI] Foreign Counter Intelligence Division had directed (the police) not to advise the FBI Washington Field Office of anything that had transpired.”⁵

The CIA claimed that the only connection between themselves and the Finders was that a firm which provided CIA officers with computer training "also employed several members of the Finders.” In his article on the subject, David McGowan states that

"It should probably be noted here that the firm that supplied the training didn't just employ several members of the Finders but appears to have in fact been a wholly owned subsidiary of the Finders organization. It should also be noted that the CIA does not, as a general rule-of-thumb, assign the training of its officers to outside contractors. If a 'private' firm is utilized in such a capacity, it is in all such cases a front group of the CIA itself."ⁱ

However, I do not have primary source documentation to illustrate this point, so I present it only as one possible aspect of the case.

Electroshock

One startlingly frequent element of government torture and ritual abuse is the use of electroshock in some capacity. As previously mentioned, we know that the CIA has conducted many experiments with electric shocks to (for example) find a way of erasing memories.^V Electric shocks have also been used for a long time in [aversion therapy] and [electroconvulsive therapy], and are frequently found even in non-governmental and non-ritual abuse survivors' stories.

Mark Phillips says about Project Monarch that

"There are 'strap on' head and foot devices that could deliver a mind altering shock of an exact duration according to the subject's brainwave activity and/or heartbeat. Other portable hand held stun gun type devices can deliver shock up to 200,000 volts for a variety of reasons, but primarily for instant control of the conscious mind."²

In a more general form, this is a frequently heard claim; several people speaking to the 1995 Senate Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments made statements such as

"Between 1972 and 1976, (Dr. Green) and his assistants were sometimes careless and left the cage unlocked. Whenever physically possible, I snuck into his office and found files with reports and memos addressed to CIA and military personnel. Included in these files were project, sub-project, subject and experiment names with some code numbers for radiation and mind-control experiments, which I have submitted in your written documentation. I was caught twice, and Dr. Green ruthlessly used electric shock, drugs, spun me on a table, put shots in my stomach and my back, dislocated my joints, and hypnotic techniques to make me feel crazy and [suicidal]." (Christine DeNicola)
"Between the years of [vietnam war|1957 and 1974], I became a pawn in the government's game, whose ultimate goal was mind-control and to create the perfect spy, all through the use of chemicals, radiation, drugs, hypnosis, electric shock, isolation in tubs of water, sleep deprivation, brain-washing, verbal, physical, emotional and sexual abuse. I was exploited unwittingly for nearly three decades of my life, and the only explanations given to me were that 'the end justifies the means,' and 'I was serving my country in their [The testimony of Walter E. Disney before the House Committee on Un-American Activities|bold effort to fight communism].'" (C. Mullen)

A cursory [googling] of "stun gun" and "200,000 volts" turns up stun guns that go this high and higher (running on only one or two 9-volt batteries) at sites like [pepper spray|pepperspray][mace].com.¹²

One of these, protectmefirst.com, explains the effects of stun guns on the human body:

"The [stun gun] is designed to key into the [nervous system]. It dumps its energy into the muscles at a high pulse frequency that makes the muscles work very rapidly, but not very efficiently. This rapid work cycle depletes [blood sugar] by converting it into [lactic acid] all in just seconds. The resulting energy loss makes it difficult to move and function. At the same time, the tiny neurological impulses that travel throughout the body to direct muscle movement are interrupted. This causes disorientation and loss of balance, leaving the attacker in a passive and confused condition for several minutes. Still there is no significant effect on the heart and other organs.
"As a general rule, a 1/4 second contact will repel and startle the attacker, giving intense pain and muscle contraction. One to two seconds will cause intense pain, muscle spasms and a dazed mental state, this may drop the attacker to the ground. Over three seconds will cause intense pain, loss of balance, loss of muscle control, mental confusion and disorientation. Generally any charge over three seconds will cause the aggressor to fall to the ground. The aggressor will be unable to recover for several minutes and effects may last for up to fifteen minutes."¹³

Creation of "Multiple Personalities" and/or "Sleeper Agents"

"If you think creating Multiple Personality Disorder is too bizarre and strange to be real ... again, you just have to look at the [LSD], the brain implant research, some of the sensory deprivation, the [ames room|Ames Leaf Room], using millions and millions of dollars to pay psychics to spy on other countries while lying on tables in the USA. Once you have that context, then creating Multiple Personality Disorder is kind of small ...the very fact that you can create it artificially, to me indicates that it can be created artificially or on purpose, and also that it's likely to happen naturally."
- Dr. Colin Ross, interviewed by Ryerson CKLN Radio producer Wayne Morris in [toronto, canada|Toronto].⁶

[dissociative identity disorder|As someone who is multiple myself], I don't like to speak to the multiple issue. I'll only note here that the vast majority of the psychiatric community is absolutely convinced that "[multiple personality disorder]" or "dissociative identity disorder" only occurs in situations of abuse, and some of them insist it must be extremely violent and particularly traumatic abuse.

Whether the government was able to successfully program people, either within multiple systems or otherwise, who could act as [Lee Harvey Oswald|assassins], [mule|drug mules], et cetera, is another question. Let's let the CIA themselves address that one. Most sources refer to this simply as a [1951] memo; one gives the "approximate date" as "January 1, [1952]." It is labeled [Project Bluebird|Bluebird]. However, Projects Bluebird and Artichoke overlapped, in some cases both being engaged in the same activity, and both were engaged in studying various methods and effects relating to hypnotism^C; Project MKULTRA, of which I believe Monarch was a part, began as an offshoot of Project Artichoke. Therefore, I believe that the following illustrate at least some of what the CIA was trying to do and had achieved around the beginning of Project MKULTRA; we already know it was their stated intention to develop these findings further in MKULTRA/Monarch.

"1. Can we "condition" by post-H (hypnotic) suggestion agency employees (or persons of interest to this agency) to prevent them from giving information to any unauthorized source or for committing any act on behalf of a foreign or domestic enemy?
"2. Can we in a matter of an hour, two hours, one day, etc., induce an H condition in an unwilling subject to such an extent that he will perform an act for our benefit? (Long range).
"3. Can we create by post-H control an action contrary to an individual's basic moral principles?
"4. Could we seize a subject and in the space of an hour or two by post-H control have him crash an airplane, wreck a train, etc.? (Short, immediate activity)
"5. Can we by SI and H techniques force a subject (unwilling or otherwise) to travel long distances, commit specified acts and return to us or bring documents or materials? Can a person acting under post-H control successfully travel long distances?
"6. Can we use SI and H to combat [fatigue], produce extreme mental effort?
"7. Can we guarantee total [amnesia] under any and all conditions?
"8. Can we 'alter' a person's personality? How long will it hold?
"9. Can we design tests to determine whether or not an enemy agent has been conditioned by SI and H or any other method?
"10. Can we detect SI and H by use of SI and H (regression)?
"11. Can we make a 'conditioned' subject reveal by SI and H specifically how they were conditioned (drugs, torture, fatigue, hostage pressure, techniques)?
"12. Can we devise a system for making unwilling subjects into willing agents and then transfer that control to untrained agency agents in the field by use of codes or identifying signs or credentials?
"13. How long can we sustain a post-H suggestion-unaided-with reinforcement?
"14. What would be fastest way to induce SI and H conditions - with drugs - or without any mechanical aids?
"15. Can we devise a standard simple relatively fast technique for inducing SI and H conditions that can be used by untrained agents (with or without drugs)?
"16. Is it possible to find a [gas] that can be used to gain SI control from a gas pencil, odorless, colorless: one shot, etc.?
"17. What are full details on 'sleep-inducing machine'?
"18. How can sodium [Amytal|A] or [Sodium Pentothal|P] or any other sleep inducing agent be best concealed in a normal or commonplace item, such as candy, cigarettes, liqueur, wines, coffee, tea, beer, gum, water, [aspirin] tablets, common medicines, [the real thing|coke], tooth paste?
"19. How effective can the '[common carotid artery|carotid artery] technique' be made? Can it be used while subject is unconscious? Is it faster than other techniques?
"20. Can we, while a subject is under SI and H control, show them a map and have them point out specific items, locations, etc., on the map? Can we also have them make detailed drawings, sketches, plans? Could any of the above be done under field conditions and in a very short space of time?
"21. Can we, while a subject is under SI and H control, show them a map and have them point out specific items, locations, etc., on the map? Can we also have them make detailed drawings, sketches, plans?
"Could any of the above be done under field conditions and in a very short space of time?"^{C and W}

On January 7th, [1953], they reported that:

“These subjects have clearly demonstrated that they can pass from a fully awake state to a deep H ([hypnotism|hypnotic]) controlled state by telephone, by receiving written matter, or by the use of code, signal, or words, and that control of those hypnotized can be passed from one individual to another without great difficulty. It has also been shown by experimentation with these girls that they can act as unwilling couriers for information purposes.”^W

And in [1954]:

“Miss ([censored|whited out]) was instructed (having expressed a fear of firearms) that she would use every method at her disposal to awaken Miss (whited out) (now in a deep hypnotic sleep). Failing this, she would pick up a pistol nearby and fire it at Miss (whited out). She was instructed that her rage would be so great that she would not hesitate to 'kill' (whited out) for failing to awaken. Miss (whited out) carried out these suggestions to the letter including firing the (unloaded) gun at (whited out) and then proceeded to fall into a deep sleep. After proper suggestions were made, both were awakened. Miss (whited out) expressed absolute [denial] that the foregoing sequence had happened.”^W

Nazis

The claim of Nazi involvement in these atrocities usually seems to come not from survivors but from outsiders researching the issue and trying to explain how it all came about. For example, Ron Patton has written that

"After [WWII], the [U.S. Department of Defense] secretly imported many of the top German Nazi and Italian [Fascist] scientists and spies into the United States via South America and the [Vatican]. The code name for this operation was [Project PAPERCLIP]. One of the more prominent finds for the U.S. was German General Reinhard Gehlen, [Hitler]’s Chief of Intelligence against Russia. Upon arriving in Washington D.C. in 1945, Gehlen met extensively with [President Truman], [Wild Bill Donovan|General William “Wild Bill” Donovan], Director of the [Office of Strategic Services] (OSS) and [Allen Dulles], who would later become the stalwart head of the CIA. The objective of their brain-storming sessions was to reorganize the nominal American intelligence operation, transforming it into a highly-efficient covert organization. The culmination of their efforts produced the Central Intelligence Group in 1946, renamed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1947."¹⁶

The clearest connection with the Nazis is through [the Stars of Project Paperclip|the above-mentioned Project Paperclip]. As [riverrun] [Operation Overcast|has written],

"....The Nazis had done some very "good" work in rocket science and psychological, chemical, and biological warfare. It seemed a pity to let that work disappear in a puff of petrol smoke in a ditch at Hitler's Wedding Reception.
"As early as the invasion of [Normandy], in June of [1944], at least ten thousand American intelligence officers were charged with seizing Nazi experts in munitions, rocketry, and psychological, biological and chemical research. For good measure, French scientists who had collaborated with the Nazis were included as well.
.... "(This project was) like giving [Osama Bin Laden]'s experts in suicide bombing an apartment in [Virginia|Alexandria] and a Visa Card, so long as they promised to only suicide bomb for our side."

So, however "crazy conspiracy theorist" it may sound to link these activities to the Nazis, they do seem to follow a clear line back to [Nazi medical experiments] and related research.

[Disney]

My first exposure to the idea of Project Monarch came when I met people who had been ritually abused and were trying to explore and defuse their own programming. I found a lot of information describing supposed Project Monarch programming -- like [Alice in Wonderland], color, gem, and [spin programming] -- which nevertheless is also found in a lot of people who were ritually abused outside of the government's grasp.

The two main kinds of programming can be described as [operant conditioning] and [classical conditioning]. Classical conditioning is the classic [Pavlovian] response. [Pavlov's dog|A dog salivates] when it hears the can opener; a college student jumps at hearing the bell for recess; an abuse survivor has body memories of being unable to breathe at the sight of the exact shade of blue of the blanket in the bed where they were almost smothered. It's a disparate response which comes from extremely intense or repeated stimuli. As [Tem42] [operant conditioning|observes], it is a stimulus-stimulus connection instead of stimulus-response: they are all reacting as if both stimuli were present (the can opener and food, the bell and recess, the bedclothes and the smothering) instead of only the one which is triggering them.

Operant conditioning is a connection between some [stimulus] and its normal response. We flip a switch and discover that the overhead light turns on, and soon operant conditioning makes this an automatic motion for us. It is what happens when a rat learns what button to press to get fed, or when we make our way through a new piece of software for the first time and watch for consistent responses from it to find out what different commands and buttons do.

Most of the stereotypical programming within ritual abuse is classical conditioning. Using triggers that have seemingly irrelevant effects is a handy way for people to mask the programming and hide what they are doing. Who would believe that an (apparent?) assassin like [Sirhan Sirhan] was externally controlled and put into a [dissociative] [fugue] state by [the Smurfs] theme song? (This is an entirely fictional example. I believe Sirhan Sirhan was too early for at least the American Smurfs.)

Programming like this can be very involved. One book, movie, or fairytale can be [exploitation|exploited] for a huge number of triggers and programs. Both the Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland are very often used for this, possibly because of their magical and sometimes surreal imagery and patterns as well as their prevalence in mainstream United States culture. But what does that mean?

Imagine you have a friend who you know has been struggling to deal with ritual abuse, to figure out what happened to her and what is going on. Maybe you're good friends; maybe you trust each other fairly deeply. You might happen to know a particular number or pattern that she finds very triggering; maybe one afternoon you are talking, and you happen to say that triggering number. Maybe she asked you to try something like that, to see what would happen. Maybe you shouldn't, but you do anyway.

She goes away, markedly. Someone else comes out; they seem little and scared. Maybe you're used to this; you know she's [multiple], you've gotten to know different people in there. That's okay. You ask her what her name is; it's Alice17. You find out there are a lot more Alices in there; you realize she thinks you're going to rape her, that that's what she's been taught that she's there for. Maybe later you discover that 17 is important to them too, because it's a prime factor of the number that was the big [trigger]. Whatever. You figure it's probably because of Alice in Wonderland, because you know your friend is totally obsessed with that book, and any movies or anything else made from it. Maybe you'd heard about [Alice in Wonderland programming] somewhere already.

Alice freaks out and takes off, maybe even because you're not doing anything to her. The unknown is hard. Someone else comes around, some sly pain-in-the-ass you've met before. They were hanging out there already, keeping an eye on things. They greet you and ask if you're the [White Rabbit]. You're pretty sure you're not, whatever it is. Later you find out that that's usually a programmer. They tell you a lot of stuff anyway, and you try to figure out how much of it is to mess with other people in there... things like getting them between two mirrors so they go "[through the looking-glass]," or like little snatches of [Lewis Carroll] poems that do things, but not what they do. Maybe later you learn more, like that "through the looking-glass" means that someone else who was programmed and forced to be a child prostitute gets stuck out for a really long time, or that the poem they gave you makes whoever's out lose everything in their short-term memory.

Maybe all of this seems totally fantastical to you; unfortunately, the little scene above was drawn straight from personal experience.

Some of the benefits of this kind of programming are:

The child is likely to encounter the movie, or references to it, in many innocent everyday situations, which reinforces the programming at no cost to the abuser. [Nursery rhymes] are also commonly used, presumably for similar reasons.
As we'll see a little later on, combining extreme abuse with ludicrously different elements (such as alien abduction or Disney movies) is an easy way for the abusers to seriously damage their victims' credibility.
It cuts down on the work for the programmer: It's easy to remember elements that everyone knows from popular books or movies, and nobody has to create triggers from scratch. (Although when it comes to many cases of non-governmental ritual abuse, abusers are simply acting out their own abuse on others rather than embarking on some grand new scheme.)

This is not a claim specifically made about the CIA's projects in most cases, although it is sometimes connected to abuse by the military. Other forms of programming, though, are rampant in the experiences of Project Monarch survivors.

There are still confusing aspects of these accounts, like the aforementioned and possibly drug-induced experience of seeing [George Bush|Bush reveal his true, humanoid lizard form] -- which I admit I would really like to believe! Let's ask again....

Was There Something Specifically Called Project Monarch?

Phillips and O'Brien aren't the only sources of these claims, obviously. This question brings us back to the beginning of this piece. That is, it can't be asked sensibly without being split into the original two questions: Was there something specifically called Project Monarch? And did the United States government commit atrocities like those attributed to Project Monarch -- and if so, which and by whom?

A Moment For the Skeptical

It certainly appears to be true that Mark Phillips and Cathy O'Brien have surrounded Project Monarch with a cloud of confusing and sometimes entertainingly odd information. Their explanations of what is involved seem almost designed to make it all seem ludicrous -- and indeed, this is one of the tools used in ritual abuse and mind control-related abuse. There appear to me to be two real questions raised by such writings: Does a specific "Project Monarch" exist? And did the United States government commit atrocities like those attributed to Project Monarch -- and if so, which and by whom?

In previous readings on Project Monarch, I had been fortunate enough not to come across O'Brien or Phillips' controversial writings, nor even Martin Cannon's article on the subject. In doing research for this writeup, I was especially careful not to use them as resources.

Evidence For Project Monarch As Such

Since Projects [MKULTRA] and [Project Artichoke|Artichoke], among others, have been documented through information released by the CIA itself^A,B, we do know that the CIA has done extensive experimentation on civilians around the issues of programming, mind control, memory retention and erasure, the effects of various drugs, et cetera. I set out to look for information about Project Monarch in relation to these confirmed projects.

I did find a few sites that assert they have printed evidence that Project Monarch existed.^y,z The basic information they give seems to be that MKULTRA was a large enterprise with 149 stated sub-projects - which can be confirmed by reading the information released by the CIA^A,B - and that Project Monarch was a specific sub-project.

The first evidence I found was a listserv post which claimed that Project Monarch was Subproject 84 of MKULTRA^z, but without having the released documents to look at, I can't tell whether this is because it is called that in the text, or because of the content of Subproject 84. The subprojects of MKULTRA have titles ranging from "Marijuana Research" to "Unwitting Drug Tests at [University of Maryland]," "Rapid Hypnotic Induction," and "Optics mixed with [Biological Warfare]--[Cuba vs. US Govt|Cuba Chapter]."^A

The declassified folder of documents on Subproject 84 is apparently labeled "Hypnosis Work," according to the list of documents which John Marks received (under the [Freedom of Information Act]) for his research on the book "The Search For The Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control."^A This seems inconclusive to me; while the general description of the work involved in Project Monarch could fit under "Hypnosis Work," it could just as easily fit under many of the other MKULTRA subprojects listed there.

There is also an article by Ron Patton wherein he states that

"The most incriminating statement to date made by a government official as to the possible existence of Project MONARCH was extracted by (historian and investigative reporter) [Anton Chaitkin], a writer for the publication, [The New Federalist]. When former CIA Director [William Colby] was asked directly, “What about monarch?” he replied angrily and ambiguously, “We stopped that between the late [1960]’s and the early [1970]’s.”¹⁶

I don't consider that to be very strong evidence, because I have not been able to find any primary source documents quoting William Colby, even the original Chaitkin article. It is interesting, if true, but hardly conclusive.

After writing and posting this piece, however, I was approached by a casual acquaintance who I had forgotten was a ritual abuse survivor. I found out that she had the kind of programming frequently associated with Project Monarch, and that she had an online journal in which she had tried to replicate a form she had once seen with her name on it -- a form which had been headed, "MONARCH/MKULTRA."^y I hope to get her permission to interview her for this writeup soon.

The Spin Doctors: Why Does It All Seem So Strange?

I know people personally, offline, who remember being ritually abused by the government in some of the ways described above, who have seen many of their experiences reflected in the writings of apparent Project Monarch survivors like Brice Taylor. As [above|Timeshredder] points out, Taylor's accounts of Project Monarch appeared after O'Brien's, although given the nature of linear time I feel bound to point out that someone's accounts have to come first.

Martin Cannon, in his article on Phillips and O'Brien which forms the basis for the writeup above, addresses the issue of "which came first":

"Just to make matters pluperfectly surreal: Mark Phillips has privately admitted to at least one researcher that he (Phillips) concocted the name 'Project Monarch,' just to see who would pick it up. At this point, an honest investigator can only feel aggravated and dispirited - which may be the entire point of this charade. In fact, ritual abuse claimants throughout the country had spoken darkly of a 'Project Monarch' well before Mark and Cathy came on the scene. Now, [see above|skeptics can posit that Mark Phillips contaminated the testimony of others, even though the chronology argues against this scenario]."²⁰

Cannon himself also states therein that "Little about the basic Monarch theory struck me as technically implausible - indeed, this [putative] project seems, in many ways, the logical extension of MKULTRA." His conjecture seems to be that much of the information Mark Phillips has helped release on the subject was designed to cloud the issue.

Combining [survivor] testimony with false information is one of the main tools used to cover up ritual abuse. For example, Pamela Hudson, [licensed social worker|LCSW] and author of "Ritual Child Abuse: Discovery, Diagnosis and Treatment,"

"said it became apparent to her that perpetrators actually set up stagings for incidents of abuse. Perpetrators dressed as space aliens or cartoon characters, so that later when a child was questioned by a therapist, lawyer, or police officer, the child might say that the abuser was an alien or [Mickey Mouse] - and the whole story might be dismissed as fabrication."¹⁴

Along the same lines, Martin Cannon (author of the article debunking Cathy O'Brien's story) writes elsewhere, on the subject of alien abductions, that:

"I posit that the abductees HAVE been abducted. Yet they are also spewing fantasy -- or, more precisely, they have been given a set of lies to repeat and believe. If my hypothesis proves true, then we must accept the following: The kidnapping is real. The fear is real. The pain is real. The instruction is real. But the little grey men from Zeti Reticuli are NOT real; they are constructs, Halloween masks meant to disguise the real faces of the controllers. The abductors may not be visitors from Beyond; rather, they may be a symptom of the [carcinoma] which blackens our body politic."¹¹

Kathleen Sullivan, among others, has spoken eloquently on the way this dynamic plays out and on some of the hidden repercussions for survivors who go public with their stories:

"...I am quite amused that [David Icke|Icke], who blatantly reinforces 'lizard men' screen memories in high-level MC survivors' minds to discredit them to the public and in court, is suddenly helping to expose Mark. I've seen this behavior before. In this instance, former business partners (Gunderson, Icke, Phillips and Bowart/Kirby) suddenly turn on one of their own, AFTER it is obvious that their partner's (sic) are not going to behave and be quiet about his activities. The others had years of warning from the victims, to step out and denounce him.
"The way I see it, Mark became too much of a liability to them. This behavior on the part of Mark's friends/partners is not dissimilar to when children go to the police and media about a group of criminal cultists who have been ritually traumatizing and raping them for years. The cultists throw out one of their people for the police and legal system to make an open fuss over and slap in prison, and the others continue doing their dirty work just like before, never being legally named.
"In the MC survivor community, I've seen this tactic taken one step further. 'Good guy bad guy' routine. By helping to publicly out their partner, after having been tight with him for many years, it makes other perps look like they are heros. (sic) Then the the (sic) outed perp's victims (eg: Brice) go running to THEM for protection and information. And the survivor's external control and victimization continues...."²²

While it is difficult to know how to distinguish truth from programmed smokescreen in accounts like Cathy O'Brien's, it is possible to look at the events that we can verify and begin to build a sort of mental filter for fact and torturous fiction. For example, one self-described "alleged survivor," Carol Rutz, tells a story very like Cathy's in structure and timeline, but much less lurid in problematic detail. She describes her

"intense search to document some of the mind control experiments that I was made part of starting at the tender age of four. Through a series of [freedom of information act|FOIA]'s to various departments of the government, I have amassed an incredible amount of material that validates my personal experiences. I have also found pictures of machines that were used in these experiments that match drawings I made during my healing process,"

all of which she also provides to her readers.^1,4

Now, I'm not saying Cathy O'Brien is lying or that nothing she describes has happened to her, only that she has been manipulatively exploited to make all of these issues seem more improbable than they really are. We can still learn a lot from what she has to say. As John Gentry points out,

"In the balance, Phillips and O'Brien have helped literally tens of thousands awaken to the ongoing designs of the [New World Order], [globalization|one world government] bunch; and pointed repeatedly and poignantly to their (NWO) Achilles' Heel: their treatment of women and children."²¹

The [programming], [torture], [child sexual abuse], and the rest of what is described by people like Cathy Phillips, are a form of [ritual abuse]. In these cases, it is sometimes called government ritual abuse or government-sponsored ritual abuse.

As we can see from [Timeshredder|Timeshredder's] writeup above, ritual abuse is highly controversial. Accounts of ritual abuse are frequently characterized by elements that seem too extreme to have happened to anyone, or even laughable -- like seeing the President turn into a giant lizard.

Nevertheless, there is a wealth of government-released evidence for the former, and a variety of possible explanations for the latter, especially given that a great deal of the government's admitted experimentation involved [hallucinogen|heavy hallucinogens] and other drugs administered without the survivor's knowledge or permission.

Beyond Project Monarch: A few other cases of governmental ritual abuse

Of course, it's easy to glibly say that there are explanations and evidence for these things. It's harder to find them. For example, while there are [Freedom of Information Act]-released documents on a lot of the horrific acts committed by the [CIA] under [MKULTRA], they represent only a small portion of the original documentation. According to Admiral Stansfield Turner, Director of Central Intelligence, in his prepared statement to the [1977] [Senate|U.S. Senate] Committee Hearings^D,

Most of what was known about the Agency's involvement with behavioral drugs during the investigations in [1975] was contained in a report on Project MKULTRA prepared by the [Office of Inspector General|Inspector General's office] in [1963].... The MKULTRA-related report was made available to the Church Committee investigators and to the staff of [Edward Kennedy|Senator Kennedy's] Subcommittee on Health. Until the recent discovery, it was believed that all of the MKULTRA files dealing with [Behavior modification|behavioral modification] had been destroyed in [1973] on the orders of the then retiring Chief of the Office of Technical Service, with the authorization of the [Director of Central Intelligence|DCI], as has been previously reported.

Searching for clear information on government ritual abuse often requires sifting through a lot of conflicting and confusing information from both sides. A lot of writing on this subject, whether it is denying or supporting these claims, reads like [Text from Dr. Bronner's Peppermint 18-in-1 soap|the label on a bottle of Dr. Bronner's soap] -- "CIA, 1939, after Nazis & Commies united, proposed spacebombs that destroy all, unless we finally teach the Moral ABC's the real Rabbi Hillel taught Jesus to unite in All-One-God-Faith. Illuminati-Masons-Nazis-White House! Government propaganda destroys! Killing machine secrets for all! 'WE'RE ALL ONE OR NONE!'"

With enough effort and knowledge, though, clear information can be found, even on....

The Major Claims

While many of the claims made about Project Monarch seem extreme and sometimes even impossible to the casual observer, they often fit in easily with the work that the CIA has admitted to doing in other projects and in MKULTRA itself. The CIA has already admitted to extreme, extensive experiments in mind control, programming, and torture. For example:

According to Dr. Colin Ross, who wrote a long and heavily researched and well-footnoted book about all the [declassified] information on MKULTRA⁷, "The deliberate creation of [multiple personality] in children is an explicitly stated plan in the MKULTRA Subproject Proposal submitted for funding on May 30, [1961]."^E (This was Subproject 136, which according to the CIA involved [Electroconvulsive therapy|electric shocks] and "hypnotically induced anxieties," among other forms of [trauma].) Other MKULTRA experiments they list involved testing [mustard gas] and other [chemical warfare] agents on human subjects, biological weapons testing, physical pain endurance and [brainwashing] techniques.
Files on MKULTRA Subproject 49, labeled "MKULTRA: George White and Federal Bureau of Narcotics" when released under the Freedom of Information Act, included "Experiment 7 - Recall of hypnotically acquired information by very specific signals."¹ This is programming: specifically-chosen signals that bring up "acquired information." (Usually that means orders to do something; sometimes it means fear or traumatic memories.)
"[Hypnosis]" in the CIA files seems to have been a broad category: their proposal for Subproject 136 says in part that "In other cases drugs and psychological tricks will be used to modify his attitudes. The experimenters will be particularly interested in disassociative states, from the abaissment de niveau mental to [multiple personality] in so-called mediums, and an attempt will be made to induce a number of states of this kind, using hypnosis."
CIA Director Admiral Stansfield Turner's testimony to the [1977] Senate Hearings on MKULTRA^d included, in very small part, the following information:
"The [1963] Inspector General report on MKULTRA made available to both the Church Committee and [Ted Kennedy|Senator Kennedy's] Subcommittee mentions electro-shock and harassment substances (pp. 4, 16); covert testing on unwitting U.S. citizens (pp. 7, 10-12); the search for new materials through arrangements with specialists in universities, pharmaceutical houses, hospitals, state and federal institutions, and private research organizations (pp. 7, 9); and the fact that the Technical Service Division of CIA had initiated 144 subprojects related to the control of human behavior between 1953-1963 (p. 21)."^D
MKULTRA and other CIA projects also involved nonconsensual radiation testing on unsuspecting citizens, often in conjunction with other government departments.
"...the [Department of Energy|DOE] has disclosed information about the federal government's human radiation experiments after [World War II]. These experiments primarily took place during the [1940s] and early [1950s], but some have occurred as recently as the [1980s]. Eleven thousand documents reviewed disclosed that in at least forty-eight experiments humans were given [radioactive isotope|radioactive isotopes], generally without their consent, to determine the effects of radiation on the body. The DOE has made thousands of documents once kept secret available for public use. Of primary interest to the public was [Hazel O'Leary|O'Leary's announcement] in December [1993] that documents related to human radiation experiments and exposure to [barium] and [strontium] at government weapons laboratories across the country were to be released."¹⁰
(This is according to a biography of Hazel O'Leary, the first woman to become [U.S. Secretary of Energy], which cites the Nashville Tennessean for this information¹⁰. More information about these experiments can be found on the Department of Energy's own website^F.)
Ross also states that "Although MKULTRA has received the most public attention of any of the CIA and military mind control programs, most of its Subprojects were relatively benign compared to experiments carried out in PROJECT OFTEN and MKNAOMI." MKNAOMI was a successor of MKULTRA, focusing on biological and chemical weapons. The CIA and [Defense Intelligence Agency|DIA] collaborated on creating and testing these agents. According to the Military Review in November [1970], the United States begins to research "[Racially Specific Biological Weapons|ethnic weapons],"^H intended to "target and eliminate specific ethnic groups who are susceptible due to genetic differences and variations in [DNA]."⁷
MKNAOMI also includes a military project seeking to develop cancer-causing viruses. According to the Congressional Record of [1969], the [Department of Defense] requested funding "to produce a synthetic biological agent, an agent that does not naturally exist and for which no natural immunity could have been acquired,"^8,9 and against which natural immunological processes and medicines would not work. Much of this research takes place at Fort Detrick's Center for Biological Warfare Research. Under [Richard Nixon|President Nixon], the center is converted to become the [National Cancer Institute]'s Frederick Cancer Research and Development, while this project is going on (in [1971])^G. In [1979] scientist Robert Gallo of [National Cancer Institute|NCI] finally isolates a virus to which no natural immunity exists, naming it [human T-lymphotropic virus|HTLV (Human T-cell Leukemia Virus)]^G. Later, HTLV-III is renamed [HIV].⁸

But I digress.

Any one of these examples should satisfy anyone seeking a good "[conspiracy theory]," and I have limited myself here to only a few of the statements and examples which I can back up solely through United States government documentation. More information on the kind of behavior that constitutes [ritual abuse] can be found at that node.

So, looking at our general claims:

Have the CIA run mind-control experiments? According to them, yes.
Have at least some of these experiments involve intense programming and torture? Again, according to them, yes.
Have any of these experiments attempted to create an artificially-induced form of [multiple personalities]/[dissociative identity disorder]? Once again, yes, and in so many words.

Conclusion

Even if Mark Phillips had invented the name "Project Monarch" himself, I believe that would mean nothing about whether this kind of abuse took place. We know that there have been [Project Paperclip|many] [Project Chatter|different] [Project Bluebird|projects] [Project Mockingbird|in] [Project Artichoke|the] [MKULTRA|CIA] [MKNAOMI|alone] which perpetrated similar forms of abuse. It is possible that there was not a specific "Project Monarch," but that most of what is described by "Project Monarch survivors" did happen to them. It is hardly the only government project which is supposed to have extensively abused people. In fact, many of the people I know personally who have experienced similar abuse to that of Taylor and O'Brien do not identify as having been part of Project Monarch or any other specific government project.

When I began writing this piece, that was all that I thought had happened: that even if there was no "Project Monarch," it would simply have meant that someone gave these experiences a handy label; and that in the absence of more extensive information about government abuse, a lot of people assumed that they were a part of "Project Monarch" because it was the name most often associated with the kind of experiences that they knew they had. Now I believe that Monarch is probably an official name for some part of MKULTRA. For me, the turning point came from talking to people who had been abused in these ways, who had seen CIA paperwork with the word "Monarch" right on it. Your mileage may vary.

However, I believe that the core issue here is that these survivors' experiences are thrown out, even laughed at, while this kind of abuse goes on all around us. I hope that the extensive research I have done here can help spread awareness of at least one tiny part of this abuse. Thanks for reading.

Works Cited:

Please note that some of these sites are wildly biased in one direction or another, and that in all cases the reference is to specific documents reprinted on the site, not to any commentary that the site's owners may have included.

Documentation:
(Primary source documentation, mostly from United States government agencies; I highly recommend reading any and all of these documents.)

a. De-classified documents from MKULTRA: http://www.nemasys.com/rahome/library/programming/mkultra.shtml

b. Even more extensive, although unlabeled and disorganized, [TIFF] files of declassified MKULTRA documents: http://intellnet.org/mkultra/

c. Extensive declassified documentation from Projects Bluebird, Artichoke, and MKULTRA (on Carol Rutz' web page): http://my.dmci.net/~casey/

d. 1977 U.S. Senate Committee Hearings quoted here: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/e1950/mkultra/Hearing02.htm

e. The 1961 "Memorandum for the Record" on Subproject 136, one of the memos quoted above from Dr. Ross' book, can be seen in PDF form at: http://stargate.collection.free.fr/PDFs/MKUltrasubproject136.pdf

f. Department of Energy on Human Radiation Experiments: http://tis.eh.doe.gov/ohre/

g. National Cancer Institute's list of Important Events in NCI History: http://web.archive.org/web/20050114230258/http://www.nih.gov/about/almanac/1998/organization/nci/history.html

h. Project Censored's extensive coverage on bioweapons and "ethnic weapons," as part of their ongoing exposure of disinformation in the media: http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2001/16.html

i. The text of the U.S. Customs Department memo on the Finders: http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/pedo6.html

j. The scanned-in ([OCR], and therefore a little garbled at times) text of the Military Review article on ethnic weapons is online at the website for the US Army Command and General Staff College: http://www-cgsc.army.mil. However, they use javascript in such a way as to prohibit simply linking to the article. To get there, go to http://www-cgsc.army.mil/ and click "Military Review;" "Past Editions;" and then the filing cabinet icons next to "Military Review English Edition;" 1970-1979; 1970; "VOL L, NO. 11 - NOVEMBER 1970"; and finally, "01, ETHNIC WEAPONS."

k. Scanned-in documents on MKUltra and the Canadian government's decision on the subject, as well as other information on ritual abuse in Canada: http://www.davidicke.net/mindcontrol/research/re050803a.html

l. The National Cancer Institute's own promotional materials showing their chronology of the search for cancer-causing viruses, simplified for lay people: http://rex.nci.nih.gov/behindthenews/cioc/tech/tech.htm

m. 1975 letter to Senator Frank Church from CIA Director W. E. Colby, regarding the existence of records of Project MKNAOMI and the CIA/Fort Detrick relationship: http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/vol1/html/ChurchV1_0125b.htm

n. 1967 memo from the Technical Service Division of the CIA entitled "MKNAOMI: Funding, Objectives and Accomplishments": http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/vol1/html/ChurchV1_0105a.htm

o. Church Committee report of Senate hearings describing the origins and connections of the CIA project code-named MKNAOMI: http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/book1/html/ChurchB1_0184b.htm

p. The text of the 1995 hearings of the Senate Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, from the U.S. Department of Energy's website: http://tis.eh.doe.gov/ohre/roadmap/achre/report.html

q. Anatomy of a Public Interest Case Against the CIA, the report by Joseph Rauh and James Turner, who acted as legal counsel in the case against Cameron. (This report is on Turner's own website, and originally published in the Hamline Journal of Public Law and Policy, Volume II Fall 1990 Number 2): http://www.turnerhome.org/jct/anat-tofc.html

r. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, June 2000: http://www.cpa-apc.org/Publications/Archives/ CJP/2000/June/InReview2.asp

s. The Canadian Psychiatric Association list of past presidents: http://www.cpa-apc.org/presidents.html

t. The Canadian Psychiatric Association -- "Psychiatry in Canada: 50 Years (1951-2001)": http://www.cpa-apc.org/anniversary.asp

u. 1995 Memo to Members of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments about "Post-World War II Reccruitment of German Scientists--Project Paperclip," from the National Security Archive at George Washington University: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/radiation/dir/mstreet/commeet/meet13/brief13/tab_f/br13f3.txt

v. De-classified, scanned-in documents from MKULTRA: http://mindcontrolforums.com/mk-ultradoc-1-309.htm

Quotations:
(News, opinion, and other secondary source documents)

1. Carol Rutz' short essay with references: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/psnews/message/93

2. Mark Phillips' article on Project Monarch: http://www.outpost-of-freedom.com/operatio.htm

3. "Special Virus Cancer Program: Travails of A Biological Moonshot Science Vol. 174 [Regards Special Virus Cancer Program]", Science magazine, 24 December 1971: http://tobaccodocuments.org/ctr/11317483-7488.html?start_page=1&end_page=6

4. Carol Rutz on some CIA experimentation and her own partial abuse history: http://www.the7thfire.com/Politics%20and%20History/CIA_MK-ULTRA_experiments_on_children.htm

5. "Through a Glass, Very Darkly," the 1994 U.S. News and World Report article on the Finders: http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/edocs/edocs.htm

6. Ryerson CKLN Radio in Toronto: Producer Wayne Morris interviews Dr. Colin Ross; aired Sunday April 13, 1997 on CKLN-FM 88.1 in Toronto. The portion quoted above is at http://www.gts.net/waynesworld/mind02-03

7. Excerpts from Dr. Colin Ross' heavily researched and footnoted book "Bluebird: Deliberate Creation of Multiple Personality by Psychiatrists" (note that he is not claiming that multiplicity does not exist, but rather that an "artificial" form of it can be created with the techniques the CIA developed): http://www.datafilter.com/mc/mkultraHypnosisManchurian.html

8. An unpublished article explaining the government's work on developing retroviruses and other biological agents, and exploring the tenability of claims that the U.S. government developed HIV/AIDS itself: http://web.archive.org/web/20030117004459/http://www.geocities.com/mdmorrissey/bury.htm

9. Partial transcript of the July 1, 1969 testimony on synthetic biological agents before the House Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Department of Defense: http://panindigan.tripod.com/aidsdodhear.html

10. African American Publications' bio on Hazel O'Leary: http://www.africanpubs.com/Apps/bios/1169OLearyHazel.asp?pic=none

11. Martin Cannon's "New Hypothesis of Alien Abduction": http://www.subversiveelement.com/MKmartin1.html

12. Stun gun merchant references: http://www.pepperspraymace.com/stunguns.html

13. The effects of a stun gun: http://www.protectmefirst.com/stun_gun_faq.htm

14. Information on Pamela Hudson's theories about cover-up methods used in ritual abuse: http://www.napanet.net/~moiraj/wwwboard/messages/2411.html

15. Anton Chaitkin's report entitled "British psychiatry: from eugenics to assassination": http://www.heliophobe.com/mkultra.htm

16. Ron Patton's article entitled "Project Monarch: Nazi Mind Control": http://www.whale.to/b/patton.html

17. Riverrun's writeup on Operation Overcast: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1206032

18. Directory of information on spin programming, color programming, Project Paperclip, et cetera: http://www.heart7.net/mc.html

19. Mary Jo Schneller’s conference presentation referring to MKULTRA and Project Monarch as synonymous: http://members.aol.com/smartnews/mj00.html

20. Martin Cannon's "Project Monarch: the Tangled Web": http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/6583/project123.html

21. John Gentry's analysis of O'Brien, Phillips, and related issues: http://home.wanadoo.nl/mufooz/Nwo-mc/English/Jon%20Gentry%20Mark%20Phillips-eng.htm

22. Kathleen (formerly Katherine) Sullivan's glimpse into MKULTRA survivorhood: http://home.wanadoo.nl/mufooz/Nwo-mc/English/The%20Story%20of%20Kathleen.htm

23. Wikipedia article on MKULTRA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKULTRA

Other References and Resources:

Cited references:

y. Diary of a survivor: http://thetagirl.diary-x.com/

z. One of the main claims that gets specific about Project Monarch being Subproject 84 of MKULTRA: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/psnews/message/157

Uncited references:

Information on Martin Orne, MKULTRA, Project Artichoke/Bluebird, and books related to their work: http://members.aol.com/smartnews/Sample-Issue-35.htm

Also uncited here, an online quiz related to MKULTRA designations: http://quizilla.com/users/iriock/quizzes/What%20is%20your%20Designation%3F

Project Monarch (thing)