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Journey into Madness: Medical Torture and the Mind Controllers

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The first fully detailed investigation of secret mind-control experiments and medical tortures that are still being performed around the world--a real life Manchurian Candidate expose.

544 pages, Paperback

First published December 10, 1987

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About the author

Gordon Thomas

119 books197 followers
Gordon Thomas (born 1933) is a Welsh author who has written more than fifty books.
Thomas was born in Wales, in a cemetery keeper's cottage where his grandmother lived. He had his first story published at nine years old in a Boy's Own Paper competition. With his father in the RAF, he traveled widely and was educated at the Cairo High School, the Maritz Brothers (in Port Elizabeth, South Africa) and, lastly, at Bedford Modern School. His first book, completed at the age of seventeen, is the story of a British spy in Russia during World War II, titled Descent Into Danger. He refused the offer of a job at a university in order to accompany a traveling fair for a year: he used those experiences for his novel, Bed of Nails. Since then his books have been published worldwide. He has been a foreign correspondent beginning with the Suez Crisis and ending with the first Gulf War. He was a BBC writer/producer for three flagship BBC programmes: Man Alive, Tomorrow's World and Horizon.

He is a regular contributor to Facta, the respected monthly Japanese news magazine, and he lectures widely on the secret world of intelligence. He also provides expert analysis on intelligence for US and European television and radio programs.His book Gideon's Spies: Mossad's Secret Warriors became a major documentary for Channel Four that he wrote and narrated: The Spy Machine. It followed three years of research during which he was given unprecedented access to Mossad’s main personnel. The documentary was co-produced by Open Media and Israfilm.

Gideon's Spies: Mossad's Secret Warriors has so far been published in 16 languages. A source for this book was Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli intelligence agent, and legendary Israeli spy Rafi Eitan. According to Charles Foster in Contemporary Review: "Writers who know their place are few and far between: fortunately Mr Thomas is one of them. By keeping to his place as a tremendous storyteller without a preacher's pretensions, he has put his book amongst the important chronicles of the state of Israel."

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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
Profile Image for Erik Graff.
5,164 reviews1,444 followers
January 2, 2014
Gordon Thomas is a journalist, not an historian. As might be expected, his Journey into Madness reads well, but hasn't the structure and organized detail one would expect of a history. Instead of an exhaustive overview of what is known of CIA forays into trying to psychologically control people, Thomas gives snapshots of particular events and persons, affording a general sense of just how pernicious and influential our CIA has been in the modern medical history of torture.

Thomas frames his book in terms of William Buckley, the station chief of the CIA operation in Lebanon who was abducted there in 1984 and died, still in captivity, over a year later of untreated pneumonia. Thomas suggests that he was personal friends with Buckley, but by book's end one knows so much about the antithetical values held by the author and his subject that one doubts the friendship could have been very close--or are we to believe that it was only in researching his book that Thomas came to recognize what monsters Buckley and his crew really were?

In so far as the book has a thesis it is that all physicians, be they trained in the West, in the Soviet Union or in the Islamic world, share a common ethos. These shared values, however, are commonly betrayed by physicians in the pay of governments and the governments which encourage physicians to break their oaths are legion.

Particular attention is paid the United States of America and its intelligence arms, especially the CIA, because much of the primary research in modern torture techniques was funded and first applied by our government. These techniques include psychosurgery, electroshock, insulin shock, hypnosis, electro-magnetic field propagation, induced sleep, psychic driving, psychotropics etc. There are some graphic descriptions of some of these techniques, many of which have also been used in psychiatry, sometimes with more benign intentions.

Other than elaborating the speculations of the CIA and other intelligence agencies about the tortures undergone by Mr. Buckley before his death, Thomas' claims are well-documented and noted. In addition to the claims about torture techniques and mind-control experiments he briefly digresses into other documented CIA "studies" involving clairvoyance, voodoo, Satanism and the like.

Although it is very depressing to read about how truly evil the executive branch of our government is and has been since at least the beginning of the Cold War, this book is a page-turner. I finished the thing in under two days, breaking off reading spells only because I had to.
Profile Image for Javier Casado.
Author 17 books93 followers
August 17, 2017
Empecé este libro con cierto recelo, por lo sensacionalista del título; por un lado, el propio título ya creaba interés, pero por otro, podría encontrarme con algún panfleto de alto sensacionalismo y escasa credibilidad. Sin embargo, en cuanto empecé a leerlo me llevé una sorpresa muy agradable: se trata de un libro razonablemente bien escrito y ameno, y sobre todo muy interesante. Por si fuera poco, su autor es un periodista galés muy reconocido y con larga experiencia en asuntos de política internacional en general, y servicios secretos en particular. Y para terminar de poner la guinda, el libro está basado en las confidencias que le hizo un íntimo amigo suyo que era un agente de la CIA (ya fallecido, lo que le da libertad para escribir las confidencias que le hizo) con un amplio historial operativo: William Buckley.

El libro se lee casi como una novela, lo cual ya es un gran punto a favor. Hay partes dialogadas, escenificación de situaciones, etc. Nada que ver con un ensayo típico, a ratos parece una novela de espías, solo que real. Buckley es el protagonista, como fuente de su contenido. Pero en realidad está principalmente dedicado a denunciar los métodos del Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, un médico con una elevada posición en la CIA que desarrolló métodos de tortura que poco lo diferencian de personajes como Josef Mengele. Los métodos de Gottlieb fueron finalmente expuestos a la luz y el escándalo rodeó a la Agencia Central de Inteligencia durante unos años; pero aquí no hubo juicios de Nürenberg, y Gottlieb terminó años después muriendo plácidamente en su cama.

En este libro conoceremos esta historia como en una interesante película de política y espionaje, sólo que sabiendo que es real. En realidad, tomando como hilo conductor la vida del agente Buckley, el texto hace un sorprendente y revelador recorrido por más de 30 años de la historia de la agencia de inteligencia norteamericana, entre los años 50 y finales de los 80. Y aunque el programa de control mental establecido bajo el apelativo de MK-ULTRA ocupa la mayor parte de la atención, conoceremos también otras actividades de la CIA a lo largo de su historia, en medio de situaciones como las guerras de Corea o Vietnam, el fiasco de Bahía de Cochinos en Cuba, el asesinato de Kennedy, el caso Watergate o las actividades en Oriente Medio, entre muchos otros.

El texto se mueve siempre entre extremos: de los artilugios propios de una película de James Bond, como los maletines con un incinerador incorporado que volatiliza la información contenida en ellos si no se abren siguiendo una pauta determinada, hasta los proyectos más absurdos o extravagantes, más dignos de una parodia hollywoodiense, como los realizados con videntes o invocadores del diablo, o pretendiendo sublevar a la población de países comunistas introduciendo dentífricos con olor a diarrea. Increíble, pero cierto; como suele decirse, la realidad supera a la ficción más imaginativa. Pero entre todo ello, asesinatos y torturas apoyadas por un estado democrático; programas de experimentación con seres humanos, desde los que utilizaban elementos “prescindibles” (agentes enemigos capturados, prisioneros de guerra…) hasta los realizados subrepticiamente con la propia población civil norteamericana o canadiense. Actitudes, como decía al principio, que no se diferencian de los programas de experimentación nazis con judíos, pero realizados por los Estados Unidos en la actualidad. Y actividades que, según denuncian organismos internacionales, siguen realizándose en numerosos países del mundo. De hecho, las escasas filtraciones que se han obtenido del trato a los prisioneros de Guantánamo o de asuntos como el de Abu Graib parecen revelar que probablemente los mismos Estados Unidos mantienen en la actualidad algunas de las prácticas denunciadas en este libro, seguramente junto con otras que se hayan ido desarrollando en las últimas décadas.

La rigurosidad del libro está garantizada: decenas de referencias, de entrevistas a los protagonistas de la historia, de resultados de investigaciones oficiales (gran parte de los asuntos narrados en el libro terminaron saliendo a la luz en los Estados Unidos, provocando una investigación pública), y, sobre todo, las confidencias de un agente como William Buckley, íntimo amigo del escritor, dan solidez al texto. Saber que lo que leemos es rigurosamente cierto crea una mezcla de estupor, incredulidad y puro asco. Entre la extrema sordidez y el más chabacano absurdo, las actividades de la CIA reveladas en este libro sólo pueden expresarse con unos adjetivos de lo más tópicos, pero totalmente aplicables: increíble, pero cierto.

Recomiendo este libro a todo el mundo. Primero, porque no me cansaré de decir que estas cosas hay que conocerlas; las vulneraciones de los derechos humanos, los abusos que realizan gobiernos democráticos en nuestro nombre y con nuestros impuestos, deben ser conocidos por todos. Pero es que, además, el libro resulta a la vez interesante, divertido y… sí, duro, muy duro en algunos fragmentos (no tantos, ya que no se abusa en absoluto de este recurso fácil), pero necesario. Para colmo, el estilo del autor resulta por lo general bastante ameno, y salvo alguna parte relativa a la experimentación mental que resulta algo más pesada, se lee con interés y agilidad. En resumen: muy recomendable, a poco que tengáis interés en conocer algunos de los secretos más turbios del espionaje, la política internacional… y el desprecio por los derechos humanos.
Profile Image for James.
15 reviews1 follower
November 26, 2008
Having had a girlfriend in the early 70s whose brother was a conscientious objector, I knew of army experiments with mind altering drugs way back then. This book takes us back even further into the post-Korean War nexus of Cold Warriors in the intelligence and psychiatric communities. I had run across the name of one of these spook shrinks before in a research paper I wrote back then, but I learned, to my horror, a great deal more about him in this book. The book is quite dated, I think, but (a) it's a good introduction to the history of American mind control efforts and (b) it gives us no reason to think that, post-Guantanamo, the intelligence community has lost its interest in the subject. I should think a more recent book is needed, one that would bring the psychopharmacology of the 80s, 90s, and 21st century into the discussion.
Profile Image for Shawn.
946 reviews233 followers
January 23, 2013
The sad truth about what we (the U.S.) did (mostly in Canada) to innocent people - and none of it is conspiracy stuff!
Profile Image for Scarlet Cameo.
661 reviews411 followers
October 6, 2015
¿Estas pensando en leer esté libro? Una sugerencia, primero preguntate ¿Mi mente es hiperactiva y proyecta hasta los dolores que no he sentido antes de que me percate de que lo está haciéndo? Sí es así lee este libro con precaución, en serio, porque te vas a encontrar algunas cosas que te van a poner la piel de gallina.

La historia aquí presentada puede ser muy desgarradora, esta narrada del punto de vista de un periodista así que no es precisamente poética, pero es cruda, lo que te cuenta es real y sí, es horrible.

Al terminar este libro lo único que podrás pensar es que jodido está el mundo (a partir de ahí nos adentramos al vórtice de la depresión).
Profile Image for Estephania.
128 reviews7 followers
December 7, 2019
Al iniciar esta lectura no sabía exactamente qué esperar. Es mas bien una denuncia a las malas prácticas médicas de un grupo de psiquiatras estadounidenses, quienes dan un uso poco ético a su profesión realizando actos de tortura y denigración a prisioneros de diversos lugares del mundo, todo esto con la finalidad de controlar la mente humana.

En general me pareció un buen libro, aunque se me hizo denso en algunas partes. Fue muy interesante saber cómo se desarrollaban los experimentos, la obsesión de psiquiatras y psicoanalistas con lograr controlar la mente, a tal punto de hacer mal uso de sus conocimientos y abusar de la confiabilidad que a ellos se suele otorgar, llevando a cabo actos horrorosos y vulnerando los derechos humanos sin piedad.

Ya contaba con ciertos conocimientos sobre la lobotomía y los electroshocks, lo que realmente me hizo cerrar el libro en más de una ocasión fueron los testimonios de los sobrevivientes y de algunos familiares, además de la rabia por la frialdad de quienes llevaron a cabo estos experimentos.

La única crítica que puedo hacer al autor es que al finalizar su ensayo da a entender que ya no existen médicos que realicen atrocidades como las que ha narrado, en lo personal no creo que sea así.
Profile Image for Israel.
225 reviews20 followers
May 25, 2007
En este trabajo Gordon ha realizado una cruda denuncia del uso de la psiquiatría en el espionaje y en concreto, del papel de los expertos de la CIA que en épocas recientes se vieron envueltos en un programa de investigación en el área de la tortura sicológica a través de la aplicación de métodos tan terribles como el lavado de cerebro, las lobotomias, los electroshocks, el control mental, el aislamiento y otros tormentos inhumanos y degradantes.

Aquí el autor da a conocer de primera mano un testimonio escalofriante a través de unos protagonistas reales, reputados siquiatras inmersos en el programa más siniestro jamás creado por un gobierno, sus víctimas y los agentes que lo hicieron posible.
Profile Image for Caro.
368 reviews24 followers
January 8, 2017
I really like it this book. I took it in a bookstore just because the title sounded interesting. i do not regret my decision. Thomas knows how to tell the story of the experiments of the CIA in the 50's and 60's. He also describe to us the consequences of these experiments. Along with this story Thomas also show us the story of the CIA and some of their top agents and what happen with them. Is very interesting to see how all the stories that at the beginning did not seem so related start to make sense with the development of the book.
82 reviews6 followers
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September 1, 2016
Seems to be the same info that I was getting in "The Search for the Manchurian Candidate", as it pertains to what the title is alluding to, complete with several chapters about a cardboard, villainous Mucsleman in the beginning. I suppose to demonstrate that the actions begun by the CIA following Project Paperclip, some 30 or 40 odd years prior to the Evil Dr. Cobra MuhamMad (Here's a photo: http://thumbs.ebaystatic.com/images/g... ) -- or whatever they called him -- beginning his reign of terror, was preventive medicine. That's not quite fair, he's, at least, given an origin story, which is more than any of the "Good" Doctors and spy types get. They're mostly just portrayed as what? Naive idealists? Pragmatists? The medicine men watchers on the wall? Not exactly glowingly, but still, this was the '80s, ya know? I don't. I'd say you'd never have this sort of behavior if it were their own family ... But, well ... Obviously, speaking from personal experience...

People committing atrocities are all over the fucking place ...
You don't have to go very far and the one taking place across the globe doesn't cancel out the one happening in your back yard. Literally*. Unless no one cares, I suppose. Especially if it's happening to you. Then you're shit-out-of-luck, as they say. Just money & power games, same as it ever was, with MDs being pushed around like game pieces on the board to consolidate... Let's just say this knowledge spirals up, not down. But the results always are implemented in the opposite direction, whatever the millennium, and whether you're lounging in a tower in the desert or one somewhere a little less sandy. Truly Olde Money isn't likely to be effected when it decides to throw the shit at the fan. Discounting the whole guillotine thing a few years back, of course. I'd be willing to bet that's how the invisible money keeps the visible monied in line knowadays though, huh? Makes 'em watch Hugo Documentaries.

In any case, I didn't read the whole book -- more or less just skimmed it after about a 100 pgs. or so, but for the most part this information is available all over the internet, and like I said, in that other book I mentioned. I was just, more or less, verifying for myself that it's there in print. So, you know, if I ever have another conversation with anyone, they won't shoot back with, "Pishaw, you silly twat, you don't actually believe that do you!"

Besides, we can't afford any late fees, can we? Slow reader. More pinholes in my bike tires. They were careful not to push them entirely through this time, so I can't claim it's impossible.

In an entirely unrelated story, someone may have been stalking and shooting at me, as I was out on my daily jog today. Does a bullet make a sort of paper rustling noise through the tall grass and bushes followed by, like, a rock violently impacting the ground sound a second or two after you hear a gunshot if someone is shooting at you? If so I changed the trajectory of the bullet with my adrenaline infused, startled fear upon hearing the gunshot so close, and they missed. Initially I was walking, as I sometimes do on occasion. Thinking it may have been someone target shooting, with bad aim, I begin jogging to get out of the area. When I was a good 2 or 300 hundred yards further away I heard a second shot, but oddly it seemed no further away and from an entirely different angle. I began running. Three more shots. Coulda been nothing. Maybe with my green shorts and the black shirt and sweat shorts I had thrown over my shoulder they thought I was a deer, huh? Who knows. In any case. Things have a way of boomeranging around me inexecplicably, and heading back towards where they originated from. Probably not a great idea to shoot at me, "if you strike me down, I will rise up and be more powerful than you can poss..." Or whatever it was that space-wizard said. Don't blame me. I'm guessing this whole reality bending business was grown in a petri dish at McGill University or the Xaverian Academy or wherever. Got nothing to do with me, folks. Seriously though, best not to shoot at bipeds in areas not designated for hunting to begin with. I'm not nearly hairy enough to be mistaken for Sasquatch, green shorts or no.

*(Spellcheck tried to replace that T in literally w/ a B, draw your own conclusions. No fucking kidding and no Freudian slip of the fingers. Besides, I'm pretty certain, that regardless of what country you reside in, political designations are, for the most part, just there for the plebes to claim a team and determine which agenda is imposed for 4 years, either way they push the wheel around in another 4 or 8 or 12 to get through whatever they're trying to implement. Parties have a way of exchanging names and agendas when the public gets tired of the same ol', same ol'. It's the long view they're concerned with. Not the piddling squabbles that rarely amount to anything other than people yelling that they're "mad as hell..etc" It seems to sometimes make people feel better though and it gives the comedy guys, you know other than, like Carlin and Kaufman, that knew the whole thing was bullshit and didn't pretend otherwise, something to talk about, so... Besides, if you don't like it they'll just blow the whole thing up and go live on a luxury aircraft carrier for the next few centuries 'til it all blows over, no skin off their backs. Minor inconvenience. You know, like Noah's bosses that had him follow them around on a stinking cruise ship full of cattle and chickens and donkeys and whatnot, so they'd have something to eat other than mayonnaise from heaven. Had to have SOMEONE that can sail. Space Chariots require a lot of jet fuel and there's only so much to go around, you know? Or conversely, insert whatever other Flood/catastrophe/Endofcivilization/ThankgoodnessforGod/Gods mythology you've got.)
Profile Image for Joely.
35 reviews3 followers
February 16, 2022
The structure of this book is absolutely confounding. The narrative jumps time periods often with little to connect them, and the first part and third part of the book have almost nothing to do with the second part. The second part is about the MKUltra program and Dr. Ewen Cameron, and it is very enlightening and informative. The first and third parts are about late 1980's global politics involving many many people with very little narrative that makes sense. The author is attempting to present a grand narrative that the CIA's search for mind control methods greatly affected the world, which is true, but the author is unable to connect the dots himself. (Check out A Question of Torture by Alfred McCoy for a better attempt) I would only recommend this book for people looking for more information on Dr. Ewen Cameron as that is the most complete narrative of the book.
Profile Image for Henry.
9 reviews1 follower
December 19, 2024
I do not think some of the stuff he says in this is true. The allegation that Cameron and Dulles knew each other has never appeared in any other document, book, testimony, etc. except those which cite Thomas (like McCoy). I understand why he doesn't but I wish there was more transparency on the sourcing of this stuff so I could get a sense of who in the CIA told him this. Otherwise, I think you're better off using different sources when studying Subproject 68/the Cameron Experiments.
29 reviews
April 18, 2018
Ajakirjanduslikus stiilis ülevaade CIA programmist MKUltra, mille põhieesmärgiks oli kontrolli saavutamine inimese mõtete üle ja inimese "mina" murdmine. Ühtlasi ka ülevaade psühholoogia ja psühhiaatria väljakujunemisest. Üldiselt hea raamat,kuid kahjuks jäi häirima uuriva ajakirjanduse stiilis kirjutatud tekst, mis hakkas pikapeale häirima ajaloolise ülevaate saamist ja faktide kinnistamist.
16 reviews
September 8, 2018
Half new information, half verbatim text from Journey Into Madness. Like several of Thomas's late period works, this piece has been poorly edited and is generally somewhat unsatisfactory. It's less a history of CIA mind control and germ warfare than it is a biography of William Buckley's involvement in the same.
Profile Image for Terri Mitchell.
Author 1 book2 followers
January 30, 2021
Oh, my goodness. This is such a dark, frightening insight into intensely scary practices. This book disturbed me. There is no "un-reading" it. It is quite sickening to think people can do this to others. It is wrong, on so many levels.
Profile Image for Constance.
89 reviews14 followers
April 17, 2020
"Nadie te sorprende tanto como aquellos en quienes confías"
Profile Image for Liquidlasagna.
2,963 reviews107 followers
June 22, 2020
There is some highly interesting information in this book that isn't touched on much in other works

John Marks In Search of the Manchurian Candidate would go nicely with this one
Profile Image for Steve Jones.
152 reviews2 followers
March 7, 2016
Amazing! And not in a good way. Amazing in that, these people could get way with what they did, and probably are still doing. To know that there are people out there who are in positions of trust who abuse that trust in the name of 'national security' is scary. Makes you wonder if all the new diseases and viruses that have cropped up over the last 100 years have something to do with human meddling rather than evolution. A good read because of the way it has been written and the terrible truth it exposes. A sad read because of the victims stories. Be prepared to be horrified.
Profile Image for April (The Steadfast Reader).
406 reviews49 followers
May 29, 2009
Excellent book outlining medical abuse not only of the CIA, but major terrorist organizations and many foriegn governments. It makes me shiver to think of Guantanomo which is much more recent. The book was published in 1989, making it a little dated, but I still thing fiercely relevant.
Profile Image for Slávek Rydval.
360 reviews29 followers
May 30, 2010
This book stays on the surface and doesn't uncover almost anything secret about mind control. The term "history" in the title is also controversial. This book is interesting reading but don't infer according to the title.
Profile Image for Chuck White.
23 reviews1 follower
January 20, 2013
Have you ever wondered if our government can really be as dirty as some make it out to be? Well, in another time atleast certain parts of our government has been. This book is an eye opener and a good read.
41 reviews1 follower
October 12, 2022
This book is a disorganized mess - jumping all over the place, overly academic at times that feels more like a college thesis that gets bogged down and very little of the book deals with the CIAs mind control programs (15%)....I was actually annoyed that I read it.
145 reviews1 follower
January 6, 2023
Another Gordon Thomas well research book. Interesting reading that will help you to understand events that happened 30 years later.
There is a documentary in Netflix about this called "Wormwood".
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