psychiatry's to blome,not the CIA.By O.G. PampLately a great deal <strong>of</strong> dissemblingrhetoric and deliberatemisinformationhave been uttered andwritten about the Canadian victims <strong>of</strong>so-called CIA brainwashingexperiments. The media has,through countless articles, columns,editorials and TV news programs,incessantly restated the prevailing, iftotally false, presumption that thesewere "CIA experiments" initiated,planned and controlled by CIAagents. The perception, especiallypopular among the political left, isthat Dr. Cameron (and Dr. Hebb)were unwitting dupes <strong>of</strong> a sinisterCIA conspiracy. <strong>No</strong>thing could befurther from the truth.The irrefutable fact is that it was apsychiatrist, Dr. D. Ewen Cameron,who solely conceived, directed,controlled and performed theexperiments in his theoretical questto find a "cure" for the metaphoricalmoral or thought "disease" calledschizophrenia. It was Dr. Cameron'stheories, not the CIA's, which weretested at the Allan Memorial between1957 and 1961. It was Dr.Cameron, not the CIA, who brutallyand arrogantly exploited involuntarypatients as guinea pigs for his"medical research." Dr. Cameron'stheory was to "depattern" the humanmind <strong>of</strong> morally and socially"deviant" (non-conformist) thoughtand/ or behaviour by literally wipingthe slate clean with "psychic driving"so the psychiatrist could then imprinton the tabula rasa the morally andsociallycorrect ("mentally healthy")dogmas or values. That in essencewas the sole motive for Dr.Cameron's experiments. It must beremembered that he had developedand refined his research long beforethe CIA funding began and wouldhave conducted them precisely thesame way regardless <strong>of</strong> the CIA'sexistence. The same goes for Dr.Hebb's research. To suggest, as themedia has, that these esteemedpr<strong>of</strong>essionals needed CIA agents tohelp plan their research is not onlyutter nonsense but a misleadingattempt to shift the focus <strong>of</strong>culpabilityfrom Dr. Cameron andpsychiatry to the CIA. The latter is amore easily demonized target.However, Dr. Cameron wasneither a CIA operative nor amadman scientist. He was one <strong>of</strong> theworld's most eminent psychiatrists,recognized as the founder <strong>of</strong>Canadian psychiatry, who served aspresident <strong>of</strong> both the Canadian andAmerican <strong>Psychiatric</strong> Associations inaddition to being the first head <strong>of</strong> theWorld <strong>Psychiatric</strong> Association. Hadhe lived, he would have undoubtedlyfollowed in the footsteps <strong>of</strong> anotherfamed psychiatrist-neurologist, EgasMoniz, who in 1955 received the<strong>No</strong>bel Prize for Medicine formutilating the brains (lobotomies)involuntary "patients" in order to"cure" them <strong>of</strong> their non-conformistthinking and/or behaviour.Dr. Cameron was only the latest <strong>of</strong>a long, infamous line <strong>of</strong> world celebrated psychiatrists who havetortured their victims in thehumanitarian name <strong>of</strong> "treating"them. In fact, the whole history <strong>of</strong>psychiatry is an appalling litany <strong>of</strong>torture, mutilations and oppressions.It is the history <strong>of</strong> the straitjacket, thesack, the confining belt and chair,Cox's swing, Autenrieth mask andchamber, the pear, the box, lacing,lobotomy, infibulation, castration,etc....This is not medicine. This is moralmedicine. Psychiatry has supersededthe Church as society's chief moralguardian. The rhetoricalmetaphoricalexercise <strong>of</strong> brandingsocial, sexual, moral and (as in theSoviet Union) political differences"mental diseases" is as patently shamas their alleged biological origins. Itconfuses brain and mind, nerves withnervousness, medicine withmorality, description withprescription, treatment withpunishment, and cure with control.For centuries, man believed thatdisease was caused by sin. <strong>No</strong>w hebelieves that sin is caused by disease.Stillthe pervasive myth persiststhat the institutional psychiatrist is ahumane and compassionate healerrather than a procrustean moral andpolitical agent <strong>of</strong> the State. Forexample, the truth has long beencarefully concealed that German(Nazi)psychiatrists were more thanwillingcollaborators in the systematicextermination <strong>of</strong> some 300,000"mentally ill," "retarded" and"useless eaters" - leading up to theFinal Solution's gas chambers. Theirpatented justification was that theywere only acting out <strong>of</strong> humanemotivation. This excuse has alwaysbeen trotted out by psychiatrists torationalize the most execrable actsever performed on man in thespurious name <strong>of</strong> medical science.That's the excuse given by Sovietpsychiatrists when they inject painfuldrugs into the veins <strong>of</strong> politicaldissenters suffering from "sluggishschizophrenia." That's the excuse <strong>of</strong><strong>No</strong>rth American psychiatrists whenthey do exactly the same thing tomoral (sexual) and social dissenterssuffering from "paranoidschizophrenia. "<strong>No</strong> wonder the immenselypowerful psychiatric establishmenthas remained damningly silent aboutDr. Cameron's experiments. For itand others to demand "justice" fromthe CIA is to conceal the truth. Theonly true justice for all past andfuture victims <strong>of</strong> psychiatric"treatment" is to unblinkingly exposethe incriminating truth that ultimateresponsibility and blame must rest onDr. Cameron and the "scientific"methods <strong>of</strong> psychiatry. The nineCanadians were victims <strong>of</strong>psychiatry, not CIA skullduggery.O.G. Pamp is a critic <strong>of</strong> thepsychiatric system and a tirelessletter-writer. He is currently writinga book on Ezra Pound.40 Phoenix Rising
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