The Mind Control Doctor: Jolly West & MK-ULTRA’s Missing Link

Summary

Fringe Beyond Limits: "The Mind Control Doctor: Jolly West & MK-ULTRA’s Missing Link"
Original Air Date: June 4, 2026
Hosts: Frank, Brie, Lynette

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Episode Overview

This deep-dive episode unpacks the enigmatic life and career of Dr. Louis "Jolly" West—a psychiatrist whose path led from humble immigrant roots to a shadowy world of Cold War mind control experiments and public controversy. The hosts explore West's pivotal role in the notorious CIA MK-ULTRA program, his controversial research on hypnosis, memory manipulation, drugs like LSD, and his involvement with infamous figures such as Jack Ruby and potentially Charles Manson. With their trademark blend of skepticism, humor, and cultural commentary, Frank, Brie, and Lynette probe the ethical dilemmas and conspiracy-laden legacy surrounding ‘Jolly’ West, raising timeless questions about the boundaries between healing, power, and the manipulation of the human mind.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Life & Psychological Curiosity

[09:59 – 15:49]

• West was born in 1924 Brooklyn, son of a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant and a disciplined piano teacher. Moved to Wisconsin during the Great Depression.
• Developed an early fascination with identity, resilience, and what makes people break under pressure—an interest sparked by observing his family during hard times.
• Nicknamed "Jolly" (a twist on his middle name, Jolyon), he used humor as both social charm and a shield to probe into uncomfortable psychological territory.
• Drove early interest in psychiatry, focusing on questions like: “Why does the mind break under pressure? Why do some people survive trauma while others collapse?” (Frank, 09:59)

2. Rise to Psychiatric Prominence & Hypnosis Studies

[17:01 – 18:36]

• Fast-tracked as a WWII Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) student, pushed quickly through medical training (MD earned in 1949).
• Immersed himself in psychiatry and experimental approaches—especially hypnosis, suggestion, trauma, and the malleability of memory.
• Early clinical work at Payne Whitney Clinic (Cornell) focused on dissociation, trauma, and hypnosis, building a reputation for boldness and innovation.

3. Brainwashing and the Korean War POWs

[22:25 – 30:20]

• West became chief of psychiatry at Lackland Air Force Base, tasked with interviewing repatriated POWs who had ‘confessed’ to crimes in North Korean propaganda.
• “There was no secret machine or magnetic drug... the techniques were brutally simple.” (Frank, 27:03)
• Techniques identified: Sleep deprivation, starvation, isolation, unpredictable punishments, and relentless propaganda.
• Developed the influential “Triple D” model:
  • Debility: Wear down through exhaustion/hunger
  • Dependency: Make captives reliant for their needs
  • Dread: Instill constant fear through threats and capricious punishment

Notable Quote

"If crude deprivation could achieve this much, what might science achieve? What if hypnosis could replicate dependency without starvation? What if drugs could induce dread or dissociation?"
— Frank, summarizing West's fascination ([30:46])

4. The CIA, MK-ULTRA, and Hypnosis Experiments

[33:20 – 39:07]

• The CIA’s Project Bluebird evolved into Project Artichoke and then MK-ULTRA, with West recruited for his expertise in suggestibility and memory control.
• West’s Subproject 43 (Oklahoma): Research into whether hypnosis (often with drugs like LSD, barbiturates, amphetamines) could erase or implant memories.
• West claimed in reports that he successfully implanted false memories under hypnosis—showing subjects utterly convinced fabricated events had happened ([37:14]).

5. Infamous Experiments: “The Elephant on Acid”

[45:48 – 48:21]

• In 1962, West and colleagues injected Tusko, a zoo elephant, with a massive dose of LSD (297mg—equivalent to 30,000 human doses). Elephant died within hours.
• Widely condemned as reckless and illustrative of “the dangers of unrestrained ambition” ([48:00]), the experiment became a cautionary tale in scientific ethics.

Memorable Banter

"Why do you start with an elephant? I thought we worked this progress slowly, like slash a tire."
— Brie ([46:52])

6. West’s Role in High-Profile Cases: Jack Ruby & JFK

[50:02 – 55:24]

• Called to evaluate Jack Ruby (killer of Lee Harvey Oswald, JFK’s alleged assassin), West found Ruby paranoid, hallucinating, and prone to delusions.
• Controversially recommended use of sodium pentothal (truth serum) and hypnosis to probe Ruby’s subconscious. Critics suggest this aligned with West’s MK-ULTRA methods.
• Ruby’s erratic state and inability to testify coherently have fueled conspiracy theories—did West’s interventions keep the full story from emerging?

7. Public Guardian or Secret Manipulator?

[62:35 – 65:36]

• In LA, West became a media-savvy authority on cults, brainwashing, drug epidemics, and high-profile trials (e.g., Patricia Hearst).
• Proposed the Center for the Study and Reduction of Violence—a research hub to identify biological and psychological markers of violent behavior and even contemplate “psychosurgery” for severe cases.
• Civil libertarians and activists recoiled at what seemed like “MK-ULTRA 2.0,” with fears of a dystopian “pre-crime” system—“the weaponization of science” (Frank, 62:51).

8. The Manson Connection & Haight-Ashbury Speculations

[66:45 – 74:01]

• West collaborated with the Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic, where both he and Charles Manson’s followers were present as the late '60s counterculture scene exploded.
• While direct documentation is missing, conspiracy theorists contend Manson’s methods (LSD, isolation, control) mirror the tools West studied, suggesting possible field-testing of MK-ULTRA concepts.

9. The Cult Panic, False Memory Syndrome, & Enduring Controversy

[80:09 – 85:04]

• West became the go-to consultant on cults, brainwashing, and false memory syndrome, testifying in major cases and warning both about the danger of real manipulation and of “implanted” memories through suggestion.
• Spanned from postwar POWs, through the Manson era, to 1980s cult and recovered memory panics.

Notable Reflections

“Jolly West had spent his life circling the darkest frontiers of psychiatry...brainwashing, hypnosis, lsd, memory manipulation and coercion... He was not a cartoon villain nor a saint. He was something far more unsettling.”
— Frank ([85:04])

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Host Reactions & Memorable Moments

On Hypnosis & Free Will

[18:38 – 22:19]

• Frank poses whether hypnosis can override free will. Brie argues, “You are who you are at your core... Hypnosis could unlock something, but not make you do what you would never do.”
• Bri draws parallels to cult manipulation: “If you can be put in that certain state of mind... that's a form of manipulation.”

On Ethics and Government Overreach

[38:48 – 39:45]

• Lynette: “How is this even okay? It’s not legal in any way.”
• Frank: “Most of the stuff we go over is not okay... West later insisted he didn’t know the CIA was the ultimate source. Bullshit.”

On the Legacy of MK-ULTRA and Jolly West

[89:12 – 92:36]

• Brie: “I know that the whole MKUltra project was super ultra mega compartmentalized. I feel like at the root, he was a good person trying to understand things... but was he actually sleep depriving people?”
• Frank: “This is a real-life Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde... I really do think his curiosity was genuine, but I also think he was the Dr. Frankenstein to himself as well.”
• Lynette: “So the process of getting to the answer is justifiable because the answer is worth so much more?” (92:18)

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps)

• “If crude deprivation could achieve this much, what might science achieve?” — Frank ([30:46])
• “Mandela effect: What if the actual event never really did happen and it is all a false memory?” — Brie ([37:21])
• “Operation Midnight Climax. My favorite one.” — Frank ([39:13])
• “Tusko became a metaphor. The human mind, like the elephant, could be overwhelmed and destroyed when pushed too far.” — Frank ([48:35])
• “Was he a humanitarian scientist or a man still chasing the CIA’s old dream—to master the mechanics of the human mind for power?” — Frank ([65:05])
• “He was not a cartoon villain nor a saint...genuinely wanted to understand the mind, but crossed into the gray zones where science meets power.” — Frank ([85:04])

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Key Timestamps

• 09:59—15:49: Early life, family background, psychological curiosity
• 17:01—18:36: Medical career, focus on hypnosis/memory
• 22:25—30:20: Korean War, POWs, and the birth of “brainwashing”
• 33:20—39:07: MK-ULTRA, Subproject 43, memory implantation
• 45:48—48:21: Tusko the elephant LSD experiment
• 50:02—55:24: Jack Ruby, JFK connections, use of drugs/hypnosis
• 62:35—65:36: The Center for the Study and Reduction of Violence
• 66:45—74:01: Haight-Ashbury, Manson, and LSD counterculture
• 80:09—85:04: Cult panic, false memory syndrome, and lasting controversy
• 89:12—92:36: Reflections on West’s legacy, ethics, and the line between science & manipulation

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Closing Reflection

The hosts conclude reflecting on West’s haunting dual legacy—a man “straddling two worlds: the world of open science and the world of secrecy” ([85:04]). Was Jolly West a healer, a patriot, or a shadowy manipulator at the heart of America’s most paranoid decades? The answer, as the hosts admit, remains “a tension,” one likely to keep conspiracy theorists and historians alike guessing for years to come.

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Final Host Takeaways

• “The whole MKUltra project was completely illegal, and nobody went to jail for it. And funded by your tax dollars!” — Brie ([94:20])
• “You could find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.” — Frank ([95:00]) (in a tongue-in-cheek callback to their theme of suggestions and mind control)

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For listeners fascinated by the intersection of psychology, history, conspiracy, and ethics, this episode provides a comprehensive, candid, and often darkly humorous exploration of the murky boundaries between science’s promise and peril.

Transcript

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[Frank]

Good prices and participation. Variable supplies last not available on third party ordering platforms.

[Livy Dunn]

Tax extra.

[Lynette]

Sam.

[Frank]

Welcome to another episode of Fringe Beyond Limits. Hi guys.

[Lynette]

Hi.

[Bri]

Hi.

[Frank]

We have something special.

[Lynette]

So special.

[Frank]

Lynette and I are in studio together.

[Lynette]

What? What? Woo Woo.

[Frank]

Brie decided to stay home.

[Brie]

It is a school night.

[Frank]

It is a school night.

[Bri]

Yeah. And with all the construction going on right now, it takes me almost two hours. Get to your house now.

[Brie]

No kidding. Like leaving the airport when I told you I landed because we were supposed to record yesterday. Yeah, I. I landed at 2:30.

[Frank]

Oh geez.

[Brie]

I Didn't even make it from Chicago

[Lynette]

to Neighborville by like 4. When did they take you? Like 4 o'?

[Landofrost Announcer]

Clock?

[Brie]

4:20. Between like the major accidents and the construction. No way, Jose. It was a mess.

[Bri]

Yeah.

[Brie]

So glad I left the state.

[Bri]

It's like, yeah. 45 minutes to hour to get to Franks from my house depending on rush hour traffic. But with the rush hour traffic plus the construction now it's like anywhere between like an hour and 45 to almost two hours.

[Brie]

Yuck.

[Frank]

Just have to go around it.

[Lynette]

Go to Indiana.

[Bri]

Yeah, I go around it. It's still, still going to take us just as long because you just going around it.

[Frank]

Go up to Rockford and then shoot all the way around.

[Bri]

Yeah, it's gonna take the exact same

[Lynette]

amount of time all the way to Iowa and come back, right?

[Frank]

Yeah, that's fine.

[Brie]

Mess.

[Frank]

Well, yeah, I just got back from Arizona.

[Brie]

Where's your tan?

[Lynette]

You left it there.

[Frank]

I did. I was not out in the sun very much at all. Even though it's a dry heat. It was in the upper 90s, so.

[Bri]

I'm so jealous.

[Frank]

I am not. So I've decided I can live there if it wasn't so brown.

[Lynette]

Yeah.

[Frank]

You know, so with it being so brown, I'm like, I. You know, it's like. It's like February here in Chicago. Everything's just gray. Yeah, yeah, it was just there. But that's like all the time, all brown.

[Brie]

Right.

[Frank]

So. But the dry heat really didn't bother me as much as I thought it was going to.

[Brie]

Well, you're also not in like August yet. July or August.

[Lowe's Announcer]

Yeah.

[Frank]

Right, right. But, but yeah, so that was fun.

[Lynette]

So.

[Frank]

Happy wedding. Wedding to Mikayla and Anthony.

[Bri]

Congratulations.

[Brie]

Yeah, congrats.

[Frank]

I will say they are probably the happiest bride and groom I have ever seen at a wedding.

[Lynette]

Okay.

[Frank]

I mean, like, it was just. It was just so fun to see them in their element and just like truly, truly just having fun and caring.

[Lynette]

I like that.

[Frank]

Yeah, it was very nice. It was very, very nice. So congrats to that. What about you ladies?

[Brie]

I'm vanilla.

[Frank]

Yes, you are.

[Brie]

All right. I'm here for Mother's Day and my grandma turns 96 this year.

[Frank]

Happy birthday, Grandma.

[Brie]

Happy birthday, Grams.

[Bri]

Wow, the good old 96.

[Brie]

Yeah.

[Frank]

Yeah. You know, I like the reverse of those two numbers.

[Brie]

Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, sure you do.

[Frank]

Yeah. So, Bri, anything fun, exciting to add?

[Bri]

Nope.

[Brie]

All right, well said.

[Frank]

As of this recording. Yeah, as of this recording, I'm five days away from surgery where they will turn Me into a woman?

[Brie]

Yep.

[Frank]

So you're gonna talk like this? I hope so. That and I hope I get bigger boobs.

[Bri]

Oh, you can talk like a robot.

[Brie]

No, that would be cool if you can ask for, like, vocal cord implant

[Lynette]

while they're in there.

[Frank]

Yeah. Oh, agreed.

[Lynette]

What voice would you go with?

[Frank]

Christopher Walken.

[Lynette]

I had a feeling you were gonna say that.

[Frank]

Yeah. Yeah. I would never not stop talking about it. I would like that.

[Brie]

But what if you could have, like, Dave Matthews voice and then you could just sing to yourself?

[Frank]

Yeah, no, I'm Christopher Walken.

[Brie]

Okay.

[Frank]

Yeah, no, I can listen to Dave whenever I want, but I can only talk like Christopher Walker one time.

[Brie]

All right.

[Frank]

I only got one chance, so. Yeah, that's what I would do. It would make the podcast a lot better. Imagine just for a walk in narrating all this.

[Lynette]

Right. This would be amazing. We'd have more, like six listeners.

[Frank]

Yeah.

[Lynette]

Instead of, like, two.

[Frank]

We would get into.

[Bri]

We might actually be ranked number one.

[Frank]

Yeah. We would get into the teens. Number one. Yeah. We're zero in the ratings, but number one in my heart, Chris Twofer.

[Lynette]

That's what you would.

[Frank]

Chris Twofer.

[Lynette]

Well, just because it's not the real one. He's number two.

[Brie]

Okay.

[Frank]

Yeah. Chris Twofer. I. I can't do it, but I wish I could.

[Brie]

Yeah.

[Frank]

All right, so tonight we have a. Extension of a. Probably an ongoing saga of. Of a topic. Right. Like NK Ultra. You just can't get enough.

[Brie]

I know.

[Frank]

Bri, what are your feelings on MK Ultra?

[Bri]

I mean, it's definitely interesting, and like you said, you can't get enough.

[Frank]

Okay, thanks for the original thought.

[Lynette]

That's a good paraphrase.

[Brie]

All right.

[Frank]

Yeah. Yeah, we're gonna jump.

[Bri]

That's what I'm here for.

[Frank]

Yeah. Great. All right, so we're gonna jump into Jolly West. What do you think of that name? Jolly West? Bri?

[Bri]

I think of Christmas.

[Frank]

Yeah.

[Bri]

I don't know. Jolly. When I hear the word jolly, I think of Christmas. So Jolly West. I just think of Christmas or I think of Jolly Ranchers.

[Frank]

Jolly Rogers.

[Brie]

Ranchers.

[Bri]

Ranchers. Ranchers.

[Lynette]

Jolly Rogers. It was like, pirates or candy. I'm not really sure.

[Bri]

Jolly Roger, too. Yeah, pirates. Pirates as well.

[Frank]

You are all over the place.

[Lynette]

You asked her for a thought. This is how her thoughts flow.

[Frank]

I regret every single time I ask her a question.

[Bri]

One episode said that. You want to start asking me in the middle of, like, a episode of what I'm actually literally thinking at that moment in time?

[Lynette]

Yeah, I think he's not Anymore.

[Frank]

I wish. I wish your brain or your forehead was like a marquee, a running marquee

[Lynette]

of your thoughts, like Homer Simpson or something.

[Frank]

Yeah.

[Bri]

What if it was like a video marquee so you can actually see.

[Frank]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bri]

Instead of, like, words, it's just actual video.

[Frank]

Oh. Oh, that would be scary.

[Lynette]

Oh, interesting. That would be terrifying.

[Bri]

You should have one of mine and one of Frank's.

[Frank]

So what. What I picture is Brian before and after. Before pot bellied little penis. After six pack with big penis. And it would just go keep going back and forth. Before, after, before, after.

[Bri]

It's like the. The picture you sent me for my birthday. Everyone in nabs.

[Frank]

Yeah, that's why I sent that to you.

[Bri]

I show up to Brian. He goes really? Like.

[Frank]

Yep, whatever. He sen pictures of, like, boobs and butts all the time. You know, I don't want to see that stuff.

[Bri]

That's.

[Frank]

That's dirty.

[Brie]

Why is he sending you pictures of his boobs and his butts?

[Frank]

Oh, no. Of like, very nice boobs and butts, but I don't want to see that. My virgin eyes.

[Lynette]

Your virgin eyes.

[Frank]

You know, I am. I am against, you know, the. What's called the objectification of women.

[Brie]

Oh.

[Lynette]

Huh.

[Frank]

Yeah, I'm. I'm true feminist.

[Lynette]

Uh huh.

[Brie]

That's nice.

[Frank]

All right, so let's jump right in. Lewis Jolyon west entered the world on October 6, 1924, in Brooklyn, New York, at a time when America was still reeling from the aftershocks of the first world war and preparing unknowingly for the great depression. His father, a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine, had come to America seeking safety and opportunity. His mother was a piano teacher, a woman of discipline and structure, whose lessons demanded precision, but also revealed the value of rhythm, timing, and art. Lewis inherited something from both of them. From his father came resilience, the quiet determination of someone who had survived upheaval and displacement. From his mother came intellectual curiosity and a recognition of patterns, whether in music, thought, or human behavior. But the family's life in Brooklyn was short lived. Like many immigrants chasing stability in uncertain times, the west family moved to Madison, Wisconsin, when Lewis was still young. Madison in the 1930s was a city of contrasts. On one hand, a picturesque midwestern university town. On the other, a place where immigrant families still felt the tug of war between assimilation and heritage. Lewis grew up watching his parents navigate that balance, and it left a mark. He saw how much pressure there was to fit in, to adjust, to refrain, identity, depending on who was watching. This was his first exposure to the idea that identity is malleable, that people can adapt their outward selves while still carrying hidden selves beneath the surface. By the time he entered high school, Lewis was already demonstrating a sharp mind and a restless curiosity. He was the kind of student who excelled in science, but also lingered after class to ask his teachers questions that veered far beyond the day's lesson. Why does the mind break under pressure? Why do some people survive trauma while others collapse? He wasn't satisfied with easy answers. It was around this time that his nickname was born. Friends and classmates began calling him Jolly, partly as a play on his middle name, Jolyan, but also because of his personality. He smiled easily. He had a natural charm, a warmth that put people at ease. He could make others laugh, even in stressful situations. But Jolly was more than just a personality quirk. It became a shield. Beneath the humor and friendliness was a young man who was already beginning to study people with the intensity of a scientist. The nickname gave him cover. It let him probe into the darker, more uncomfortable corners of human behavior while still appearing approachable and harmless. This duality, the affable exterior and the relentless, probing interior, would define West's career. He would always appear genual, reassuring, even humanitarian in public. But this work would often explore the most unsettling how far could a mind be bent before it broke? Could memory itself be rewritten? Could identity be reprogrammed? The west household, like many in the 1930s, was marked by the strain of the Great Depression. Resources were scarce, jobs insecure, futures uncertain. Lewis saw relatives buckle under hardship, losing hope, succumbing to despair. He also saw resilience, family members who held fast to faith, culture, or sheer stubbornness. This contrast fascinated him. What made the difference? Why did some break while others endured? For young Lewis, the Depression became his first laboratory, observing human behavior under stress long before he had the clinical language to describe it. By the time Lewis reached college age, the world was at war. World War II reshaped every young man's future, and west was no exception. He was drafted into the military but selected for the Army Specialized Training Program, astp. This program was designed to fast track talented students into fields the army desperately needed. Engineering, languages, and medicine. For west, this was a turning point. The ASTP pushed him through pre medical coursework at lightning speed. The military wanted doctors. They wanted them quickly. Lewis threw himself into the work, driven both by duty and by curiosity. He discovered that psychiatry, the study of the mind under stress, called to him more than any other branch of medicine. He had seen what Pressure did to families during the Depression. Now, in wartime, he saw what pressures could do to entire nations. The question that had haunted him as a teenager became, what happens when the mind is pushed to its limits? After the war, Lewis completed his medical training at the University of Minnesota, earning his MD in 1949. Minnesota at the time, was a hub of psychiatric innovation, and west immersed himself in the latest theories. He studied Freud and Jung, but he was more captivated by experimental psychiatry, by hypnosis, suggestion, and the biology of altered states. He wasn't content with the standard goal of psychiatry, to relieve suffering. He wanted to map the mechanics of consciousness itself. Could hypnosis reveal hidden truths? Could trauma split the mind? Could suggestions change not just behavior, but memory? These weren't idle questions. They would become the central obsessions of his life.

[Brie]

So all the psychos come from Wisconsin? Yes, and I love Wisconsin, even though they hate Illinoisans.

[Bri]

They have good cheese.

[Frank]

There is just cheese.

[Bri]

Beer.

[Frank]

Serial killers.

[Brie]

Yeah, beer and serial killers.

[Bri]

Oh, don't forget brats.

[Frank]

Yeah, that's that. No one cares. Brats are everywhere.

[Brie]

There's also high German population, so maybe

[Lynette]

that's where all the serial killers actually came from.

[Frank]

They're all, you know.

[Bri]

There are some good non serial killers from Germany.

[Brie]

So.

[Frank]

Are there?

[Bri]

I think there's one. I can't think of the name of it. But he was like a cannibal.

[Frank]

Okay.

[Bri]

I can't think of his name.

[Brie]

Yeah, but, yeah, because there's Dahmer, Gein, Ellis, Span, Bauer, which. That sounds German, right?

[Frank]

Yeah.

[Brie]

Taylor, Edwards, and Van Dyke.

[Frank]

Van Dyke.

[Brie]

Not Dick Van Dyke. David Van Dyke is his brother.

[Frank]

Oh, all right. He's 99 and he's still, like, dancing.

[Lynette]

He's amazing. Yeah, he's like my hero.

[Frank]

Is he really?

[Lynette]

Yeah. That's so weird between him and David Attenborough. Those are like my two old man crushes.

[Lowe's Announcer]

Okay.

[Frank]

All right. God bless. I hope. I hope you get to fulfill one of those.

[Lynette]

I hope so, too.

[Frank]

Don't. Don't tell me about it, though. Don't want to know.

[Lynette]

What were you gonna ask, though?

[Frank]

I forget now. You guys threw me way off, but I'm just gonna continue on the outline from Minnesota. West went on to complete his psychiatric residency at Cornell's Paine Whitney Clinic in New York, finishing in 1952. Payne Whitney was one of the country's most prestigious psychiatric institutions, a place where wealthy and powerful patients mingled without cutting edge research. Here, west honed his skills in hypnosis and therapeutic suggestion. He studied patients who had endured trauma patients who displayed dissociation patients whose identities seemed fractured. For him, these weren't just illnesses to treat. They were windows into how the mind could be reshaped, divided, or rewritten. During these years, he developed two parallel reputations. A compassionate clinician who could connect with patients, and a daring young psychiatrist willing to explore the boundaries of normal practice. By 1952, with his residency complete, Louis Jalion west was ready to embark on his career. He was a rising star, respected in medical circles, admired by patients, and increasingly fascinated by the malleability of the human mind. And just as he was stepping into the professional world, the Cold War was heating up. America would soon need psychiatrists not just to treat depression and trauma, but to solve the mystery of brainwashing. A mystery that would launch west into the heart of military psychiatry and eventually into the secret world of MK Ultra.

[Brie]

MK Ultra.

[Frank]

So do you guys think that hypnosis works?

[Bri]

I think it depends on your state of mind. It's kind of like if you're one of those people that can easily meditate, I think you can be easily hypnotized.

[Frank]

But I guess I'll take maybe a different. Do you think that hypnotism could make you do things against your free will?

[Brie]

No.

[Frank]

Okay. Why?

[Brie]

Because you are who you are at your core. There either has. There has to be something that maybe gets unlocked, like if you are. If you want to use it in a negative context, like to, I don't know, hurt somebody or something like that. If you already had that in your psyche and your nature to do it, but you were suppressing it, I think hypnosis could unlock that. But if you're not a violent person by nature, that hypnosis to try and tell you to do something. Okay, I don't think it would work.

[Frank]

So the Manchurian Candidate is just poppycock.

[Brie]

Well, I think that goes a step further, though. Like, doesn't Manchurian Candidate also take into consideration psychological traumas and stuff to help?

[Frank]

I mean, maybe. Yeah. I mean, I'm just.

[Brie]

I mean, if. If you were in a hypnosis state and I was like, you need to, I don't know, wash all my windows or do my bidding.

[Lynette]

Do my evil bidding, like, Right.

[Brie]

I don't know if that would work without some sort of something to disassociate you with yourself, whether it's a PTSD event or some sort of. I think that's the only way to achieve that.

[Frank]

Do you think, though, hypnosis can achieve that on its own?

[Brie]

No, no, I think chemical would need to be something else. Would have to be introduced in addition to the hypnotic state.

[Frank]

All right. So there would have to be an additional catalyst to just the hypnosis.

[Brie]

I. That's what I think. Okay.

[Frank]

Okay. Bri.

[Bri]

I think hypnosis is, like, another form of manipulation.

[Frank]

Okay.

[Bri]

Like. Like I mentioned before, he's like, if you're in a. Like, if you can be put in that certain state of mind unconsciously, like, I just like to put meditation example, because you're. You shut down your mind, you relax. If you let the persons that's hypnotizing you, like, do that, you're obviously. You're kind of, like, relaxing your mind, having them kind of, like, in a way take over. To me, that's kind of also, like a form of manipulation. They're also manipulating you to do certain things. What's the difference of someone manipulating you when you're conscious or conscience? Like, for example, like cults, like, they get manipulated to do things that you don't normally do. So, like, what's the difference?

[Frank]

Well, to Lynette's point, in terms of cult, and I'm just going to use that because you brought it up, there is already some sort of imbalance there because the person that is being seduced by the cult is lacking something. They're searching for something that's already missing. So there already is a catalyst at

[Brie]

play, and the cult leader knows where that vulnerability is and exploits it.

[Bri]

Right, but what is, like, the same exact type person gets put under hypnosis.

[Brie]

I see where you're going with that. That makes sense.

[Bri]

You know what I'm saying? Like, they're already. You can really already trick their mind because they're vulnerable. But if you do take. Take that exact same person, put them on hypnosis, can you make them still do certain things that they don't normally do?

[Frank]

Yeah. So if you take a.

[Bri]

That's what I'm getting at.

[Livy Dunn]

Like.

[KFC Announcer]

No, no, no.

[Frank]

Right, right.

[Bri]

Similar.

[Brie]

No, I see what you're saying.

[Bri]

I also see where you're saying, too, like, it's two different, like, areas, but also both sides make sense.

[Frank]

All right.

[Brie]

Well. Yeah.

[Frank]

Well, let's see what happens, shall we?

[Brie]

I'm nervous.

[Frank]

Louis Jolyan west completed his psychiatric residency at Cornell's Payne Whitney Clinic in 1952. The United States was consumed by a new kind of fear. It wasn't just nuclear weapons or Soviet expansion. It was the terrifying possibility that America's sons could be turned against their own country by invisible methods of control. This fear had a name. Brainwashing.

[Brie]

Squeaky Squeaky.

[Frank]

The Korean War.

[Brie]

Is that why my brain squeaks?

[Frank]

Yes, I think so.

[Lynette]

It's washing itself.

[Frank]

Yeah, yeah. Take it off that mode, please.

[Lynette]

Okay.

[Frank]

The Korean War from 1950-53 brought the issue to stark relief. American prisoners of war captured by Chinese and North Korean forces began appearing in propaganda films and radio broadcasts. They confessed to bombing civilians, to spreading germ warfare, to crimes they almost certainly had not committed. Some even praised communism and criticized the United States. Back home, the site was shocking. These weren't anonymous men. They were American soldiers captured and seemingly remade. The press seized on the story. A new word entered the vocabulary. Brainwashing. Borrowed from the Christian term. She now literally to wash the brain. Swinky.

[Lynette]

Swinky. Swinky, swinky.

[Brie]

You said Christian term. It's Chinese term.

[Frank]

What did I say?

[Brie]

Christian.

[Frank]

Oh, sorry. Chinese term.

[Lynette]

Is that a Freudian?

[Frank]

It probably was. Jesus. So what dark power was at work here? He had the Communists discovered a way to erase loyalty, overwrite identity and manufacturer obedience. The military, desperate for answers, turned to psychiatry. And in the early 1950s, that meant turning to young, ambitious psychiatrists like Jolly West. After finishing his residency, west joined the U.S. air Force Medical Service and was stationed at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. At barely 30 years old, he was named chief of psychiatric service. It was here that West's clinical training collided with geopolitics. His task was to evaluate the psychological state of returning POWs, to determine what had been done to them and to explain why so many had confessed to crimes they didn't commit. This was you.

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[Frank]

In psychiatry, it was national security. As Wes interviewed returning soldiers, he carefully reconstructed their experiences. What emerged was grim, but not supernatural. There was no secret machines or magnetic drugs. Instead, the techniques were brutally simple.

[Brie]

Magic drugs. Psilocybin, magiscopus. Not magnetic.

[Frank]

What did I say?

[Lynette]

You said magnetic drugs. Maybe someone's, like, overwriting your brain.

[Frank]

I think so.

[Lynette]

I think they're rewriting the code.

[Frank]

I need a. I need a brainwashing.

[Bri]

Oh, you have your surgeon next week. They can deal with your brain soon.

[Brie]

Probably not lobotomy while they're at it?

[Frank]

Oh, you know what? That won't be so bad.

[Lynette]

Okay. Yeah.

[Frank]

So the first was sleep deprivation until hallucinations blurred reality. Starvation and malnutrition that weakened both body and mind. Isolation, sometimes for weeks, stripping away time, identity, and social anchors. Unpredictable punishments, beatings, mock executions, sudden kindness keeping the prisoner in constant fear. And propaganda repetition hammered into exhausted minds until resistance dissolved. This wasn't science fiction. It was systemic cruelty. Yet it worked. Exhausted, disoriented, and terrified, many soldiers parroted back what their captors demanded. West realized that brainwashing wasn't magic at all. It was the weaponization of human vulnerability.

[Brie]

The fact that people are so inherently dark to come up with these sort of things in the first place is wild to me.

[Frank]

Well, it doesn't surprise me. You go all the way back to the. To the book of Genesis.

[Brie]

Yeah.

[Frank]

Right. Adam, Eve, Cain. We got to number three before a murderer was born.

[Lynette]

Right.

[Frank]

You know, at one time, Cain killed 25% of the human population. 25% of the population were murderers.

[Brie]

Yeah.

[Frank]

Not. Not even all of them.

[Lynette]

100% was incestual at that point.

[Frank]

And in all the jails, 25% are not murderers. I mean, does it really shock you? I mean.

[Lynette]

I mean, just outside the Garden of

[Frank]

Eden, once you hit the four people, it turns into nighttime at Detroit.

[Lynette]

You know, it's.

[Frank]

It's unbelievable.

[Bri]

Not Wisconsin.

[Frank]

No, Detroit's way worse.

[Brie]

Yeah.

[Frank]

All right.

[Lynette]

It is.

[Bri]

No offense or just talking about serial killers in Wisconsin.

[Frank]

Well, yeah, well, those are secretive. Like Detroit. They're just all out.

[Lynette]

They're just in their face.

[Lowe's Announcer]

Yeah.

[Frank]

They're just like, bang, bang, bang, you

[Lynette]

know, bang, bang, bang.

[Frank]

So to capture this process, west collaborated with two colleagues. Ira E. Farber, a military psychiatrist known for his analytical clarity, who helped categorize the psychological symptoms of returning POWs. Harry Harlow, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin. Infamous for his experiments with rhesus monkeys. Harlow had shown how maternal deprivation devastated infant monkeys, evidence that isolation itself was a psychological weapon.

[Brie]

The poor Harlow monkey is such a sad experiment.

[Frank]

I agree.

[Brie]

And that's like, the whole thing about the monkey right now that's, like. Was, like, abandoned by its troop, and everybody was picking on it. It was like an Internet thing.

[Frank]

Just recently, I didn't. I was. Not.

[Brie]

Everyone was like, yay, monkey. Because, like, everyone was so mean to it.

[Frank]

Okay.

[Brie]

No, other monkeys were mean to it.

[Lynette]

Not like people.

[Frank]

You suck, monkey.

[Brie]

Anyway, I digress.

[Lynette]

Okay. Monkeys.

[Frank]

Together, they coined a formula that would echo through history. Triple D. Triple D. Debility, dependency and dread. Debility wear down the body through exhaustion, hunger and sickness. Dependency make the captive completely reliant on the captor for food, water, and even social contact. And dread. Instill fear through unpredictable punishment, humiliation, and threats. When these three conditions were present, the human could be. I'm sorry. The human mind could be bent, reshaped, and sometimes broken. For west, the findings were a revelation. If crude deprivation could achieve this much, what might science achieve? What if hypnosis could replicate dependency without starvation? What if drugs could induce dread or dissociation without physical torture? What if suggestion could implant new beliefs as powerfully as propaganda? These weren't idle musings. They became the obsessions of his career. Wes wasn't just interested in stopping brainwashing. He wanted to understand its mechanics and maybe even harness them. This dual impulse healer and experimenter defined him. On one hand, he exonerated returning POWs accused of treason, proving that confessions extracted under coercion were meaningless. On the other hand, he quietly wondered how those same techniques might be refined and controlled. At the same time, the Central Intelligence Agency was grappling with the same question. In 1950, the CIA launched Project Bluebird, its first systemic attempt to explore hypnosis, drugs and coercion. Of course, it has to be a fucking bird reference for you. In 1951, Bluebird evolved into Project Artichoke Yum, which caused chilling questions. Could a person be made to perform acts against their will? Could they be programmed to assassinate? Could drugs and hypnosis create the ultimate spy or the ultimate patsy? By 1953, these efforts coalesced into MKUltra, the CIA's most infamous behavior science program, Directed by Sidney Gottlieb, a brilliant but shadowy chemist. MK Ultra spread like a web across universities, hospitals and prisons. Many, many money was funneled through front organizations like the Geschector Fund for Medical Research disguised as legitimate grants.

[Brie]

These are all very German names.

[Frank]

German.

[Brie]

So German, yeah.

[Frank]

The CIA was hungry for psychiatrists willing to experiment with hypnosis, memory and drugs. And Jolly west, with his Triple D model, his fascination with hypnosis, and his willingness to probe the darker corners of the mind, fit their needs perfectly. By the mid-1950s, Wes was at a crossroads. He was young, ambitious, and already getting national recognition for his work on coercion. He had the charm to reassure the public and the curiosity to intrigue the intelligence world. Which path would he take? Public healer defending soldiers against unjust accusations? Or covert researcher helping the CIA unlock the secrets of control?

[Brie]

Which one pays more?

[Frank]

Yeah.

[Lynette]

Yeah.

[Frank]

The truth, as history would show, is that he would end up walking both paths at once. In 1954, at just 29 years old, west was offered an extraordinary opportunity to become the chair of psychiatry at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine. It was there, in Oklahoma, that Jolly west would begin his Most controversial work. MKUltra sub project 43. Hypnosis and false memories, LSD experiments, and the F in the infamous elephant on acid.

[Lynette]

So sad.

[Frank]

I know. That was really sad. In 1954, at just 29 years old, Lewis John west accepted a position few men of his age could dream of. Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine.

[Brie]

Most people aren't even done with grad

[Lynette]

school at that age.

[Frank]

Yeah, I know. Well, remember, he got fast.

[Brie]

I know.

[Lynette]

He got fast. Tracked. It's like.

[Brie]

So anybody could be a doctor. Yeah.

[Frank]

Oh, back then, yeah.

[Lynette]

Yeah.

[Frank]

All you really needed was a pulse, I think.

[Lynette]

Yeah.

[Brie]

Like not a squeamish stomach.

[Frank]

Right.

[Brie]

Yeah.

[Frank]

Right. And a psychopath. I think I also.

[Brie]

Yeah, probably.

[Bri]

Yep.

[Brie]

A little bit crazy.

[Frank]

It was a meteoric meteor. Meteor.

[Brie]

Meteoric rise.

[Frank]

Meteoric rise. Thank you. Most psychiatrists spent decades in the trenches before gaining such authority. But West's combination of charm, intellect and military credentials had opened doors to the university. He was a prize. An Air Force veteran with experience on the cutting edge of psychiatry. A man who could attract funding and prestige. But behind the public accolades, there were other forces at play. The CIA under Sidney Gottlieb was quietly searching for men exactly like West. Ambitious, curious and unafraid to probe the boundaries of the mine. By 1955-56, West's lab at Oklahoma was officially connected to MK Ultra. The CIA's MKUltra files, fragments that survived the agency's 1973 purge, lists West's project as Subproject 43. Titled Psychophysiological Studies of Hypnosis and Suggestibility. The goals were to test how hypnosis could increase suggestibility. To examine whether drugs, barbiturates, stimulants, LSD could deepen hypnotic trance. To determine if memories could be erased or implanted under controlled conditions to measure the physiological challenges. Heartbeat, breathing, brain activity that marked different trance states. In one 1956 progress report, west claimed he had successfully replaced authentic memories with false ones under hypnosis, particularly when aided by pharmacological agents. He described subjects who emerged from trance utterly convinced that events suggested to them had really happened. To intelligence officers, this was dynamite. If memories could be rewritten, witnesses could be compromised, double agents could be protected and enemies could be turned into tools.

[Listener/Interjector]

Dude.

[Frank]

Yeah.

[Brie]

What if this is mass scale? Mandela effects?

[Frank]

What do you mean?

[Brie]

False memories planted?

[Frank]

Oh, you think anyone that has a Mandela effect is just a false memory?

[Brie]

Yeah. What if it's implanted? What if the actual event never really did happen and it is all a false memory? Or the people who believe nothing has ever changed, that's their false memory.

[Frank]

I think that is fascinating to think about.

[Bri]

I like that idea.

[Frank]

I mean that would explain why such a large population thinks one way and not the other.

[Brie]

Maybe we're all product of an experiment. Yeah, we don't know when it happened

[Lynette]

because we our memories were deleted.

[Frank]

It had to have been some sort of commercial or TV exercise.

[Brie]

Maybe when we all watch the Men in Black and they zapped you at the end of the movie that actually happened.

[Frank]

And what if people that. That do have Mandela effects were the ones that didn't work on.

[Brie]

Right.

[Frank]

We're the smart ones. You can't break my brain.

[Lynette]

You can't break my brain.

[Frank]

I like that. We're going to have to sit on that.

[Brie]

Don't melt it.

[Frank]

Nope. Direct CIA money would have exposed the project. So the funds arrived through a familiar front. The Geister Fund for Medical Research. On paper, it was a private philanthropic foundation supporting promising medical science. In reality, it was a laundering channel for MKUltra grants.

[Lynette]

Like, how is this even okay?

[Frank]

It isn't. None of this is okay.

[Lynette]

It's not legal in any way.

[Frank]

I mean, most of the stuff we go over. I know is not okay. You know, west later insisted he didn't know the CIA was the ultimate source. Bullshit.

[Lynette]

He just said your whole lab was owned and all your information was being funneled to MK Ultra. Right?

[Livy Dunn]

I didn't know.

[Frank]

I didn't know.

[Lynette]

But I'm only a 29 year old doctor.

[Frank]

Yeah. Whether that was true or a convenient defense, we'll never know. But the alignment between his lab's work and the CIA's questions is undeniable. To understand West's role is important to place him within the MK Ultra landscape. His work on hypnosis and false memories was one piece of a massive multi armed machine. Operation Midnight Climax. My favorite favorite one.

[Lynette]

I can't believe taxpayers spent money on this.

[Brie]

Yeah, well, we didn't know we were

[Lynette]

spending money on this.

[Frank]

But it was CIA safe houses in San Francisco and New York where unsuspecting men were dosed with LSD by sex workers. While agents observed from behind one way mirrors the goal. Studies sexual vulnerability and post drug suggestibility in real world conditions. Do you think that's where maybe the whole trend of being pegged started?

[Lynette]

Maybe.

[Frank]

I mean, if you're under high amounts of lsd, you can be very suggestible to have the back door entered.

[Brie]

Maybe.

[Frank]

I mean, I don't know. But. Question, Answer.

[Bri]

Do you think the people that were doing, observing got very like, aroused over.

[Brie]

Yeah.

[Frank]

Yes.

[Lynette]

100.

[Bri]

Do you think they were like, watching porn at one point?

[Lynette]

Probably.

[Brie]

They were.

[Frank]

Exactly.

[Bri]

And then they were doing it with each other.

[Frank]

Maybe. I like where you're going. Go on.

[Bri]

That's all my thoughts.

[Lynette]

That's my only thought.

[Frank]

It stops at the interesting part. I don't understand. Jeez.

[Bri]

And.

[Livy Dunn]

And.

[Bri]

And then they were adopted by aliens with six pics.

[Frank]

Okay, let's. We're not diving into your fantasy now.

[Lynette]

So you Told me to keep going.

[Bri]

I just.

[Frank]

And they were all wearing Brian masks.

[Lynette]

Now that's creepy.

[Frank]

That is pretty creepy, all right. Donald Ewan Cameron's psychic. Driving in Montreal at Miguel University's Allen Memorial Institute, Cameron bombarded patients with repeated messages, drug comas and extreme electroshock. His idea was to de pattern the mind and rebuild it from scratch. A horrifying parallel to West's interest in implemented memories. The sensory deprivation research subjects were placed in tanks or dark chambers, cut off from sensory input. Within hours, they hallucinated. Within days, they broke down entirely. The CIA wondered, could this soften up a subject for interrogation or create a blank slate for new ideas?

[Brie]

And now they just use it as like a holistic meditative thing?

[Frank]

Yeah, now we just do it for fun.

[Lynette]

Yeah.

[Frank]

That's how fucked up we've come.

[Lynette]

Yep.

[Brie]

Yep.

[Bri]

Yeah.

[Frank]

Drug trials. From LSD to mescaline to scopolamine, every compound that could disorient or alter consciousness was tested on volunteers, soldiers, prisoners, and sometimes unsuspecting civilians. Or all the time, unsuspecting civilians.

[Brie]

Even unsuspecting government officials.

[Lynette]

And prisoners and soldiers.

[Frank]

Yeah, yeah, even volunteers. I'm sure they weren't told exactly what they were being given.

[Brie]

Nope.

[Frank]

So West's Sub Project 43 sat at the intersection. Hypnosis plus drugs plus memory. Where Cameron sought to erase identity, west sought to reshape it. West's notes and writings reveal an obsession with what he called dissociative states. These were moments when the mind split. Compartmentalizing experiences. Trauma could create them. Hypnosis could mimic them. Drugs could exaggerate them. He wondered, could dissociation be engineered? Could one personality carry out actions while the other remembered nothing? Could an assassin be programmed to kill, then wake up later believing that he had been somewhere else entirely? These weren't just sci fi musings. They were questions MK Ultra asked explicitly. And west was one of the men trying to answer them.

[Brie]

So how did they test this? Like, here, I'm gonna hypno hypnotize you. You're gonna go kill Target A. And then they just set them loose to go see if they kill Target

[Frank]

A. I really don't think they started with murder.

[Lynette]

Well, I'm just saying, how do you test that theory? I'm like, I mean, does that subject go to jail?

[Frank]

I mean, I'm pretty sure you started with something lesser, like slashing a tire.

[Bri]

Or maybe they make them go hunting for deer or they'll kill a deer.

[Pharmaceutical Announcer]

Or.

[Frank]

Nah, how about.

[Lynette]

I'm not just saying. Starting I'm just saying. Okay, how do you progr that state?

[Frank]

Well, slowly.

[Lynette]

That's not what I'm asking.

[Bri]

And very carefully.

[Frank]

So, yeah, I, I, I think they do, I think they, I, I think that they slowly would build up to the goal, you know?

[Brie]

So, you know, I just, I guess

[Lynette]

I just picture them kicking person out of the back of a white van and saying, go, attack person A.

[Frank]

Well, I mean, like the person that assassinated Robert F. Kennedy. Siron. Siron has no recollection of it. You know, so, I mean, was he,

[Brie]

maybe he was a test subject, you know, maybe. Timing seems to kind of align here.

[Frank]

Yeah, I mean, also, Mark David Chapman, who assassinated John Lennon, he was holding. What book was he holding onto?

[Brie]

Moby Dick?

[Bri]

No.

[Frank]

Oh, God. It's on the tip of my tongue.

[Brie]

Is that the name of the book?

[Frank]

I think so.

[Bri]

We were just talking about that.

[Brie]

No, no, in our last episode on this topic.

[Frank]

Yeah, let me see.

[Pharmaceutical Announcer]

Hold on.

[Frank]

I gotta do a, a little Google machine because I can't. Was it Catcher in the Rye? Yes, the Catcher in the Rye. Look at that. Yeah. So, I mean, he, he, he had that book with him for whatever reasons. Like, is that like a trigger? You know, I mean, who knows?

[Brie]

Maybe.

[Frank]

I mean, anyone who talked about loving each other, putting your arms down, getting along, has been murdered. Isn't that funny? From Jesus to John Lennon to Martin Luther King.

[Brie]

Mlk.

[Frank]

You know, it keeps going on and on and on and on and on. So that's why I like being an asshole. I'm not going to get murdered. All right. All right. So West's notes and writings reveal an obsession with what he called. Oh, I recall. I already read that, didn't I?

[Brie]

Okay, yeah.

[Frank]

Could one person add these? They were. Question. Okay, so. In August 1962, West's experiments took a bizarre turn. At the Oklahoma City Zoo. West and colleagues conducted what would become one of the most infamous drug studies of the 20th century. Their tusko, a bull elephant. Their hypothesis that LSD might induce must a hormonal state of heightened aggression seen in male elephants. If LSD could replicate this condition, perhaps it could offer insights into the neurochemistry of aggression. Inject Tusko with an enormous dose of LSD, 297mg, the human human equivalent of more than 30,000 doses. The result, catastrophe. Tusco collapsed within minutes, convulsing violently. The team administered barbiturates to calm him, then antipsychotic drugs. But the cocktail only worsened his state. Within hours, Tusko was dead.

[Brie]

Like, why do you Start with an elephant. I thought we worked this progress slowly, like slash attire.

[Bri]

But also why I usually go with rats and mice.

[Frank]

Why 30,000 doses? It's the elephant that's 30,000 times bigger than us.

[Brie]

Well, the initial. The. When LSD was created. The. I don't know the gentleman's name.

[Lynette]

Who.

[Brie]

Yeah, I don't who created it, but he tested on himself and he thought he was taking a tiny little fragment, but he actually took like a dose of like 100 times stronger than what is actually deemed safe.

[Frank]

Right, right.

[Lynette]

So.

[Frank]

Right.

[Brie]

30,000 times.

[Lynette]

Yeah.

[Brie]

Do you think Tusco and Stampy are related? I mean, Stampy, the Simpsons elephant.

[Frank]

Okay, yeah, maybe. I mean, we'll. Someone do a Google on that.

[Brie]

Sampy.

[Frank]

Yeah, do a Google and email us beyond limits gmail.comport Tusco. The study became a scientific parallel.

[Brie]

And now elephants are extinct.

[Frank]

Now they don't exist anymore.

[Lynette]

This the last woolly man.

[Lowe's Announcer]

They.

[Frank]

They started with testicle and just never stopped. The study became a scientific parable of hubris. Critics condemned it as reckless, cruel, and useless. West defended the experiment, saying the dose was calculated by scaling from smaller animals. But the truth is that the study revealed little except the dangers of unrestrained ambition.

[Brie]

No, like, this is like a whole bunch of drunk college boys. Like, that's what this experiment. Yeah, So a bunch of frat boys

[Lynette]

coming together like, let's dose an elephant.

[Bri]

Let's see what happens.

[Frank]

Where's the dog? Let's give him some beer.

[Lynette]

Yeah.

[Frank]

Yet, symbolically, it mattered. Tusko became a metaphor. The human mind, like the elephant, could be overwhelmed and destroyed when pushed too far. And west seemed willing to push boundaries until something broke. By the mid-1960s, west had built a reputation as both an innovator and a lightning rod. He was publishing academic papers warning of the dangers of LSD and amphetamines and testifying in court about coercion. To the public, he was a guardian against chaos. But in the shadows, he had already experimented with hypnosis, drugs, and false memories, the very core of CIA mind control fantasies. This duality, public healer versus covert manipulator, became the defining contradiction of his career. And in 1964, it would thrust him into one of the darkest mysteries in American history. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the strange descent into madness of Jack Ruby. Do you guys know who Jack Ruby is?

[Brie]

No.

[Frank]

So Jack Ruby was a former FBI agent who turned private investigator in New Orleans. So he was supposedly associated with Shaw, who was supposedly a co conspirator in this, along with Lee Harvey Oswald. Okay. When Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested and what happened?

[Brie]

I tried to fix something. Okay, I'll fix it.

[Frank]

Thank you. When Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested and the famous scene of him walking through the garage surrounded by reporters just out there as just target practice. Jack Ruby is the one that killed them. Shot him and killed them. So that's what Jack Ruby is. All right, so where was it?

[Bri]

Did it again. We were at line 92.

[Frank]

Thank you. Okay, got it. So on November 22, 1963, shots rang out in Dallas, Texas. President John F. Kennedy was struck down in Daley Plaza a moment captured by amateur cameraman Abraham Zapruder and replayed endlessly in the American psyche. Within hours, the Dallas police arrested Lee Harvey Oswald a 24 year old former Marine and defector to the Soviet Union. But after Oswald could be tried, something even stranger happened. On November 24, just two days after the assassination, nightclub owner Jack Ruby walked into the Dallas police headquarters basement and shot Oswald in the abdomen. On live television, millions watched as Oswald collapsed and Ruby was sworn by officers. The crime threw gasoline onto the fire of conspiracy. Why would Ruby, a strip club operator with mob connections, risk everything to kill Oswald? Was it grief? Anger? Or something far darker? After his arrest, Ruby was erratic. He seemed disoriented, paranoid and prone to outbursts. In court he rambled about plots against Jews, about government corruption, about things that made little sense. His behavior raised a new Was Ruby mentally unstable or was he hiding something? By 1964, Ruby's lawyers and Dallas officials requested psychiatric evaluation. They needed to know if he was competent to stand trial, if he was insane or if something else was at play. And into the storm stepped Louis Jollyan Jolly West. West, by then chair of psychiatry at the University of Oklahoma, was asked to examine Ruby. It was an extraordinary assignment to probe the mind of the man who had silenced the alleged assassin of the President of the United States. For west, it must have felt like a culmination of his obsessions. Here was a man under extreme pressure showing signs of psychosis, possibly holding secrets of national conspiracy. And west, with his background in hypnosis, drugs and coercion was uniquely qualified or some would argue uniquely suspicious. When west made Ruby. I'm sorry. When west met Ruby in his cell, he found a man unraveling. Ruby was paranoid, convinced that mysterious forces were controlling his fate. He told west that Jews were being slaughtered in Dallas jails and that he was the last witness alive. He claimed strange rays were entering his body, influencing his thoughts. Ruby

[Brie]

vacillated.

[Frank]

That was right between Lucidity and delusion, at times coherent, at times spiraling into hallucinations.

[Listener/Interjector]

West Diagnosed Me TV is America's number one classic TV entertainment network, airing over 60 of the greatest TV series every week. Now METV presents the Golden Girls of Summer, showcasing the best of the Golden Girls. Watch Dorothy, Blanche, Rose and Sophia weeknights on MeTV at 10pm 9 Central. Log on to metv.com now to find out where to watch MeTV. Free over the air and on cable, satellite and select streaming services, METV is memorable entertainment television Waking up exhausted, foggy

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[Livy Dunn]

I'm Livy Dunn, All American gymnast and Vuori athlete. When you travel and train as much as I do, you find happiness where you are on the mat or on the sand. Movement and comfort are essential. That's why I live in performance Joggers by Viori Made from Dream Knit fabric that's made of 89% recycled materials, effortlessly soft and made to move as much as I do. My happiness starts here in the softest joggers on the planet. Get 20% off your first purchase at Vuori.com Livy that's V U-O-R-I.com L I V-V-Y X L exclusions apply. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on US orders over $75 and free returns. Go to Vuori.com Libby and discover the full versatility of Vuori. Clothing exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions.

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[Frank]

With psychotic disorganization in plain terms, Ruby was losing touch with reality. But Wes didn't stop at diagnosis. In his recommendations, he suggested Ruby be placed under sodium thipentanol, popularly known as truth serum. Under this drug, patients often became disinhibited. Speaking freely, Wes also suggested hypnosis as a tool to explore Ruby's subconscious and clarify his memories.

[Brie]

How come people don't use that as a party drug?

[Frank]

I don't know, but we should. We should totally have like a gathering

[Lynette]

sodium pentathol each other.

[Frank]

Hey, take a s. And then. And then hit record and see what happens.

[Lynette]

I really want to know Brie's stream of thoughts.

[Frank]

Ah, me too.

[Brie]

Oh boy.

[Frank]

You know, man, you know what? Maybe. Maybe we dose Brie and Brian and see what they say about each other.

[Lynette]

They just say nothing.

[Frank]

No, Brian. No. I know when Brian's drunk, when he doesn't shut up.

[Lynette]

Oh yeah, and then you put dessert in front of him and then he really doesn't shut up.

[Bri]

Yeah, no, when you put dessert from him, he actually does shut up because he's too focused on eating.

[Frank]

Yeah, but that only lasts very small amount of time because he shovels it in. It's so funny to watch.

[Lynette]

He's like the skinniest guy in the world to eat so much dessert.

[Frank]

Dude, he. He is the epitome of a little kid.

[Lynette]

What? Ice cream?

[Bri]

But I love him.

[Frank]

Yeah, yeah, you're the only one.

[Brie]

His.

[Bri]

His mom loves him.

[Frank]

I think it's all fake. Just to make his brother jealous. This proposal set off alarms, alarm bells for conspiracy theorists decades later. After all, West MK Ultra research had focused precisely on the combination of drugs and hypnosis to alter memory. And. And now here he was recommending the exact same techniques on Jack Ruby, the one man who might have been able to shed light on Oswald, the assassination and whatever forces lay behind them. For skeptics, the overlap is too convenient to dismiss. West had studied whether false memories could be implanted. He had tested hypnosis and drug combinations under MKUltra. And now he was applying those same methods to the single most sensitive prisoner in America. Some theorists argue Ruby may have been experimented on with his paranoia and hallucinations. Not signs of natural psychosis, but of deliberate manipulation. Ruby himself fed the paranoia, speaking of rays entering his body and of vast conspiracies to silence him. Others go further, suggesting West's role was to ensure Ruby remained unreliable. To fragment his mind so completely that he could never testify coherently. Ruby was found guilty of murder in 1964, sentenced to death, though the conviction was later overturned on appeal. Before a re child could occur, Ruby's health collapsed in 1967. He was diagnosed with cancer and died in prison that same year. He never provided coherent testimony about why he killed Oswald, leaving the question forever open. Was he grief stricken patriot or mob pawn? Or a manipulated pawn in a Larger game. To the courts, west was simply a psychiatrist doing his job. His report was filed, his suggestions noted, and Ruby's decline attributed to mental illness and later, cancer. But in the annals of conspiracy, West's presence in Ruby's cell has become legendary. He was the MK Ultra psychiatrist, the man obsessed with hypnosis and false memories, examining the one figure who might have exposed the conspiracy. For many, it is the smoking gun, not because of what west wrote, but because of who west was. And so from that moment onward, Jolly west would be forever enshrined in JFK lore, not as a healer, but as a possible manipulator of history itself. In 1969, Louis Jolly and West accepted the position of chair of the Department of Psychiatry and director of the Neuropsychiatric Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. It was a new world. Los Angeles in the late 60s was a city boiling over with change and unrest. The Manson murders had just stunned the nation. Drugs flooded the streets. The counterculture pulsed in music, art and politics. Protests against the Vietnam War turned violent. To west, this chaos was both a challenge and an opportunity. He believed psychiatry could not just treat individuals. I'm sorry, individual illness, but also helped stabilize society itself. And now, at the helm of UCLA's psychiatric powerhouse, he had the stage to prove it. Almost immediately, Wes became a fixture in the media. Charismatic and articulate, he was the kind of expert television producers loved. He could explain cult psychology on the evening news, warn about the dangers of LSD in a way parents understood, and weigh in on court cases with an authoritative, confident tone. He appeared in newspapers, magazines and broadcasts, speaking on drug abuse. West warned of LSD's capacity to trigger psychosis of amphetamines, driving paranoia of heroin devastating communities. After the Manson murders, he testified that charismatic leaders could brainwash vulnerable followers, echoing the Triple D model he had developed years later. In a city marked by riots, crime waves and political extremism, west presented himself, himself as a man who could explain why violence erupted and how science might stop it. To the public, he was a guardian against chaos. To critics, he was a man who spoke reassuringly while standing at the edge of deeply unsettling ideas. In the early 1970s, west drafted his boldest plan yet. The creation of a center for the Study and reduction of Violence. On paper, the center sounded humanitarian, a multidisciplinary hub to study violence, predict it and prevent it. But when the details came to light, the plan drew outrage. Mass data collection. The center would gather information from schools, courts, hospitals and law enforcement to identify individuals at Risk of violence. Biological studies. The proposed included eeg, brain scans, hormonal tests and genetic studies to look for markers of violent behavior. Psychosurgery. In severe cases, west suggested surgical intervention such as amygdalotomies. There you go. To dampen aggression. And behavior modification Drugs, therapy and conditioning techniques would be explored as methods to reshape violent impulses. To west, this was visionary. If violence could be studied like a disease, maybe it could be cured before it erupted. But to his critics, it was dystopian. Yeah, that's fucking crazy.

[Brie]

Sounds like profiling, like in. With a jaded perspective.

[Frank]

Yeah, well, I mean, not just that you can't. You can't get in trouble A, for your thoughts and B, for something that you might do, you know?

[Brie]

Right, that's what I'm saying. It's.

[Frank]

Yeah, no, you're right. Yeah, you're right. So civil libertarians recoiled. Was west proposing to create a system where children could be flagged as future criminals based on brain waves? Would the state have the power to surgically alter behavior? The Los Angeles Times ran skeptical stories. Activists accused him of trying to create a psychosurgical gulag. Within UCLA itself, faculty debated whether the project crossed ethical lines. The timing made things worse. In 1973, just as west was lobbying for the center, news of the CIA's MK Ultra program began leaking into the press. Americans learned about LSD dosing of unwitting citizens, about safe houses with one way mirrors, about sensory deprivation in mind control experiments. Against that backdrop, West's proposal looked less like science and more like MK Ultra 2.0, a continuation of government mind control research under the banner of violence prevention. The proposal went before the California state legislature. Hearings were contentious. Supporters argued it could save lives. Opponents warned of Big Brother psychiatry and the weaponization of science. In the end, the CSRB was killed before it could fully launch. For west, it was a devastating blow. He later called it the most frustrating defeat of his career. But. But for conspiracy theorists, the very existence of the plan confirmed there were suspicions. Wes wasn't just a psychiatrist. He was an architect of pre crime science trying to predict and control human behavior at scale. That's so scary.

[Brie]

I don't like it. I get the ick factor with all of that.

[Frank]

That was just 50 years ago.

[Brie]

Yeah. Now it's just rebranded and they're probably doing it anyway.

[Frank]

Oh, absolutely.

[Lynette]

Called Project.

[Frank]

It's. It's called Project Facebook now.

[Brie]

Yeah, yeah.

[Frank]

This duality only deepened. On the one hand, west spoke against the death penalty, advocated for better treatment of addicts and testified against torture in

[Brie]

South Africa, even though he tested on prisoners.

[Frank]

Right.

[Lynette]

Okay.

[Frank]

On the other hand, he had proposed a center that looked too many to many, like a tool of authoritarian control. Was he a humanitarian scientist trying to prevent violence? Or was he a man still chasing the CIA's old dream to master the mechanics of the human mind for power? In Los Angeles, west reached the height of his visibility. But in the shadows, a new controversy was brewing, One that would tie him to one of the most infamous cult leaders in American history. Charles Manson.

[Brie]

Not from Wisconsin?

[Frank]

Unfortunately.

[Bri]

No.

[Brie]

But he wishes he was.

[Frank]

I think so. I. I think. I think he. I think he said he. That was his home. Yeah, because of the.

[Brie]

The cows. Curves.

[Frank]

The cows. Yeah, he loved them. Cows. While Wes was settling into ucla, the heart of the counterculture pulsed two cities. I'm sorry? Two cities north in San Francisco's height.

[Brie]

Ashbury Haight.

[Frank]

Ashbury district. By 1967, the neighborhood had become the epicenter of hippie life, music, sex, protest, and most of all, drugs. LSD flowed freely. Marijuana smoke curled through the streets, and the dream of a new, liberated society seemed almost tangible. But beneath the utopian veneer, things were messy. Bad. I'm sorry? Bad LSD trips.

[Lynette]

Are you on LSD right now? What are you doing?

[Frank]

Probably there's a little net flying around.

[Lynette]

There's no net.

[Frank]

It was okay. Careful, the elephant's right next to you, Stampy. So,

[Brie]

bad LSD trips.

[Frank]

Yeah, Bad. Where was it bad?

[Lynette]

Venereal disease, Malnutrition.

[Frank]

Malnutrition? Overdoses. The neighborhood was flooded with kids seeking freedom, but finding ruin. Into this chaos stepped a young doctor named David e. Smith. In June 1967, Smith founded the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic. His motto was healthcare is a right, not a privilege. The clinic treated anyone who walked in the door, no questions asked. Within weeks, hundreds of patients came for help with infections, overdoses, or psychiatric breakdowns. But the clinic also became a magnet for researchers. The hate was, in effect, an uncontrolled laboratory of human experimentation with thousands of people dosing themselves with psychedelics daily. For psychiatrists interested in altered states, this was a gold mine. And among the researchers who forged connections with the clinic was Louis Jolyon West.

[Brie]

How do you think they got the drugs in the first place? Duh.

[Frank]

Right? Drug dealers. West, then chair at ucla, arranged permission to recruit patients for research through the clinic. Officially, this was framed as legitimate Study the psychiatric effects of LSD to understand the causes of drug induced psychosis and test therapeutic interventions. But conspiracy theorists see something more to them, West's presence in Haight Ashbury wasn't just about treatment. It was about continuing MKUltra's mission in the field. The CIA, after all, had a long history of embedding researchers in unsuspecting populations. And Haight Ashbury, with its drug saturated youth culture was the perfect laboratory. At the same time, another figure drifted into the hate. Charles Manson had just been released from prison in March 1967 after serving nearly seven years. A small, wiry man with hypnotic eyes and a gift for manipulation, Manson arrived in San Francisco during the height of the Summer of Love. He quickly gathered a group of mostly young women drawn to his charisma and promises of freedom, sex and spiritual awakening. They formed the nucleus of what would become the Manson Family. The Family spent time in the Haight and like many street people, they frequented the Free Medical Clinic. They came for checkups, for treatment, sometimes just for a place to rest. And so on paper at least, the worlds of Jolly west and Charles Manson overlapped. Here is what we can say with certainty. West had research access to patients at the Haight S Ashberry Free Clinic. Charles Manson and his followers used that clinic for medical care. Manson or his family members became part of West's research studies. No surviving documents tie Manson directly to west, but the proximity is enough to ignite suspicion. Why does this overlap matter so much? Because Manson displayed a kind of control over his followers that seemed almost unnatural. He used LSD trips, sex rituals, music and isolation to bend his family to his will. Women who had been straight laced suburban daughters became willing participants in brutal murders. They followed him without question even when he ordered them to kill strangers in Los Angeles in August of 1969. To conspiracy theorists, Manson looked like the embodiment of an MK Ultra experiment. A man trained, wittingly or not, in coercive persuasion who created programmed killers out of ordinary young people. If Wes was studying hypnosis, drugs and suggestibility and Manson was perfecting them in real time, was this coincidence or connection? In 2019, journalist Tom O' Neill published Chaos Charles Manson. What?

[Brie]

It's a good book.

[Frank]

Is it?

[Brie]

T?

[Frank]

Okay. Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties. O' Neill spent decades digging into the Manson case and what he found was disturbing, though not conclusive.

[Brie]

Sounded like you said digging.

[Frank]

That's it. Just dicking it down. He documented West's research, access to the free clinic, the CIA's known interest in LSD experiments in San Francisco, Manson's repeated parole violations that went mysteriously unpunished. As if someone wanted him free O' Neill stopped short of saying Manson was an MKUltra project. But he argued there were too many coincidences to dismiss West's hypnosis in drug research, the CIA's interest in social control, and Manson's uncanny ability to dominate his followers. The theory that Manson was tied to MK Ultra has three proximity. Manson and west operated in the same neighborhood, connected to the same clinic. Methodology. Manson's techniques, lsd, repetition, isolation mirror the methods of coercion west had studied since the Korean War and convenience. Manson, a violent cult leader, became the perfect boogeyman of the counterculture. His crimes discredited the hippie dream of peace and love, aligning neatly with establishment fears. To believers, Manson wasn't just a madman, he was a field test of MK Ultra's potential. West himself never addressed Manson's speculation directly. He did, however, publish extensively on cults, arguing that coercive persuasion could transform individuals against their will. He testified in trials that cult indoctrination mirrored brainwashing. He studied how LSD and group rituals could strip away autonomy. In other words, he described Manson perfectly without ever saying his name. To be fair, the evidence tying west directly to Manson is circumstantial. We know he had access to the clinic. We knew Manson's family used the clinic. But no surviving document proves they intersected. Intersected directly. Yet the narrative is so compelling that it refuses to die. It is the perfect convergence. The MK Ultra psychiatrist obsessed with hedosis and memory, the cult leader who turned kids into killers, the clinic that connected them both. For many, the absence of proof is not proof of absence, Especially when so many MK Ultra records were destroyed in 1973. Whether or not they ever met Manson represented the dark reflection of West's career. West studied how coercion could break and remake the mind. Manson lived it. West sought to control behavior through hypnosis and drugs. Manson used LSD and sex to enslave his followers. It's no wonder their names are forever linked. After the manson murders in 1969, America was gripped by the idea of brainwashing in everyday life, could ordinary people be compelled to commit extraordinary crimes under the influence of a manipulative leader?

[Landofrost Announcer]

No.

[Brie]

Finish your sentence. But then I have a question.

[Frank]

Okay. Jolly west, already an expert in coercive persuasion, became the man reporters, lawyers and lawmakers turn to for answers.

[Brie]

Why couldn't they use brainwashing to do good things?

[Frank]

Because that's not how stories become interesting.

[Brie]

So nobody wants to save kitties from trees?

[Frank]

I mean, I do.

[Brie]

They want light the tree on Fire while the cat's in it.

[Frank]

Yep, they do.

[Bri]

Unfortunately.

[Frank]

They do. Yes. I think. I mean, just like anything else that we cover, it's all about control and money.

[Brie]

But wouldn't you think they'd be more successful if they brainwashed people? Well, maybe they're already doing it to being complacent and docile, I think, and follows instructions.

[Frank]

I think if what we experienced in 2020 was fabricated, that was all that was about. You know, I'm on the fence about that. I see both ways. I just. I feel like Bri, when it comes to that topic, but I see her. I see both ways. Both ways. And both sides have legitimate arguments for their pros, you know, so, yeah, I think that was exactly it. So when people were making. Were telling stories about the shot, you know, there was some crazy things out there. Okay. But I think it was all a way of to see who could be controlled and who wouldn't. And if I was planning on the next step, the next step would be to create a disease again, have this other outbreak, but this time having the shot work for real. And everyone who doesn't have the shot die off because those are the ones that can't be controlled, you know, where.

[Brie]

Maybe that's what this hantavirus is.

[Frank]

Maybe, maybe. But that's also the reverse thought. Back in 2020, people were saying, well, if you do get that, you're going to have a blah, blah, blah. That's. I don't. That's not the smart way. Why would you off the people listing and you're controlled. You know what I mean? Yeah, like that. That made no sense to me.

[Lynette]

So.

[Frank]

But yeah, I think I know.

[Brie]

Let's ask Bill Gates.

[Frank]

All right. Hey, Bill, get him on the line. Hey, Bri, could you dial up Bill Gates for me, please?

[Bri]

Got it. Give me a second.

[Frank]

All right, thanks.

[Brie]

Nope, disconnected his dial up.

[Frank]

That was dialed. Wouldn't that be amazing? You go to Bill Gates house and he's like, let me hop on in. Like AOL 6.0.

[Lynette]

His.

[Frank]

His kids pick up the phone, get off the phone line.

[Brie]

Just asl guy.

[Lynette]

What's your age, like, location?

[Frank]

We have to. We have to make a cartoon. That'd be a great cartoon.

[Brie]

That's fine.

[Lynette]

All right.

[Frank]

After the manson murders in 1969, America was gripped by the idea of. I read that already. So his model of debility, dependency and dread fit perfectly. Cult leaders isolated their followers, made them wholly reliant on the group, and instilled fear of outsiders, damnation or punishment. To Wes, the Cult was simply brainwashing with flowers in its hair. In 1974, the heiress Patricia Hearst was kidnapped by a radical leftist group, the Symbionese Liberation Army. Weeks later, to the shock of the nation, Hearst appeared in SLA propaganda tapes denouncing her family and capitalism. Soon after, she was caught on camera brandishing a rifle during a bank robbery. Was she a willing revolutionary or a brainwashed captive? At her trial, west testified about coercive coercive persuasion. He explained how kidnappers could use isolation, sleep deprivation, threats and indoctrination to reshape a victim's identity. To him, Hearst was a textbook case of Stockholm syndrome fused with brainwashing. The jury was unconvinced. Hearst was convicted. But West's testimony cemented his reputation as the go to psychiatrist for explaining how the ordinary people could be transformed by pressure. Then came the most horrifying cult event of the 20th century. In 1978, the charismatic preacher Jim Jones led over 900 of his followers in Jonestown, Guyana to mass suicide by cyanide laced flavor aid.

[Bri]

Listen to one of our past episodes. We have two parts.

[Frank]

This would be in November of 2024. It's a two part episode.

[Brie]

Yep.

[Frank]

Check our archives. Mothers gave poison to their children before drinking it themselves. To many Americans, it seemed incomprehensible. How could so many people willingly die at the command of one man? West explained it. To him, Jonestown was the ultimate demonstration of coercive persuasion. Jones had isolated his followers in the jungle, cut them off from family and outside information, made them dependent on him for food, shelter and identity, and instilled dread of outsiders who might attack them. In that closed system, when Jones gave the order to die, obedience was almost inevitable. West's commentary became part of the national narrative. Jonestown wasn't a mass suicide. It was a mass murder by brainwashing. In the 70s and 80s, America panicked over new religious movements. The Unification Church, also known as Mooney's. Never heard of that. You?

[Bri]

Nope. Nope.

[Frank]

No. The Hare Krishnas, the children of God.

[Brie]

We know that one. See that episode?

[Frank]

Yeah. The other episode. All were accused of brainwashing young people, stealing them from their families and creating cult zombies. West was front and center, testifying in cases, advising parents and supporting the controversial practice of deprogramming. Deprogrammers kidnapped cult members, subjected them to intense counseling, and tried to undo the brainwashing. To some, it was rescue. To others, it was just another form of coercion. Through it all, West's voice was steady. Cults used the same psychological weapons as POW camps in terrorist cells. As the 1970s gave way to the 80s, west expanded his focus to terrorism. Hijackings, assassinations and bombings were on the rise, and west argued that terrorists often used the same indoctrination tactics as cults. He gave lectures to law enforcement, testified in congressional hearings, and wrote papers on the psychology of political violence. His aborted plan for the UCLA Violence center, critically criticized as dystopia, now looked to some like an attempt to understand the roots of terrorism before it spread. In the 1990s, west found himself pulled into a new controversy. The false memory debate. Debate. Patients across America began recalling repressed memories of childhood abuse, often under hypnosis or guided therapy. Families were torn apart as accusations flew. At the same time, critics argue that therapists were implanting false memories through suggestion. West was uniquely positioned. Decades earlier in his MK Ultra research, he had studied precisely how hypnosis and drugs could create convincing but false memories. He knew, perhaps better than anyone how malleable memory could be. He warned that both dangers were real. Traumatic memories could be repressed and later recovered. But suggestive therapy could also create entirely false memories. It was, in many ways the culmination of his life's obsession. From POWs confessing to crimes they never committed, to cultists committing murders they never thought possible, to patients remembering events that never happened. West's career revolved around one terrifying truth. Memory and identity are not fixed. They can be bent, broken or rebuilt. Through all this, west remained his jolly Persona. He was witty, charming and media friendly. He campaigned against the death penalty, testified against torture, and spoke of compassion for the mentally ill. To many, he was a humanitarian.

[KFC Announcer]

METV is America's number one classic TV entertainment network, airing over 60 of the greatest TV series every week. Now MeTV presents the Golden Girls of Summer, showcasing the best of the Golden Girls. Watch Dorothy, Blanche, Rose and Sophia Weeknights on MeTV at 10pm 9 Central. Log on to metv.com, now to find out where to watch MeTV. Free over the air and on cable, satellite and select streaming services. MeTV is memorable entertainment television.

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[Livy Dunn]

I'm Livy Dunn, All American gymnast and Vuori athlete. When you travel and train as much as I do, you find happiness where

[Frank]

you are on the mat or on

[Livy Dunn]

the sand, and movement and comfort are essential. That's why I live in performance. Joggers by Viori made from Dream Net fabric that's made of 89% recycled materials, effortlessly soft and made to move as much as I do. My happiness starts here in the softest joggers on the planet. Get 20% off your first purchase at Vuori.com Livy that's V-U-O-R-I.com Livvy exclusions apply. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on US orders over $75 and free returns go to Vuori.com Libby and discover the full versatility of Vuori clothing Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions.

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[Frank]

But for others, the shadow of MK Ultra never faded. They saw in his cult testimony echoes of his hypnosis experiments. They saw in his memory warnings I'm sorry They saw in his memory warnings the fingerprints of past CIA projects. They saw in his terrorism lectures the continuation of his obsession with control. By the time he reached the 90s, Jolly west was both a celebrated psychiatrist and a permanent suspect in the eyes of conspiracy researchers. On January 2, 1999, Louis Jolyan Jolly west died of cancer at his home in Los angeles. He was 74 years old. The obituaries were respectful. They remembered a man who had arisen from humble immigrant roots to become one of America's most influential psychiatrists. They praised his work on addiction, cults and violence. They quoted colleagues who called him compassionate, witty, and endlessly curious. And all of that was true. But there was another truth, too, one harder to fit into polite columns of print. Jolly west had spent his life circling the darkest frontiers of psychiatry brainwashing, hypnosis, lsd, memory manipulation and coercion. He had testified in some of the most infamous trials of the century, proposed one of the most controversial psychiatric centers in American history, and left a trail of coincidences that conspiracy theorists would never let go to the public. He was a healer, a reformer, a man who campaigned against torture and the death penalty. To his critics, he was the Smiling face of secret government project to master the human mind. That dual image is what makes west so haunting. He was not a cartoon villain nor a saint. He was something far more unsettling. A man who genuinely wanted to understand how the mind works, but was willing to cross into the gray zones where science meets power. In life, he straddled two worlds. The world of open science and the world of secrecy. In death, he left behind two legacies. One of humanitarian psychiatry and one of shadowy manipulation. Louis Jolyon west will always be remembered for the patients he healed, the students he inspired, and the causes he championed. But he will also always be remembered as the doctor who studied false memories for the CIA, the psychiatrist who evaluated Jack Ruby, the researcher whose path brushed against Charles Manson, and the man who proposed a pre crime laboratory in California. Perhaps the real truth about west lies in that tension. The smiling jolly who wanted to save lives, and the restless scientist who wanted to know just how far the mine could bend before it broke. And maybe that's why, more than 20 years after his death, his name still echoes not just in psychiatry textbooks, but in whispers in books and documentaries. Late night conversation about mind control and secret government projects. Because West's story isn't just about one man. It's about the fear that our thoughts, our memories, our very selves might not belong entirely to us. And that fear will never die. But the story doesn't quite end there. Because if you follow the conspiracy threads that tie west to America's darkest secrets, you open a whole different set of files. And what those files suggest is even more unsettling. So, Bri.

[Brie]

Yeah?

[Frank]

A thought.

[Bri]

I'm thinking. I'm in a process of thinking.

[Frank]

Okay.

[Brie]

Lynette, I was listening for the AOL sound.

[KFC Announcer]

Bill.

[Frank]

Get off online. Get off the damn computer. I'll play with your kids.

[Lynette]

No.

[Brie]

So I don't know. I'm torn on this one. Like I. I know that the whole MK Ultra Prod project was super ultra mega compartmentalized. I feel like at the root of it, he was a good person trying to understand things. I would like to think he was anyway. I mean, we didn't really hear any details like of hard experiment stuff. I mean, we kind of know high level of what was done, but I mean he was obviously talking to a lot of POWs and stuff and gathering information from their experiences. But was he actually sleep depriving people and propagandizing people? Or was he taking the results of people who have already experienced that to come up with his mainframe foundation of the 3Ds.

[Frank]

So I don't think he was personally sleep depriving, but I do think he was in charge of what subjects got treated with what deprivation. Like, I think this is a real life case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. You know, I really do think that his curiosity was genuine. I don't think it had anything to do with control. I really think he was curious about the mind and consciousness, where it resides, how it works, can it be broken, can it be manipulated? I really think. But I also think that he was the Dr. Frankenstein to himself as well. To where. All right, to really dive deep, there have to be gray areas that we venture in and possibly cross lines. I don't know if that's right or wrong.

[Brie]

Well, and that's where I was struggling is because he obviously was confident in his understanding that by going through these experiences can manipulate someone's psyche and therefore testifying against them. I don't know. I didn't, it didn't sit well with me. Like, I understand that he could speak confidently and say if this person had a psychiatric break and then they decided to murder somebody, like they shouldn't go to jail, they're not mentally fit or whatever.

[Frank]

Right, right.

[Brie]

But if he was authorizing experiments to get to that understanding, that's where I don't feel comfortable with it.

[Frank]

Sure, sure. But I mean, what's the saying? The, the means was.

[Brie]

It bends, don't justify the means.

[Frank]

The, the means justifies the end for the. In this scenario. Right.

[Lynette]

So.

[Frank]

So the process of getting to the answer is justifiable because the answer is worth that much more. You know, it's like, do we let you know? It's like we would talk about this and one of our things that keep you up at night, you know, train going down the track that's headed to kill six people, but you can switch just to kill the one, you know, what do you do?

[Bri]

Right.

[Frank]

You know, so I mean, like, I think that's. That was his, his mentality is like, you know, the means are justifiable to figure out how to do this to protect America, to protect humanity, to help humans in the future. Do I agree with it? I don't know.

[Brie]

And you didn't question where your funds were coming from, though?

[Frank]

Like, I'm sure, I'm sure that, I'm sure he knew exactly.

[Bri]

It's probably one of those things where he knew, but he didn't want to ask because he didn't want the knowledge.

[Frank]

Yeah, I mean, do you think he

[Brie]

brainwashed himself to not know what he did?

[Bri]

Kind of wondering myself too. Like, did he. He do any of this to himself or did. Was he technically brainwashed by someone else?

[Frank]

No, I don't think so. Just because of how high up he was in everything. I mean, everywhere he went, starting at 29, he was the head of everything.

[Brie]

Right.

[Frank]

So that's not the person that you would brainwash. Yeah. See, I told you there's a NAT in here.

[Bri]

It's LSD we talked about in the MLK Ultra episode, how technically, what if it's actually the CIA that's actually controlling everything else? Remember that, like, at one point we're like, what if it's actually someone else controlling the CIA?

[Brie]

Right, yeah.

[Bri]

Like, how do we not know that someone else actually not controlling him?

[Frank]

Oh, no. I mean people, though. And when. When. When you're saying control, are you saying mind control? Are you saying controlled by manipulation?

[Bri]

Like brainwashing? Like, basically what we've been talking about?

[Frank]

I don't think there was any of that happening. I really think the control comes from authoritative control, not a mind washing. But I could be wrong, you know, so clean. Yeah.

[Bri]

You know, so fresh.

[Frank]

Oh, geez. So this was a fun one. I like this one. Bri, a thought?

[Lynette]

No.

[Frank]

Okay. Thank you. I'm happy we cleared that up.

[Brie]

You're welcome.

[Frank]

So. Yeah, Anything else to add, ladies?

[Brie]

Just a reminder, this whole MK Ulster project was completely illegal and nobody went to jail for it.

[Frank]

And funded by your tax dollars.

[Brie]

Thank you, America.

[Frank]

Yeah, more. Cool. Yeah. You know, so. Yeah, thanks for listening, guys. Don't forget to hit the follow button, leave a five star rating and write a review.

[Brie]

Are you brainwashing our listeners by.

[Lynette]

By propagandize and repetition. And if you don't, we're gonna have unpredictable punishments for you, not we're gonna

[Frank]

sleep, deprive you,

[Lynette]

then we're gonna isolate you. And all you have to listen to is our podcast. Over and over and over.

[Frank]

I'm gonna break into your house and slip you lsd. Every single countertop will be laced with lsd. And you could find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Lynette]

Smooth. Very smooth.

[Frank]

I thought that was hilarious. So. All right. Well, ladies, this has been fun.

[Listener/Interjector]

And

[Frank]

yeah, Lynette, it was a blast having you in studio.

[Lynette]

Hey, thanks for having me.

[Frank]

Yeah, anytime. Anytime. Well, my name is Frank.

[Brie]

I'm Brie. My name is Lynette.

[Frank]

And you've been listening to Fringe.

[Lynette]

Lynette.

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[Frank]

If you like the show, please take

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[Frank]

It really does help the show to grow.

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Thank you for listening.