The CIA both accused the Communists of using brainwashing and tried to make it work for its own purposes. These events had a significant influence on Japan.
by Toshihiro Ota*
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*A lecture given at the symposium organized by the Institut français de recherche sur l’Asie de l’Est (IFRAE), Paris, March 20, 2025, “L’héritage de l’affaire Aum à la société japonaise: 30 ans après les attentats au gaz sarin du métro de Tokyo.”
The concepts of “brainwashing” and “mind control” are not very old. They appeared in the middle of the 20th century, when World War II ended and the Cold War between East and West began.
In 1947, the United States established the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in response to the deepening East-West divide worldwide. One of the CIA’s earliest projects was MK Ultra. MK Ultra originated the mind-control fantasy and significantly influenced Aum Shinrikyo.
The origin of this was the reports that American soldiers who had been taken prisoner during the Korean War, which began in 1950, were transforming into communists one after another. CIA agent and journalist Edward Hunter claimed that China had developed a technique for “brainwashing,” and published a book in 1951 titled “Brain-Washing in Red China: The Calculated Destruction of Men’s Minds.” This is how the concept of “brainwashing” spread throughout the world.
The newly established CIA perceived this news as a serious threat. If technology that could scientifically manipulate the human mind truly existed, it would not only enable unrestricted espionage and assassination, but eventually lead to the world being completely dominated by communism. Therefore, in 1953, the CIA launched MK Ultra and devoted its efforts to investigating the matter.
The details of MK Ultra are unclear because several documents were destroyed in 1973. However, the outline of the project is now known from the discovery of remaining papers and the testimony of those involved.
One of the earliest studies on this subject is Gordon Thomas’s book “Journey into Madness” (1989). The book was translated into Japanese in 1991, and it is known that it was read within Aum.
Recently, Stephen Kinzer published a detailed study titled “Poisoner in Chief” (2019). This book shows that the mind control fantasies of the CIA had a significant impact on counterculture in general, so it is a must-read for Aum research.
MK Ultra was defined as “a project to develop chemical, biological, and radioactive substances that could be used in covert operations to manipulate human behavior.” It was vigorously promoted for about ten years from 1953. In addition to this main project, the number of subprojects reached 149, and the research subjects ranged from radiation exposure, electric shock, psychology and psychiatry, sleep deprivation and sensory deprivation, to graphology, paramilitary tools, hypnosis, magic tricks, and sexual seduction.
Among these, the CIA placed particular emphasis on the hallucinogenic drug LSD. LSD was discovered by the Swiss company Sandoz in 1943, and after World War II, it became known to have a substantial effect on the mind. The CIA believed that this new drug could be used to manipulate people’s minds at will, and conducted many secret experiments.
The CIA set up “safe houses” in various locations in the United States and abroad, where they secretly administered LSD to visitors and recorded their reactions. They also conducted long-term experiments on prison inmates, administering large doses of LSD over long periods of time. Even fellow chemist Frank Olson was the target of an LSD experiment, and died in 1953 after falling from a hotel following a mental breakdown. About this case, Netflix produced a documentary series called “Wormwood” in 2017.
Furthermore, while keeping the details of the project secret, the CIA funded various institutions, including universities, hospitals, and prisons, to cooperate in the experiments. The person widely known as the scientific leader of MK Ultra was Donald Ewen Cameron, a psychiatrist who served as director of the Allan Memorial Institute in Canada.
He originally aspired to revolutionize psychiatry by discovering scientific methods to change human attitudes and beliefs. He used a technique in which he isolated patients in a closed room, reset their consciousness with frequent electric shocks, and then reconstructed it by compelling them to listen to recorded tapes repeatedly. Cameron called this technique “psychic driving.”
However, looking at the results, almost all of MK Ultra’s attempts to discover scientific techniques for manipulating the human mind failed. By the 1960s, many researchers, including Sidney Gottlieb, the project’s director, had begun to give up on its realization. By that time, it had also become clear that techniques such as “brainwashing” and “mind control” had never been developed in the communist bloc. Then, following the Watergate scandal in 1972, which cast suspicion on the CIA, the director at the time decided to destroy the project’s documents in 1973.
In this way, MK Ultra ended, but its aftereffects have continued to linger persistently. One example of this is the global popularity of LSD, which was fueled by the numerous experiments carried out under the project.
LSD was not useful as a tool to secretly manipulate and control people’s minds, but instead was welcomed within the counterculture as a drug that could bring about profound religious experiences and altered consciousness. Today, there is even a theory that counterculture heroes such as Timothy Leary, known as the “LSD guru,” and Allen Ginsberg, one of the leading figures of the “Beatnik movement,” were reportedly the offspring of MK Ultra experiments.
Another phenomenon is the spread of the “MK Ultra conspiracy theory.” The fact that the project’s documents were destroyed and its details remain unknown has led many people to harbor suspicions and speculation. This led to the idea that MK Ultra had not actually failed, and that the CIA was secretly maintaining and operating mind control technology.
One of the early representatives of the MK Ultra conspiracy theory was radio announcer May Brussel. On her radio program, she claimed that the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King Jr., and John Lennon, as well as the mass suicide at the People’s Temple, were caused by CIA mind control.
These conspiracy theories are still being carried on today by Cathy O’Brien, who claims to have been an MK Ultra test subject and published a book titled “Transformation of America” in 1995, and David Icke, a well-known advocate of the “reptilian conspiracy theory.”
