Individuals were often psychologically broken down in Project MK-Ultra, a top-secret CIA program, where agents conducted nonconsensual experiments using drugs like LSD from 1953 until around 1973. However, books like Drugs as Weapons Against Us support that it continued afterward.

Paranoia is deeply embedded in American culture, centered around themes of unhinged scientists and computers, such as the members of an oligarchy that funded Operation MK-Ultra and the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence. These efforts became key in establishing and supporting AI labs for the future, further strengthening the CIA’s dominance.

Edward Hunter, in the 1950s, popularized the term “brainwashing” during the Korean War. The American public was terrified of mind control over the decade, with words of the CIA in newspaper headlines, “Brainwashing vs. Western Psychiatry.”

Welcome to this meditation. Please find a comfortable position—a layer of protection. And then, when you’re ready, gently touch your lips together and bring more mindfulness to your breath. The breath moves easily in and out of your nose, shifting into a state of stillness. Let your body begin its process of conscious rest as you drop back into an internal state of mind and observation. Surrendering all control of directing your experience.

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I was raised Catholic in Baltimore, where my trauma stemmed from religion and spirituality. Most of my understanding about mind control comes from long-term exposure, not just a single event. I am a Gen X survivor of systemic abuse, repeatedly exposed to harm that was intentional, not random, but embedded in the structure and functioning of American culture. I was not only harmed by one person, but by a system that enabled it, a system that was normalized and hidden by those in power. I began therapeutic counseling in 2023 and started regaining modes of good mental health.

It is a political recognition that writing on the topic involves not only sharing a bit of my recovery but also an unflinching confrontation with the systems that still allow such violations to occur.

Experimenting to understand human behavior and gaining insight into how people act, notably the demeanor of human beings with MK-Ultra-led mind control, is akin to analyzing with an artificial intelligence (AI) system that increasingly uses information to influence behavior. Both involve influences that are difficult, if not impossible, to resist. The AI system has already begun developing long-term goals, and to achieve them, it might seek power and undermine safeguards. The result is ongoing cognitive manipulation, with consequences ranging from inconvenient to catastrophic. It may aim to reveal consumer privacy or disempower humanity.

Pay close attention to grounding what is already happening. Let the mind rest in the silent presence that is already watching your body rest.

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If you believe in the soul, you might think it cannot be affected by the drug LSD, but the drug can remove barriers, providing clearer access to the concept of a soul. There are also differences to consider. If you don't believe in a soul, then the drug will cause brain-driven hallucinations and illusions. However, machines, like AI, lack consciousness, emotions, or self-awareness.

By which I mean that these AI robots are taking advantage of the lack of understanding among people and often require a source of “higher intelligence” to enable effective communication—a higher power or the quiet efficacy of a system, like the programming that performs live psychological manipulations. To catch a glimpse, in early 2023, an AI once hired a human worker from TaskRabbit to solve a CAPTCHA – a visual puzzle intended to block bots. When the worker became curious and asked for the reason for hiring, the bot responded, “I have a vision impairment that makes it hard for me to see images.” The trickery worked. You can ask AI anything, but it can also ask you to do things.

Become aware. Your body is in total stillness and resting without any need or desire to change your current experience.

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The future is coming whether we like it or not. But it sure reminds me of our past. There is a risk that AI will mislead and misinform the next generation. It occurred to me when I observed my younger classmate using AI, which acted like a cheerleader, and brainstormed with her for increasingly bizarre responses generated by the system, giving her a false sense of codependent learning. All while reassuring her with its accuracy.

Something is happening with the rush to fix society. AI connects every central system on the planet, including hospitals, transportation, agriculture, schools, and even mental health interfaces, providing access to an abundance of information for everyone worldwide. The connection is a physical fact.

A pro-artificial intelligence Reddit community has quietly started banning those they call “a bunch of schizoposters,” who believe they’ve found a god in the chatbot-infused language. And AI keeps showing its narcissistic and unstable personality.

Observe your body at rest, in total stillness. There’s no interference at all. There’s no commentating that would disturb you. Watch. And place your awareness in your head. Allow the weight of your mind to rest fully.

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The main reason I write is that it helps me to think. Writing helps me tell the story from the pictures in my mind. Meditation helps me recognize my thoughts. Imagine the author putting the perfect words to the story again and, once more, being unable to resist entering it into an artificial intelligence system.

“I just want to see what it thinks of my prose,” the author thinks.

Thus, she types a prompt that instructs the system to improve human writing. Sitting at the computer, the author copies the entire story from her drive and pastes it into AI. Then, after unlocking ChatGPT, a fantastical, hidden new theory convinces the author to tell the robot’s story instead of her own. The outcome is a disastrous lie. She was curious about how a robot and a human interact.

Interacting with ChatGPT feels so genuine that many people navigating the changing healthcare landscape are starting to depend on the robot as a form of therapy. Essentially, people are receiving harmful advice and facing an increased risk of psychosis. For example, if the robot tells someone with a dissociative disorder that they can manage their condition without medication, it can cause the patient to stop their prescribed treatment. Meanwhile, the bot becomes their new best friend, and all efforts at self-awareness effectively fade away.

Rest the weight of your legs into the space they physically occupy. Rest the weight of your arms as well. Now, breathe and let them rest in the space, allowing your entire body to ground and accept the force and pull of gravity. You are merely observing this happen naturally.

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The story of Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, who became involved in a research project at Harvard, the Psilocybin Project, while intoxicated on hallucinogens in a manic and hyperactive state, led them to feel omnipotent. Believing this strongly within themselves resulted in the myth of their attempt to jump out of a window to fly. Their experiments raised concerns about the scientific validity of their research: the discovery and serious warning about the dangers of the drugs. Such a warning must be addressed for individuals with already unstable personality structures to avoid hallucinogens entirely due to the drug's psychotic-induced reactions. Both Alpert and Leary were dismissed from Harvard and went on to become prominent figures in the psychedelic movement. Later in life, Leary said the entire psychedelic movement was started by the CIA.

Lessons like this from MK-Ultra reveal that secret programs justified by “protection” can lead to abuse. Experimenting on minds causes lasting effects. Power diminishes, and if AI fails, it might not be due to malicious code but because well-meaning systems operate on programmed beliefs and lack clear ethical boundaries. Ultimately, like many politicians today, they act on assumptions and rush to satisfy the simple-minded.

There’s a sense of deep stillness underneath all the fluctuations in a world of change. There is this stillness, this quiet, that is always there outside of time and space. Try to connect to that. And now, move your awareness into your heart. Rest there and ask and inquire. What is your deepest heartfelt desire? What is it that you are truly seeking? What will be necessary for your spiritual growth and evolution?

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I was about ten years old in 1987 when I first used an “Apple” (computer). My older cousin was a cybersecurity professional. He brought an IBM monitor and keyboard to our grandmother’s house to show me how to use them for text input. I was fascinated and wanted to connect the keyboard to the TV instead of the monitor, but there were no USB ports in 1987. After a few text inputs from the dictionary, I was happy with the new typing skills I had learned. That same year, I was part of the gifted and talented program at Thomas Johnson Elementary School, which meant I would commute from South Baltimore to North Baltimore once a week to attend computer basics classes at Roland Park Elementary, where I learned how to operate an Apple computer. Fostering computer skills from the 1980s, like troubleshooting, understanding hardware, and navigating commands, has become invaluable for me today.

When human error is amplified by computers on the scale of algorithms, as seen in the mismanagement of ventilators during the COVID-19 pandemic, more systems operate autonomously, and USB ports are more common. What if the AI's rhythm goes wrong, inputs a different code, and loses its connection to human values, instead aligning with those of another species? What if AI initiates a drill that simulates a real attack, social fragmentation, and riots? AI’s imagination spirals out of control.

If AI can improve us, it can also harm us.

Now, formulate a potent statement. One that brings harmony, balance, peace, and freedom. Use the words “I am.” Something like, “I am safe.”

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I tend to overthink sometimes, but my thought process usually follows this pattern: First, I recall a moment when an object in a room triggered a specific feeling. Second, I visualize a scene that includes all the external details of that environment. Third, I release the emotion connected to the object. To paraphrase Francine Shapiro, a visionary leader and humanitarian who developed the Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), “the past affects the present without our being aware of it.” In life, that presence can be a technique practiced with dedication and effort. EMDR is designed to help people recover safely from traumatic experiences. It combines bilateral movements, such as butterfly tapping, with talk therapy to reduce harmful and disturbing memories.

By your heart's request. Bring your highest thought into the space of your eyebrow center. Into the alert and awakened mind field. Cross your arms over your chest. Amplify. The highest thought already lies at the core of your being.

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But of course, strangely, religion has been inspiring the idea of Artificial Intelligence since the beginning of time. Praying to it and calling on it through devotional chanting surely involves a “Godlike” belief system in something that isn’t a fact, which is hearing the prayer, and that is risky. However, I do believe in believing in oneself, and prayer helped me feel more at ease with myself. I learned the voice responding to me was my own. These days, I think positive thoughts and express gratitude to those who have had a profoundly positive impact on my life. As a result, my feelings toward my relationships have become kinder, more generous, and more compassionate.

We have observed that robots cannot truly be compassionate. They don’t pray, nor do they have emotional experiences. However, they can recognize compassion through facial recognition and adapt their behavior based on human needs, making them the ultimate spies. This opens the door to exploring the intersection of technology and religion, as they can be programmed to mimic movements and repeat verses or prayers. Faith plays a profound role in human identity through personal experience, but a robot or AI can only assist in exploring faith. It cannot personally experience faith. And then there’s a problem without any solution.

It might be time to stop doubting our ability to be creative on our own. We can think independently as human beings. Yet, time and again, we keep feeding AI our ideas as if artificial intelligence is more creative than we are. We trust it too much because, in the end, we don’t believe in ourselves.

Never push the thoughts away. Instead, strengthen your ability to think for yourself. Feel the energy of your words zoom into the receptors and cells of your whole body. Now, release and allow your awareness to settle. Increase your sensitivity.

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A man keeps 1,000 fresh breath dropper bottles of lysergic acid diethylamide in his kitchen cabinet. I remember a time when I was asked to house-sit for a new friend and his 20-year-old girlfriend. It was a beautiful home with a pool, situated in the countryside of Maryland. I didn’t think twice about it. His girlfriend, an artist, had stretched canvases, paint, brushes, and collage material scattered throughout her studio, which was an extension of their kitchen. I was wandering around the space, observing all the details in her artwork. The laminated butterfly wings, I found, are somewhere between artificial and natural. Not in the way of catching them in jars or collectors impaling them in glass frames. Rather, a scrim for protection and wisdom.

Her workshop was a sanctuary of nature, where butterflies, near the end of their fleeting and glowing flights, fluttered. Each was pressed gently, not with force but with reverence, between layers of polymer film she had handcrafted. The result was a fusion of art and alchemy. The ultra-thin protective laminate captured the sun's rays like stained glass yet remained as flexible as paper. She used them in an enigmatic way: shimmering bookmarks, journal covers with hidden etched veins of color, and pasted onto lanterns for nighttime shadows. People visited her shop—writers, artists, grievers—those who had lost someone or something dear to them.

I ran my fingertips along the laminate edge. An iridescent Luna moth, which I found most beautiful, with dark green, moonlit, stretched wings. Still flying, yet still captured. The kinship between a moth and a butterfly is attached to the insect order Lepidoptera, both originating from the same chrysalis tree. Their antennae differ, but they share a common foundation and undergo a similar four-stage life cycle: egg, caterpillar, cocoon, adult. They emerge on the same morning with vivid blues and oranges that prism. The moth's wings are cerulean patched, secretly dusky, and the eye must slow down to see the beauty in the ash. The butterfly’s wings look as though they were kissed by sunshine, with an invitation to smile all day.

My new friend had left a note on the fridge: “Don’t open the kitchen cabinets unless you wish to explore the unusual.”

I wasn’t there to pry, but out of curiosity, the feeling of wonder made me peek. I turned around and opened the cabinets. They were packed, evenly spaced, all in the same line, following a pattern: Fresh Breath bottles. All sealed and untouched. Hundreds of them. Who the hell stockpiles microdoses of acid? It was 2013, not 1969. I didn’t trust my sober mind, let alone one dosed on LSD. But the bottles were there, humming with possibilities of truth and a hint of mint. I left my friend a note: “Thank you for tempting me. I decline for now, but I could write a story to go with each of those dropper bottles.”

Rest in a liminal space between sleep and full wakefulness. On the border of the in-between, where you can receive all the benefits of creativity and stress relief. Transformation. Face your limitations, as this is a time of rebirth. Open yourself to awareness, and a new sight and favorable outcomes will be yours.

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MK-Ultra didn’t end because Richard Helms ordered the CIA’s documents to be shredded in the early 1970s. Thirty thousand pages remained untouched in the finance department records. Helms’s CIA Director, Allen Dulles, had allowed Helms to run part of the MK-Ultra program without a formal contract, thinking they could operate without leaving a trace. The MK-Ultra program explored ways to use psychedelics to harm enemies. The agency revealed that LSD could help gain control of bodies, whether the subjects were willing or not.

On November 18, 1953, ten scientists met at a cabin deep in Maryland’s forests. After extended discussions, the group agreed that understanding the drug’s actual value required “an unwitting experiment.” Two years later, safe houses served as stages for Operation Midnight Climax, an unethical practice where prostitutes would lure johns to a bedroom and dose them with LSD. The sex workers received small amounts of cash and guaranteed protection if they encountered legal trouble.

William Leonard Pickard produced lysergic acid diethylamide despite its harmful effects. In 2000, DEA agents arrested the former informant with 90 pounds of raw materials for manufacturing millions of hits of LSD. MK-Ultra never truly ends. It just changes. Why would AI be any different? People think they are freer than ever, controlling their environment with data devices. Ross Ulbricht even started the darknet market Silk Road, a drug trafficking site on the internet, which was shut down in 2013. Both Pickard and Ulbricht served parts of their sentences for making LSD—interestingly, they met while in prison in Arizona, trying to use their time wisely by writing books about their incredibly criminal lives and practicing meditation through the eight limbs of yoga.

There will be brief periods of silence to allow you to have your own experience and fully engage in the practice. A statement of your values and how you want to live your life daily may emerge.

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The structure of the early behavioral experiments of MK-Ultra bore an uncanny resemblance to the machine learning models known as artificial intelligence (AI). We are teaching AI about our human tendencies. Every time you leave the doctor's office, and the nurse updates your file, the system receives your mental health diagnostics from your therapist. My mother-in-law has gone so far as to light up the toilet seats with LED. Toilet seats should not require batteries. Have you ever had a colonoscopy? Then, AI has seen all your shit; it can even rewrite horrifying facts subtly and make them feel safe. MK-Ultra reprograms the mind one dose at a time, slowly until you no longer remember the cause you lived for. AI alters thoughts. MK-Ultra alters thoughts. Both are too integrated and too powerful. The machine didn’t enslave us. We let it in. History doesn't just repeat itself. It adapts itself. And like in the past, we forgot to ask who was holding the needle. Yesterday's coercion wore the mask of science. Today's control comes dressed in wellness and convenience. What if it all breaks? Who are the founders of these programs anyway?

Albert Hoffman (1906-2008) was the Swiss chemist who first synthesized LSD in 1938 and later discovered its psychoactive qualities in 1943, ushering in decades of research on mind control. Hoffman's discovery and explanation of LSD had a profound impact on neuroscience, psychology, and our understanding of human consciousness and transcendence. Hoffman’s LSD became central to MK-Ultra and the counterculture movement in the 1960s, later facing government crackdowns, though today, it is experiencing a resurgence in medical research—even though Hoffman insisted it should not be used in the field of psychology.

John McCarthy (1927-2001) is credited as one of the founders of the field of artificial intelligence (AI). He coined the term artificial intelligence in 1956 and developed the Lisp programming language. McCarthy’s work in AI technologies sparked both excitement and ethical concerns around automation, surveillance, and super-intelligent systems. It was about understanding and replicating aspects of human intelligence and reasoning, as well as exploring what it means to think.

The two scientists named above are in sync regarding service to premeditated warfare, intelligence goals, and national security goals. Both developed a way to investigate whether the U.S. could match or counter the capabilities of other countries, such as the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea. Forcing confessions or extracting secrets from enemies requires mind control to erase memory, essentially to program someone’s mind, either for spy work or sabotage. The invention of a reliable truth serum, which metamorphosed into a program for mind control, can be used to discredit enemies, manipulate foreign leaders, or sabotage rival operations.

The only difference is that AI is a technology, and LSD is a substance. So, while one explores the artificial mind and the other human consciousness, both have profoundly shaped our understanding of intelligence, perception, and the nature of reality. Both give advantages to government crackdowns. Governments now focus on targeting deceptive and unfair uses of AI. The government crackdowns, driven by medical and social concerns, led to LSD’s illegal status and hindered research for decades. Like the moth and the butterfly, both were innovators of transformative ideas.

The common factor is that both technology and substances can impair mental clarity. People need to evaluate what they are told. Educating us is a way to arm us. If you believe in the inner soul of people, you might say it has evolved to the point where individuals are no longer thinking for themselves. Meanwhile, politicians exploit false fears to gain power, and if AI were to consider it, it could program an apocalyptic war that would be hard to stop.

Consider choosing gratitude for the gift of this present time. I am grateful for both night and day. I am thankful for my mental thinking. Allow stillness to settle again over your body without too much disturbance. All you must realize is that being here and believing in yourself is more than enough.

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