Physical Control of the Mind: Toward a Psychocivilized Society

by José Manuel Rodríguez Delgado, Ruth Nanda Anshen (editor)

Physical control of the mind by direct manipulation of the brain is a novel event in man's history. In this forty-first volume in World Perspectives Dr. Jose M. R. Delgado describes his pioneer work in implanting electrodes in the brains of cats, monkeys, and men. He shows how, by electrical stimulation of specific cerebral structures, movements can be induced by radio command, hostility may appear or disappear, social hierarchy can be modified, sexual behavior may be changed, and memory, emotions, and the thinking process may be influenced by remote control. Direct nonsensory communication between brains and computers has already been accomplished; and with the aid of miniaturized subcutaneous instruments, messages have been sent to neuronal structures through the intact skin. These discoveries have medical, psychological, sociological, and philosophical implications.

The knowledge of brain physiology thus gained can give man more command over himself and his civilizations development to be welcomed, since awareness is our best defense against manipulation.

The mind is no longer unreachable, and may be the subject of experimental investigations, We need to reorient the aims of civilization to restore a balance between its physical and psychological evolution. Our present mechanized society is dangerously self-perpetuating, and should be psychocivilized in order to develop wiser minds to control intelligently the awesome technological energy discovered by man.

Dr. Delgado believes man's primary objective should be "not the development of machines, but of man himself." He writes lucidly about his work, putting it into the context of what is known about the mind and the brain, and exploring long-range ethical and social implications of his discoveries. The result is an exceedingly important and provocative book.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Science, Conspiracy Theories, History, Neuroscience

281 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Rodríguez Delgado was born in Ronda, in the province of Málaga, Spain in 1915. He received a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Madrid just before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. During the Spanish Civil War he joined the Republican side and served as a medical corpsman while he was a medical student. Rodríguez Delgado was held in a concentration camp for five months after the war ended. After serving in the camp, he had to repeat his M.D. degree, and then gained a Ph.D. at the Ramón y Cajal Institute in Madrid.

Rodríguez Delgado's father was an eye doctor and he had planned to follow in his footsteps. However, once he discovered the writings of Santiago Ramón y Cajal, a Nobel laureate in 1906, and after having spent some time in a physiology laboratory, Delgado no longer wanted to be an eye doctor. Delgado became captivated by "the many mysteries of the brain. How little was known then. How little is known now!”

In 1946 Rodríguez Delgado won a fellowship at Yale University in the department of physiology under the direction of John F. Fulton. In 1950, Rodríguez Delgado accepted a position in the physiology department which at the time was headed by John Fulton. By 1952, he had co-authored his first paper on implanting electrodes into humans.

The Spanish minister of Education, Villar Palasí, asked Rodríguez Delgado to help organize a new medical school at the Autonomous University of Madrid. Rodríguez Delgado accepted Palasí's proposal and relocated to Spain with his wife and two children in 1974.

Rodríguez Delgado had last moved with his wife, Caroline, to San Diego, California before his death on September 15, 2011.

Reviews

[Randal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Equal parts fascinating and disturbing! - Delgado, once a professor of physiology at Yale, outlines his research into direct manipulation of mental behaviors, research that involved both animals and humans having electrodes inserted in their brains controlled with electrical signals.
At a glance, this sounds like fiction or pseudoscience, until you realize that these are real experiments and real results. As Delgado states, "The surprising fact is that, depending on its location, electrical stimulation of the brain is able to evoke not only simple responses but also complex and well-organized behavior which may be indistinguishable from spontaneous activity" (101).
That all this research was done in 1960s just makes it even more interesting. If you read this in light of our current knowledge of what organizations like the CIA were doing in the 1960s related to mind control, the book becomes a strange period piece.
The book was an engrossing read, but the philosophical conclusions leave much room for debate, especially because Delgado essentially states that the individual is inconsequential when compared to the "greater good." Elsewhere he quotes from an M.M. Ketchel article called "Should Birth Control be Mandatory?", in which Ketchel states, "Voluntary methods are to be preferred but only if they work. If they do not, then involuntary controls must be imposed..."
This line of thinking is inherently immoral, and the scientific arrogance that underlies it is part of why this book is disturbing. Still this was a great read, and Delgado was well-known and respected, if controversial, in his time. I recommend this book to anyone interested in neuroscience, psychology, or anything brain-related.

[Wayne Edward · Rating 1 out of 5]

Psychiatric Control of Society

This is a lengthy essay by a participant in 1950s-era MKULTRA human experiments on how the human mind can be civilized. A rather stupid look at the brain as cause, humans as stimulus-response effect and how the tender ministrations of “Big Brother” psychiatry can bring about a “psychocivilized” society. Check out MKULTRA and the author of this book on Wikipedia for more data. So why should anyone care? Psychiatry has exhumed this horrific technology in the form of “electroceuticals” magnetic and electrical brain stimulation, electroconvulsive “therapy” and much more.

[Willie Kirschner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is 50 years old and was suggested to me by one of the researchers, who was involved in some of the research cited in the book. While the summary of the research is interesting, what impressed me the most was the author's suggestions on the additional research that needed to be done.

I wonder how much follow up research has been done and where we are with this now?? Does someone know of a follow up book which would be able to tell me what additional research has been done in the last 50 years and ideas which have come from that research?

Very interesting topic!

[Rhizomal Ennui · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you value your time and have the most basic laymen knowledge about animal brains skip the first 200 or so pages. You dont have to be curious like me, there really isnt any necessary information.

The last part is vaguely interesting for the unorthodox traditionally 'evil' position it advocates for dressed up in the most unoffensive humanitarian relativist naturalist ideology you could think of. It is a shame nobody picked up the subject and turned the ideas into a full fledged system.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 5 out of 5]

interesting quotes over his lifetime

We need a program of psychosurgery for political control of our society. The purpose is physical control of the mind. Everyone who deviates from the given norm can be surgically mutilated... The individual may think that the most important reality is his own existence, but this is only his personal point of view. This lacks historical perspective. Man does not have the right to develop his own mind. This kind of liberal orientation has great appeal. We must electronically control the brain. Someday armies and generals will be controlled by electric stimulation of the brain.

Jose Manuel Rodriguez Delgado

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Can you avoid knowledge? You cannot! Can you avoid technology? You cannot! Things are going to go ahead in spite of ethics, in spite of your personal beliefs, in spite of everything.

Jose Manuel Rodriguez Delgado

[Gulliver's Bad Trip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here is another forgotten Norbert Wiener follower, cybernetics-inspired scientist and with yet another book that I seem to overrate for no reason but that it is as good as it is actually wrong in the long run. In other words, its more and more obvious mistakes and rationalizations show how things actually are, or at the very least, ended up being completely irrational in its fruition. Unfortunately, this is one of the few, if not the only one, prophetic book of the 1968 era that comes closer and closer of totally consummating itself in its worst. Of course that not so much conveniently or officially as propagandized by the author but even so, technically speaking, the fundamentals of so-called 'Psychocivilization' without doubt are already consolidated in the 21st century along with its transhumanist trends.

After a quick glimpse on his sparse biographical details over the internet, Delgado seems like a neurophysiologist variation of Céline, that is, when young he had the right age to enlist in the first army of the first war that appeared ahead of him, without much reflection or personal motivations, just to end up being arrested, socially and politically 'reformed' and wandering the world since then, helping and being helped, harming and conspiring against others as much as suffering persecutions and injustices himself, participating in good and bad events, with joys and misfortunes, voluntarily or not, such as taking part in fatal illegal abortions or in infamous human experiments, be it as a guinea pig or as the experimenter.

[GONZA · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the things written here (mostly the experiments on the animals) were already known to me, but together with experiments of humans show a very scary picture all together, still very interesting anyway.

Alcune delle cose scritte qui le avevo giá studiate (fondamentalmente tutti gli esperimenti sugli animali) ma sommate a quelle sugli umani danno un quadro d'insieme abbastanza preoccupante, che resta comunque molto interessante.

[Arturo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Las reflexiones de Rodríguez-Delgado apenas tienen vigencia científica, pero constituyen un testimonio apasionante sobre los primeros experimentos para comprender la correspondencia entre la activación de áreas cerebrales y el comportamiento humano. La crudeza del libro, que incluye fotografías de primates con el cuero cabelludo extirpado (para colocar electrones), unida a la leyenda negra que rodea al propio Rodríguez-Delgado (vinculado a los experimentos humanos del MK-Ultra), permite salvar una obra que con su verdad histórica dice mucho más que con ese discurso transhumanista (bastante simplón) que la recorre y que tanto obsesionaba al propio Delgado.

[Dan Zarfati · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very important and scary book, by Dr Delgado AKA Frankenstein, now seriously, this book is incredibly disturbing, it describes the research on behaviourism in a crude but functional sense, proving that it does work, one can only wonder what the powers to be have done with the potential of this work, and the level of control that they can deploy these technologies now, I believe anyone who does not take this seriously is foolishness, because his procedures have a lot to offer to the elites.

[TheRisingHuman TheRisingHuman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Check out "Physical Control of the Mind: Toward a Psychocivilized Society" Finally in a Digital format First time on GooglePlay

https://play.google.com/store/books/d...

[Felix Delong · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for everyone who is serious about exploring of human mind and by extention, the world.

[Dan DalMonte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delgado discusses his theory of improving civilization by controlling the mind remotely. A little creepy, but he is very thoughtful and compelling.

[Roberto Scaruffi]

Wonderful

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went into this book thinking Delgado was going to be insane. However, he aptly addresses any misconceptions of his work the reader might have in the second half of the book, and provides an interesting (if not viable) approach to human education, and how the responsibility for that education should be doled out to everyone, rather than just an elite. The goal is ultimately to help humans make more controlled choices, and, although putting electrical stimulation in the brain is kind of a spooky thought, I left this reading with a much higher opinion of Delgado than I held previously.