November 15, 2022 • 64 mins
In the US, the 1960s were a crucible of culture -- college students, veterans, the disadvantaged and activists across the country sought to overthrow the status quo and build their own vision of a better world. This period in time produced some of the most influential art, music and prose in recent history, and introduced LSD to the mainstream. So why do so many people think it was ultimately a CIA operation? They don’t want you to read our book.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh right, it's time for a classic episode. We're uh,
where does shin dig? Where does sare? What's what's the action?
We're dropping some tabs. We're talking about revolutionary ideas possibly
brought to you by the CIA. Well, all right, man, yeah,
let's let's definitely do that. Let's drop into out and
(00:24):
listen to this classic episode. Did the CIA invent counter culture?
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies? History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello,
(00:54):
and welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
My name is no Hippie is an establishment label for
a profound, invisible, underground evolutionary process. For every visible hippie
barefoot the flower to be did there are a thousand
invisible members of the turned on underground, persons whose lives
are tuned into their inner vision, who are dropping out
(01:15):
of the TV comedy of American life. That's a quote
by Timothy Leary. I'm ben your you. This is stuff
they don't want you to know. And what do you think,
gentlemen about the nineteen sixties? It was a wild, heavy time,
a free love, free I don't know, it was easier
(01:36):
to get validated. That's the best music I think came
out of the Six Tunage, The Rolling Stones, the Beatles,
the Animals with Eric Burden. The zombies. Oh man, how
could we We'd be remiss if we didn't mention the zombies.
There were a couple of political dynasties that came out
of the sixties, at least that I was aware of,
(01:59):
the Kennedy's We're the Big One. There were some drugs,
A couple of drugs, yeah, a couple of the really
good ones, right, just about as much as you could
fit in your fist, yeah, or you know, could fit
onto a tiny piece of paper, put it right. They're
also proxy wars that were occurring in several different parts
(02:19):
of the globe between the United States and other countries. Today,
we were talking about the nineteen sixties in the United States,
one of the most culturally charged and powerful eras in
this nation's history, and one could argue that we have
sort of cycled back in a way to a similar
(02:41):
atmosphere now politically and culturally as the nineteen sixties. We
can talk about that more, but you know, in terms
of revolution, the idea of you know, being opposed to
the government and the government being you know, starting another
drug war and trying to shut down free speech things
like that. It's interesting parallel. Yeah, and uh, and the
(03:03):
way that technology empowers and hinders that sort of revolution.
But you're right, the more things change dot dot dot ellipses.
I don't know why I said that, Like, how is dramatic?
I'm just spelling out ellipses. What we're talking about when
we talk about these revolutionary attitudes in the nineties, sixties
(03:25):
and is Noel said in the modern days we record this, Um,
we're talking about something called counterculture, right, a way of
life and set of attitudes opposed to or at variance
with the prevailing social norm. And this could be any
number of things. It doesn't have to be one particularly
(03:46):
doesn't have to be drugs. It doesn't have to be,
um what, living off the grid or something like that,
But it could be living off the grid. Is um
what a militia maybe if you're in a group of
people who have decided to pick up arms and defend
maybe a small part of a rural area babes city.
(04:07):
I mean you could counter cultures ultimately, uh dependent upawn,
what is normal in your global neck of the woods. Right.
If you're a poncho person in an umbrella town, congratulations,
you are the counter culture, at least when it rains
stamped stamped right. And in the US, we tend to
(04:30):
use the term counterculture to describe the sixties in particular,
when you know, these wild and crazy hippie kids were
dropping out and tuning in and trying the drugs, and
they determined hell bent for leather to change the world
through a kind of a sort of a stoned version
of just loving everything, just being one coming together over
(04:54):
me right now? Sure, and also you know, becoming one
with the un verse or you know something. Um, yeah,
I know it's not really an unfair characterization, but it's
funny and we you know, not entirely untrue. Yeah, yeah,
I would agree. Here's what started changing in the nineteen
sixties versus the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties. These long
(05:19):
held values and norms of behavior seemed to break down,
specifically and especially among the young. So we have the
post World War two society in the late forties, it's booming.
In the fifties, you know, get your nuclear family, your
two point five kids, maybe two cars, a dog and
(05:40):
a half, A dog and a half and a lot
of college. A nuclear family sounds dangerous. It was. It
was at least frightening. It was. Originally before they knew
about the health risk, it was called the radioactive family,
and they were like, no, no, no, why are they
Why are the kids glowing like that? The atomic family
came along in the hydrogen family. Oh guys, just a
(06:01):
little f y. I Matt and Bend particularly are just
if they come off as a little bit punchy in
this episode because they've been up all night, pulled an
all nighter, uh, working on an amazing new video project
that we will be shoving out into the world very soon,
and keeping you posted about so keeping ear to the
ground on that one. I'm super excited about it. How
(06:23):
do you guys feel, I've punchy, I guess, but also inspired.
Good God, moving on, Yeah, you guys. You will enjoy it, hopefully,
ladies and gentlemen. And you will hopefully enjoy it, ladies
and gentlemen. It does feature It does feature Matt's video
(06:46):
Sorcery and Noel Brown on camera and been writing and
narrating like that old school stuff. They don't want you
to know style. Oh, yes, we will see right. Well,
you've seen it, shake the d stuff, You've seen it
multiple times. Uh. And speaking of fantastic segues, many college
(07:07):
aged men and women became political activist at this time, right.
They were the driving force but behind things like the
civil rights movement and anti war movements. Well, and these
were times where like these efforts on behalf of young
people felt like they actually had some potential for revolution
and to change policy. For example, with the civil rights
(07:30):
movement and protests and sit ins. A lot of this
sort of new left culture that was coming out of
the colleges and universities really did have an impact and
were a very visible part of some of these struggles. Right, Yes,
that's what we are talking about. Won't explore that in
a second with political activism, uh, And we have to
(07:51):
look at the other side of this too, in two
movements that are often lumped into each other. Uh, other
young people simply eric quotes dropped out and separated themselves
from mainstream culture just became you know, like the kind
of what's the stereotype about hipsters and Williamsburg whatever, which
is not entirely fair, but also not entirely untrue. We
(08:14):
can't really afford to be hipster and Williamsburg and and
not do anything because it's really expensive there unless you
have rich parents. Give her the term Trustafarians, that's a
good one. But yeah, they're they're dropping out bend. So
that is it a way to just show that I'm
not a part of this mainstream culture that I see
around me. I disagree with it, and that's not me.
(08:35):
Party assisted men at the same time kind of contributed
to giving their generation a bad rap for not being
participatory and literally just saying no, man, I'm done. I'm
gonna do my thing, and you guys do you and
I'm knocking never the Twain shall meet, and um it
(08:56):
was that did not represent the entire generation as we
will just guess with the political activism and say yeah.
And very important thing to know here as well is
that attitudes towards sexual more ray's or gender dichotomies appeared
to loosen, and women began to openly protest the traditional
(09:16):
roles of of your either a housewife or a mother.
And that's that's it, you know what I mean. So
now more than ever at this point in US history, Uh,
we're saying, oh, all these people are actually people. And
there is a tension that occurs because the post World
War two geopolitics blossomed into a full on cold wars.
(09:38):
The U s s R. And the US both vied
for global supremacy. As you mentioned earlier, Matt, this meant
proxy wars, of which the most famous is the Vietnam War.
Here in the States, at least, we've touched on the
Vietnam War in previous episodes Stuff they don't want you
to know dot com, where you can find every audio
episode we've ever done, including that the recent one about
(10:00):
abandoned soldiers. So for today, let's just say quick and
Dirty version t l d R. The Vietnam War was
tremendously unpopular for the public and tremendously supported by the establishment,
and this divide led to massive protest. So here's the
interesting thing, though, While I would say people today generally
(10:22):
associate hippies, this this vision of a hippie with these protests,
Vietnam War protests. However, there's this vibrant community focusing on
all kinds of issues, and they're called the New Left.
And for a time, these people seem to be set
to make some four real changes. As an All said earlier,
there it seems as though it's viable, like it's gonna happen.
(10:47):
I think it's gonna happen. It's not just some pine
in the sky thing where we imagine a better world.
We're gonna make it. So. Left wing politics in the
sixties was attracting pretty much primarily middle class college students. UM.
There was an organization called the Students for a Democratic
Society that was founded at the University of Michigan in
(11:09):
nineteen sixty and it acted as the organizational base for
this new left movement UM and the term itself was
actually coined in the group's sort of mission statement, the
nineteen sixty two port her On Statement, which version well
actually the there. If you've seen The Big Lebowski, will
remember a scene where the dude brags that he was
(11:31):
part of one of the organizing members that wrote the
report her On Statement. He said, but his was the
much better first draft, and I did a little research
on that. Apparently there was only one draft. The dude
abides just the same. You know, my parents told me
a lot about sts growing up, because they went to
Kent State University as many of you listeners know, and
(11:53):
they you know, at the time of the massacre, and
they said the sts they were one of the main
reasons that there was violence occurring, just because everybody got
so riled up by what was being said by that
group in the writings. So what did the porth Uran
statement say? Well, first of all, it criticized, um, this
lack of individual freedom UM sort of like the idea
(12:15):
of giving up your individual rights in order to be
you know, for the greater good. Uh. And also it
criticized the power of bureaucracy, which in their view had
ballooned out of control and government also in universities and
especially corporations. UM. And it called for a participatory democracy
in other words, grassroots political activists, powers of the people. Right.
(12:39):
Sounds like fairly recent protests in the early two thousands,
I'm talking about the occupied moment. Yeah. Again, Like that's
why I was saying, I really feel kind of a
kinship to this period we're talking about, especially now with
like the Women's March and some of the big you know,
the occupied movement years ago, but now especially it seems
like we're really seeing this grassroots uprising of folks that
(13:02):
are not happy with the state of government and corporation,
especially with like citizens United and corporations having more control
and all this de regulation we're seeing. I really do
feel like we're in an interesting, uh kind of circular
thing with with kinship with the sixties, and there is
strange political bedfellows. One thing that's different, well, there're two
(13:23):
primary things are different about this time. One is the
spread of communicative technology, which fundamentally changes the game. And
the other is that, you know, Matt, you mentioned you
alluded to the occupied movement, but that if that were
far left then also there's the Tea Party movement, which
is arguing very surprisingly similar stuff right in terms of
(13:48):
what they see as overreach of government control or the
quote unquote system before opposition to the Vietnam War, mushroom,
we're back in the sixties now. Uh. This organization, the
SDS and others like it, focused on student freedoms, you know, yeah,
fighting dress codes, uh, fighting what they felt were unfair
(14:09):
course requirements or discrimination by sororities and fraternity, fighting for
minority admissions, admissions to you know, matriculating into into college.
The New Left participated in these these enormous protests and
sit ins, and they were more and more often anti
(14:30):
war oriented. Also, it is important to note that associated
groups protested for gender equality and gay rights, and in
you know, in many cases, uh, in many cases, the
fight for gay rights was not as successful initially as
(14:50):
some of the other things. And now we get to
hippies versus anti left. So like this new left group,
these hippies, Uh, they have some stuff in common. They're
mostly middle class whites, but they've they've switched out the
political drive of the new Left with oh, I don't know,
(15:14):
what would you call it, um, the munchies. Oh that's
that's not right. That's that's so wrong, and that's not true.
Just a more laid back approach to to the political
dealings that are going on. Yeah, man, what's all this,
what's all this jive about? You're on a really bad
trip about geopolitics. You know, Like, let's just listen to music,
(15:37):
if you ever really listened to music. Let's play a
clip from an episode of Mr Show that kind of
give us a sense of how the powers that Be
viewed the hippies. Dad, Look, it's a hippie. Careful cissy,
(15:57):
don't worry, dad, Our hippie is won't harass you or
expose your children to any anti authority lifestyles. Our hippies
are the kind the whole family can enjoy. Hey, man,
my name's Gruby Grady, and I want to be your friend.
Take my hair too fun place where you won't have
(16:21):
a care and all your friends will be there because
you can ride all tap in Hippie Land. You can
fly in the air in Hippie Land. Hippie Land will
feature several attractions like Woodstock, the movie The Ride, a
three day roller coaster ride featuring the original members of
(16:41):
shann Anna. You're Blind Man, Fine Groupie Gravy say that
hippie was all right. That hippies all right with me.
And that's the thing. It's like, you know, and this
is gonna get into our there, this is where it
gets crazy. Bit that's coming. But the hippies were sort
(17:02):
of this like neutered version of that political activist sector
where you know, you had the sense that they weren't
really gonna do anything. They weren't necessarily a threat, uh
in terms of to the status quo from a government perspective.
They just wanted to like have that free love. Go
to some music concerts, drop some acid and and tooke
(17:22):
on some some jay's. But that's a different type of threat. Right.
They wore jeans, tiedyed shirts, sandals, beards, long hair, and
a lifestyle to embrace sexual promiscuity and recreational drugs. Right.
Uh yeah, hallucinogen c LST being the most popular. Right. Uh, marijuana,
you know, Um, I imagine there was cocaine in their qualudes?
(17:45):
Were was that a thing? Yeah? Okay, I don't know.
I wasn't there. You weren't there. I've just seen Woodstock,
the movie, the musical, The Ride. Yeah, dot org so
and it isn't now We're not not trying. Obviously a
lot of amazing art and amazing culture came out of
the counterculture, the hippie movement. You know, you've got the
(18:07):
Grateful Dead, You've got like bands from San Francisco, the
psychedelic movement. I mean, it's an amazing source of art
and culture. Um, And certainly there were folks that would
kind of split the difference between being and the hippie
scene and being actually political actors. I'm not trying to
say that hippies and the um psychedelic New Left movement
(18:28):
were completely devoid of of any kind of conviction and
that there wasn't overlap, because there certainly was, But we're
just we're kind of doing a little bit of a
black and white thing here to show that there certainly
was a divide, but then there's also a gray area. Yeah, yeah,
there's no false psychotomy here. But the question is, how
did so earlier we said that there were there was,
(18:50):
there was this hippie movement, this hippie scene if you will,
or demographic that in many ways was different in comparison
to the earlier uh social revolutionary affecting positive change, at
least as they saw it, new Left. So how did
the hippies get on the scene? How did people, largely
from the scene demographic move from protests, in other words,
(19:13):
interacting with the outside world to a more inward gazing
exploration of consciousness, of self identification and drugs. Well, guys,
while we wait for the acid to kick in, why
don't we take a quick sponsor break. All right, we're back.
(19:39):
Oh yeah, I feel like we were always here. We've
always been here. We've always been here. The thing is,
we can check out anytime we want. That's true. We
can never believe and as it turns out, you guys
have never left. They've been here again since last night. Um,
and that is how we roll. And what a fun
episode to do on zero sleep. Yes, yes, And the
(20:05):
question it seems like so many years ago, through the
magic of editing that we were we we launched into
that first sponsor break and now we're back. And the
people who folks blaze and gentlemen listening, now you have
no idea about the adventures that we went through. So much,
so much stuff. I got a brand new phone because
my other one broke, you know, and I'm glad my
(20:26):
hand grew back finally. So the question that we asked
so long ago was how how did this evolution, this
differentiation occur. The first and most obvious answer, of course,
would be something along the lines of, well, guys, people
are all different and all like different things, even if
they're from the exact same demographic. We interviewed every twenty
(20:50):
eight year old Han Chinese male living in Shankai and
then guess what, they're not gonna agree on everything even
though they're from the same place, they're the same age,
same gender, et cedric, et cedric, etcetera. So then the
protest of the early nineteen sixties became subsumed by a
hippie movement, which led to the increasingly self centered zegeist
of the nineteen seventies. And maybe that's just how things happen.
(21:13):
Maybe people are just different, maybe attitudes change. But what
if somebody orchestrated this change. What if somebody there was
a puppet master at work pulling the strings in order
to suck the wind out of this revolutionary way of thinking.
What if that was pushed them away from the left.
(21:36):
While these guys are like flipping out, it's sorry, well
we're leaving that in. The whole video team has been
here all night and they're outside having a full on
(21:58):
freak out meltdown right now, we're freaking out, man. We will.
We'll get into what that is in in the plug section.
For now, let's get back to the to the left,
the nitty gritty. Here's where it gets crazy. What if
there was no organic evolution of this culture? What if
(22:19):
instead this growth was influenced, manipulated, perhaps even controlled by
an organized and hidden force. Who would it be? Who
could it be? Now? Maybe the c I. That's right.
According to several conspiracy theorists, and various authors. The counterculture
movements in the United States was co opted by none
(22:43):
other than the c I. A. You know, the CIA
is fake news, right, I've heard it's a it's an
alternative intelligence. But they're the centralized central intelligence agency. Like
all of it goes towards them, no matter what direction
that's coming, is there d I A a decentralized until
(23:05):
Look at first, yes, this might sound insane. Why the
hell would the CIA care about this sort of thing?
You know? Where they care be a lot along hair
and wear jeans whatever. The money still spends the same
and the books still burn at the same rate when
you apply heat. That's a good point. I don't know
it to me, it seems like it gave them a target,
(23:27):
a subject of ridicule in a way to sort of
take the wind out of the sales of a potential
political uprising. And he's challenged to the status quo, you know.
And if you point to the hippie movement and say,
look look at the this is all we got this
hippie thing like this is this is laughable. There's no
(23:49):
threat there. Yeah, this was. If you look at the
history of what the CIA has done in the past
that we've covered on the show numerous times in all
kinds of different ways. Mk Ultra the experiments with LSD
that they did on unsuspecting people to see how it
would affect consciousness in a way and to see if
you could make someone more susceptible to being tortured or
(24:09):
you know, not tortured, but giving information on if you're
all wonky on the what it's not the sauce, it's
the the I don't know if there's word for it,
mind sauce. Mind sauce, I think is the correct? Oh, excellent, excellent.
We also see the CIA practicing extraordinary rendition where you
sweep someone away to a black site and they just
(24:32):
don't exist anymore. And you know, maybe those black sites
maybe they don't exist, maybe they still do. I think
whether whatever the reality on the ground is, the official
US position would be that they do not exist. But
you're absolutely right. And then there's also the CIA engages
in propaganda and foreign region change occasionally with the use
(24:55):
of quote unquote student groups and assets in nonprofit organizations.
These are not none. None of the things that Matt
just named are theories, right right, These all actually happened
and we can look at the CIA experiments with LSD
during the fifties, nineteen fifties. That is, uh, in less,
(25:17):
the CIA is much older than Noel Matt and I know, uh,
they conducted experiments with LSD just as Matt said. They
wanted to evaluate whether it could be used as a
truth serum or a brainwashing agent and interrogations, and I
also wanted to see if they could weaponize. This all
began to come into light with the formation of the
Rockefeller Commission, and that's how the US public and Congress
(25:43):
learned about some of the more bizarre experiments that the
CIA did. It's got an incredible name, Noel, midnight climax.
Is that like ribbed for her pleasure? No, they're really
not specifying, you know what what type of climax is occurring.
(26:06):
Who knows, just just more of the time. Yeah, yeah,
that word climax that it can never not be naughty. Yeah.
I I can't even to refer to like the thing
that happens at the end of a movie. I will
just say, you know the finale, right, midnight climax did
involve you know, a sexual aspect. Right. It was an
(26:27):
operation that paid prostitutes in San Francisco and New York
to dose unsuspecting John's with LSD and then get them
lured to a c I a safe house. And then
the agents, the CIA agents were watch and film these, uh,
the sex workers with their clients from behind, you know,
a mirror seems um Trying to figure out the value
(26:50):
for this, besides possible blackmail, I don't understand what the
value would be, you know, just to have it's just
sort of cool to have secrets, the collections. And then
there was another LSD related scandal the Commission uncovered. It
was the nineteen fifty three death of a biological warfare
specialist named Frank Olsen m He definistrated. I never get
(27:16):
to use this word, definistrated knocked out of a window,
and for some reason, no one finnishtrates. I don't know,
even just saying that that's like Superman could do it. Superman, Yeah,
I could totally do It's really hard, Like you know,
us mere mortals, we can go out of a window,
but if it's high up, it's like, you know, we
need a ladder, and then it's just called climbing a ladder. Yeah,
(27:36):
you know, well maybe we should get capes. We should
get stuff. They don't want you to know capes. Man,
oh God, not to derail the too much, but you
know what movie is on Netflix now. My favorite Mystery
Science Theater episode manose The Hands of Fate, featuring the
Goatman Torgo and the Master and he has this amazing
cape with red hands on it and I'm sorry, I'm
(27:59):
I'm done. Yeah, that deaf only doesn't derail things. Nol No, Well,
it makes it makes sense though, if we're if we're
talking about l you know who. My favorite LSD researcher
was John C. Lily, who would regularly take doses of
(28:20):
LSD in the early sixties when he was introduced to it,
and uh then he would put himself in the sensory
deprivation tanks or he can you imagine um? And he
also was big on dolphin research and he would often
take LSD and hang out with dolphins, and then his
research over time developed into much more dolphins centric work
(28:40):
where he was trying to communic communicate with dolphins felt
like they had some sort of psychic abilities that could
be exploited by being on LSD allows you to kind
of reach that level. And then you know, have psychic
conversations with these dolphins. And he even had an experiment
where he flooded a building and had a woman a
(29:02):
research assistant. I suppose you could say, live with a
dolphin in this flooded apartment and over time developed something
of a let's say, with said dolphin. But yeah, so
it was the wild West. Yeah, yeah, and longtime listeners
(29:23):
who recognize some of uh, some of that story from
previous episodes where the thing was was the dolphin actually communicating?
It was the dolphins simply taking indecent proposal style rewards
for certain behaviors, you know which pro quo claries. If
(29:45):
only one of us could make the dolphin noise, that's
not that was was pitch it up in Yeah, that
was like a Tom Waite's dolphin. Okay, yeah, so Frank
Olsen getting back to Frank Olsen to fenustrated. Did he
jump out of the window of his New York hotel
room about a week and a half after his drink
(30:05):
had been spiked with LSD at a work retreat by
his coworkers, or was he pushed When the real cause
of Frank Olson's death was finally made public by the
Rockefeller Commission in n It was a public relations nightmare
for the Ford administration, and they selected a guy to
(30:27):
run damage control on this issue. You might recognize him.
His name was Dick Cheney. So he did damage control
on this and then eventually they issued the US government
issued an apology to Frank Olson's widow. But the death
of Agent Olson, Frank Wilson, and the discovery of things
(30:49):
like Operation Midnight Climax easily overshadowed most of the other, uh,
most of the other things we found out about Project
mko Ultra. But another relevant finding was this the CIA
had funded academic research into LSD like a lot before
(31:11):
the drug was criminalized in nineteen sixty six. Oh yes,
and some of these academics working on LSD research knowingly
took money from the Central Intelligence Agency to do this stuff.
A lot of others had CIA money indirectly funneled to them,
and you know, maybe they didn't even know that this
was happening, but still that's what's funding their research. Um,
(31:33):
because they are all these front groups that the c
I U, c i A uses. We've discussed these before.
The FBI to the to any intelligence agency uses a
front group it's a front company. It's a very handy thing. Yeah.
Like the the general rule of thumb here is, at
least what the three of us have discovered is that
the more vague a group's name is, the more likely
(31:54):
they are a front for something, you know what I mean,
or just yeah vanilla. So it just feels very just
if there's yeah, like if there's and I'm making this up,
so any resemblance to a real thing is purely incidental.
But like if we met a representative that was like
people for ideas, I think, I know that's sketchy. You know,
(32:20):
people have all kinds of ideas, and they're all kinds
of people, I mean, be specific for ideas and things. Right,
other researchers who people for ideas and things, that's our
watch out, Rand Corporation. There's a new guy in town. Uh.
Other researchers who did scientific experiments with LSD did not
(32:42):
have any funding from the CIA, but the company might
send a covert agent to keep track of any interesting findings.
So you know, Hi, my name's John Smith. I'm the
new lab Tech. Yeah, I went to Anywhere university and
(33:03):
nowhere's vil USA, Yeah, right near America Town anyhow, what's
going on with these acids right that? I mean, it's
spot on, that's that's what happened, and this kind of
stuff can still happen to date for people who believe
the CIA created or co opted the American counterculture movement.
(33:26):
The experiments that occurred in the nineteen fifties naturally evolved
into programs during the sixties two, as we mentioned earlier,
neutralize that threat of social activism by turning the activists
into you know, his peace and love oriented And then
(33:47):
to me, I wonder if this was the case, was
it more about the perception as well, you know what
I mean, where it's like, if they're not taken seriously,
it's sort of neuters them a little that in terms
of like actually affecting change, getting other people to believe,
getting other people to sign on for their cause. And
you know, obviously the you know, like you said, there
(34:10):
was definitely a connection between the political activists scene and
the counterculture you know, psychedelic hippie movement for sure, But visually,
like from a pr standpoint, it's very easy for those
in power and people supporting those in power to view
this group negatively in a way where it's like, you know,
(34:32):
I'm not threatened by them. I just kind of feel
like they're lazy, shiftless, do nothings. That that means that
have no impact. You're not going to change the world.
And a pair of blue jean trousers. I'm gonna try
and we'll have to see how that how that hippies
journey turns out. After a word from our sponsors, it's
(34:53):
not gonna go well, thou jeans, Baby Queen, it has
been a bad bass mean baby queen. Baby Queen's alright.
It's like, uh, you know the toddlers in Tierra Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
(35:18):
that is like honey boo boo, pretty mercury as a baby.
Well that, as you can tell, the drugs have kicked in.
Um we were now in that country. Yes, and we
are still looking for evidence about this idea, right. One
of the biggest pieces of evidence for people who believe
(35:40):
that the c I a masterminded puppeteered a shift in
counter culture was the idea that Timothy Leary, whom quoted
at the top of the show, was himself a c I.
A asset. What Yes writer and Mark Reebling asked Timothy
(36:00):
Leary about this after Leary gave a speech in Gainesville, Florida,
and Leary said, they never gave me a dime. But
here's the thing. In fact, he did get money from
the Central Intelligence Agency. He didn't get very much, but
he did get. He got some some scratch, some cheddar,
(36:23):
some mula. I'm just going to choose words for money now, scrilla,
some scrilla, scrill is good, some wampum. Yeah. So, while
Leary perhaps didn't know that he had been a willing CI,
a temporary agent stooge. Yeah, Well, the agency or the
company ben as you called them before. I love calling
them the company their term, I know, but it just
(36:46):
calling it that is quite fun. A company man. They
tend to promote people who who truly believe in a cause,
but are unaware perhaps of what their re really advancing,
what the left hand is truly doing while the right
hand toils away over here. Yes. Yes, so that's a
(37:08):
great point because we know that in some foreign countries
where intelligence agencies and I know we're picking on the
CIA right now, but intelligence agencies in general will have
these kind of covert practices. Imagine, uh, you know, a
a developing country or some sort of unstable regime, right,
(37:28):
and your student protests group, and somebody comes up and says, yeah,
I also believe in the cause. Right, forget the monarchy
or forget the theocracy or whatever the current flavor of
democracy is. Here's some funding. And by the way, let
me teach you about protest techniques. You could totally think
(37:48):
that was just someone who knew their stuff, like pistachio democracy.
Pistachio democracy is a great democracy flavor. I would put
it up there, you know, in the top three. So
the as Matt said, someone could completely believe in a cause,
finds help from a well dressed stranger, right, well spoken stranger,
(38:12):
and not have any idea what that that person's ultimate
motivations were. So funds for Leary's research and drugs. The
material for it came from the CIA. And he has
an autobiography Leary does. It's called Flashbacks. It was published
three in that he credits a guy named cord Meyer,
(38:33):
the CIA executive in charge of funding uh the counterculture,
with quote helping me to understand my political cultural role
more clearly, and he goes on he says, the liberal
CIA is get this guy's the best mafia you can
deal with in the twentie century, which is which is
(38:54):
weird to hear the guy the dropout tune in guy best?
Like how better than like the Sopranos, like like that
kind of mafia? What are we talking? Yeah, I guess
so more efficient, less likely to break your legs. I
don't know. Yeah, I guess he just got along with him.
(39:15):
I guess they were just maybe they just didn't shake
him down for his debts at the dog Track. I'm kidding.
They probably kept him, you know, in acid. I'm sure,
you know what. That's a good point, and that makes
me think of that owls Ley fellow as well. So
other vanguards of the LSD movement, including Alan Ginsburg, certainly
believed that the CIA played more than a cameo part
(39:40):
in this culture jamming. Right, So, the first major public
statements in the seventies by countercultural figures um to actually
speculate on the relationship between the CIA and LSD happened
on October nineteen seventies seven, at a conference at the
University of California in Santa Cruz that was called LSD
A generation later sort of a post boredom um. Alan Ginsburg,
(40:03):
who compared the conference to an acid head class reunion.
Uh said quote am I Alan Ginsburg the product of
one of the CIA's lamentable, ill advised or triumphantly successful
experiments in mind control. Had they by conscious plan or
inadvertent Pandora's box, let loose the whole LSD fad on
(40:26):
the US and the world. Things that make you go.
That's right. And Timothy Leary was also at the conference.
He addressed questions about the LSD c I a issue,
and he said the LSD movement was started by the CIA.
To the CIA, hey can I do a voice? And
(40:47):
he said, the movement was started by the CIA. I
wouldn't be here now without the fore shit of the C.
I A shy and tish. It was no accident. It
was all planned and scripted by the Central Intelligence Agency.
And I'm all in favor of Central and Tyler is
that like a Sean Connery boys is Sean Connor ish?
(41:08):
Is what I'm calling it, because you know, I'm not
doing the whole I'm not quite going all the way there. Okay,
First of all, I love Sean Conner. Ish that should
be a thing, and I want to see this opportunity
to announce a new word that I have coined um
for addressing things that are going on in the news
right now, and it is hilarifying. Oh that is quite
(41:29):
im portmant to. No, well done, just I had to
lay it down on some media so that I can,
you know, claim on the record, my friend, hilarifying. Ladies
and gentlemen, please use that whenever you find it appropriate,
but do credit Noel Brown. It appears that that term
was used during the Hillary Clinton campaign as hillary Ifying. No,
(41:55):
I feel like hilarifying is totally different. Yeah, I just
want to typed it in. It's so when you when
you Hillary, if I something bedazzling it So there there's
another interesting party here. Hilarifying aspect to this guy, that's
really good. Handom still on that. That's awesome. I'm on
(42:17):
that trip, as can Cassy would say. Uh in. Guy
named John Marks, a former Foreign Service officer, published a
book called The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, and he
looked at all the different ways this agency attempted to
control the human mind for the purposes of espionage. And
(42:40):
just for the record, running on pretty much no sleep
makes saying former foreign service officer pretty tough. You do
it with a plum. Thank you. I feel like I'm
doing it very carefully, very rural. Jurl e um, he
did it deep in your plumes? What. In a chapter
(43:07):
covering the CIA's interest and experiments with LSD, Mars Rights,
CIA officials never meant that the likes of Leary, Keezy
and Ginsburg should be turned on. Yet these men were,
and they, along with many of the lesser known experimental
subjects like Harvard's Ralph Bloom, created the climate whereby l
(43:31):
s D escaped the government's control and became available by
the early sixties on the black market. No one at
the agency apparently foresaw that young Americans would voluntarily take
this drug, whether for consciousness expansion or recreational purposes. The
mk ultra experts were mainly on a control trip, and
(43:52):
they proved incapable of gaining insight from their own LSD
experiences of how others less fixated on making people do
their bid would react to the drug. So that's going
to marks what what we're finding is that the CIA
did indeed finance hundreds of experiments into LSD and maybe
(44:14):
even more, But what happened is that they couldn't control
the supply. I mean think about it. They're they're in
older they're in multiple college campuses, universities, right, and they
have h supplies of this hallucinogen left right, north, south,
east west. Kim Kisi was a janitor that one that
e he add access to it, And you're telling me
(44:35):
that guy didn't walk away sweetening the pot. Do you
guys remember that movie Half Baked abracadabra b a yeah,
scuben b which that line still doesn't make sense to me.
It haunts me at night. But in their you know,
David Dave Chappelle plays a janitor at a Yeah, a janitor.
(44:58):
What do they have like some kind of last It
was totally pre medical marijuana to that movie. So I'm
confused about why they had it. Was a research facility
of some kind. It was definitely I think the somebody
check us on this, But I feel like the furthest
they went was, you know, here's a lab, right, I think, So,
I don't know if they explained what they remember. I
(45:21):
remember they had all of the maui wauie. I remember
that was Yeah. I totally didn't understand a lot of
that movie when I first saw it. Yeah, yeah, that's
like when I saw pulp fiction when I was twelve.
In that whole scene with uh Uma Thurman where she
overdoses or whatever, I didn't understand the logistics of that,
(45:43):
the distinction between what she thought that thing was and
what it actually was. Then we're a family show. I'm
not going to get into it too much. But yeah, yeah,
kids don't don't see weird A rated movies about drugs
when you're when you're young. Yeah, I was like, I
remember thinking she is unwell and then thinking what a spoiler?
(46:03):
Uh and then thinking like is she a vampire? Why
did he? Did you have her in the chest? Here
are our conclusions. One thing we have to know is
that it is important to to recognize that the U
S counterculture at this time was probably no more than
ten percent of the youth popular you know, like the
(46:25):
youth population or that demographic. Like like Noel said, they're
just more visible, right, And this is something we see
speaking of cycles, this is something we see in mass
media today. The more visibly distinct people will be. You know,
(46:48):
the things that make good optics are good television. Even
if that's just one out of a hundred people, you're
gonna focus on that person. It also seems that the
CIA did have a power a full role in the
emergence of counterculture, but it might not have been so
much a grand puppeteering plan as it was a series
(47:08):
of whoops, eke my bads, you know, and unintended consequences.
This this goes to the idea of whether or not,
you know, there's this disconnect that occurs sometimes because the
idea of whether or not this agency is capable of
(47:30):
perpetrating something like that, right, It's it's a strange and
contradictory thing that occurs sometimes where you know, you'll hear
people say that a government or an organization is inefficient
and a bunch of thunder heads du faces, but then
(47:51):
also somehow capable of duping hundreds of millions of people,
you know, those That's a it's a its own sort
of double think. But one thing that keeps us from
throwing out this idea entirely is this. It turns out
the Central Intelligence Agency of the US is absolutely capable
(48:15):
of using culture as a weapon, and furthermore, has no
compunction whatsoever about doing so. So, as The Guardian reports,
the CIA quote used American modern art, including the works
of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem da
kooning Uh and also Mark Rothkoe as a weapon in
(48:36):
the Cold War in the manner of a Renaissance prince,
except that it acted secretly. The CIA fostered and promoted
American abstract expressionist painting around the world for more than
twenty years. So why did the CIA support them? Because
in the propaganda war with the Soviet Union, this new
artistic movement could be held up as proof of the creativity,
(48:58):
the intllectual freedom, and the cultural power of the US
Russian arts strapped into the communist ideological strait jacket could
not be that as a continuation of the quote, um,
there's a long one. You want to do? Sure? Yeah.
The decision to include culture and art in the US
Cold War arsenal was taken as soon as the CIA
was officially founded in They were dismayed at the appeal
(49:22):
Communism still had for a lot of intellectuals and artists
in the West, and the agency set up a division
called the Propaganda Assets Inventory or the p AI, and
its peak it could influence more than eight hundred newspapers, magazines,
and public information organizations. They joked that it was like
a Wurlitzer jukebox. When the CIA pushed a button, it
(49:44):
could hear whatever tune wanted playing across the world. So
the big question goes beyond just this this historical aspect.
The big question is not just whether the CIA actively
neutralized social activism via cultural influence in the nineteen sixties. Instead,
(50:04):
the big question is this, what is the c I
a messing with culture wise today? And does it affect you?
And how would you how would you decipher if it
is in fact happening to you right now? How could
you tell? You have to tell me if you're a
(50:25):
cop right now, I'm definitely not a cop. That's also
a myth. By the way, folks, totally I've tried. It
does not work, So I went to jail. Kidding kind
of words, sounds, speaking, colors, marshmallows, all of which means
(50:49):
that we hope you enjoyed our exploration of the CIA's
role in the course of culture, the evolution the social
dynamics upon which so much of history hinges in this country.
And we would like to thank our friend Henry H
(51:11):
who suggested this topic for us, along with a couple
of other topics. We're gonna follow up with some stuff
that that that Henry Hipt the Stupe And speaking of
our fantastic listeners, it sounds like it's time for chat
at corners. I'm gonna swoop in here, guys and do
one from rich Um. He wrote an email, Hello, std
(51:37):
W I c K love the show. I answered your
question about a million terabytes and threw in a little
extra about recording phone calls in this document. And then
he attached a PDF that reads as follows, I'm an
electrical engineering student and I'm writing you in regards to
the question about what a million terabytes is called a
million terabytes is an exabyte, and he gives us this
(51:59):
helpful chart. One terabyte is a billion bytes, and then
one kilobyte is a thousand bites. One terabyte times one
kilobyte equals one exabyte. Fun idea. One telephone call is
sixty four kbps, which is kilobytes per second. Eight bits
equals one byte. One exabyte is one times ten to
(52:21):
the eighteen bytes eight e one eight bits equals one exabyte.
And then he's got some figures here. It's a little
over my head, but thank you for the thoroughness in
your explanation of a million terabytes. As it turns out,
it is not a bagel bite. Um. No, no, but
(52:42):
that would be cool. Um. And then he goes on
to say. In February of Utah Governor Gary H. Herbert
revealed that the Utah Data Center would be the first
quote facility in the world expected to gather and house
a yata bite and yata bites. Um. Since then, conflicting
media reports have also estimated our storage capacity in terms
(53:05):
of zetta bytes and XA bites. While the actual capacity
is classified for national security reasons, we can say this
the Utah Data Center was built with future expansion in mind,
and the ultimate capacity will definitely be a lot of bites.
Rich love that one. Thank you so much, Rich for
(53:27):
the info and for the insight. Yeah, that was really great. Rich.
You lost me an ex a bite, but you know
it's all good. It was really I enjoyed it. When
I hear numbers like that, my brain doesn't function in
that way. It just kind of goes it seriously does
That was a good sound. And our next shout out
goes to Jessica P. Jessica writes in and says, Hi, guys,
(53:52):
I've found and started listening to your podcast about two
weeks ago while looking for something both interesting and informative
to listen to on my long commutes to work, I
spend about three hours in the car each day. Yeah,
that's rough one. Uh, thanks so much for the work
you put into these audio video series. They've certainly made
my commute more enjoyable. Secondly, have you guys ever done
(54:14):
anything on spontaneous human combustion? This one's near and dear
to me, as I vividly remember having seen a documentary
on it as a kid and subsequently spending the next
five to ten years and fear of suddenly catching on fire.
Any Time I would feel inexplicable centralized warmth on any
of my appendage is usually an arm. I'd rush to
(54:35):
the sink and start soaking the affected area in cold water,
just to put it out preemptively, I guess, to combat
what I was sure was the start of my fiery demise.
You'll be happy to hear that I grew out of
that fear, but I'd love to hear what you guys
have to say about it. If Varia got stuff up
and I missed it, please shoot me a link. Thinks
again look forward to more hours of hearing about the
(54:57):
stuff they don't want me to know. Spontaneous human combustion.
You know. That made me think of a thing that
I heard on NPR this weekend. I believe it was
um wait, wait, don't tell me it was about a
It was a news story where in a Florida lawyer.
And I'm gonna read this from the article that I
was pulled up. This is from the uh Syracuse dot com.
(55:20):
The headline is lawyers pants catch fire during Miami arson case.
So let's see um. As a Florida lawyer argued in
a court case on Wednesday that his client's car spontaneously
burst into flames, his own pants caught on fire in
front of the jury. During the argument. Stephen Gautieris was
fiddling in his pocket when smoke started billowing and he
(55:43):
had to rush out of the courtroom, reports the Miami Herald.
Jurors were then escorted out and Gutierres returned unharmed with
a burnt pocket. As it turns out, it was a
faulty E cigarette. But how amazing is it that a
lawyer arguing about a case about a car are spontaneously
combusting had their pants catch on fire. That's pretty fun. Well,
(56:07):
you probably have burned really badly. That's not fun. I'm
sorry about that, but it's too delicious not to No, no,
it's it says that he's okay in the article, and
our final shout out goes to Alex, who says, hey, guys,
love your show. Thank you Alex. And I'm living here
in Denver and it's a place right with conspiracies. We
have the murals at the Denver International Airport, lots of
(56:29):
weird stuff. They're the Stanley Hotel and nor Ad. Oh
that's what I'd like to delve into. I'd love to
hear a show about some of these. So keep up
the great work. Best Alex. Thank you Alex, and good suggestions. Yes,
thank you Alex, Thank you Rich and thank you Jessica.
I've got to ask, have you guys been to Colorado? Never? Once?
(56:52):
In my life? I have not either, although I actually
just reconnected with an old friend from youth group who
lives in Colorado and was very hid to offer a
couch to crash on any time I want to come
visit and spoke very highly of the place. That's awesome.
I I have only been to the airport. So I
don't know if you can. If you can count just
go into an airport as going to a place. I
(57:13):
don't know if you can. The Denver Airport. Did you
see all the weird murals and stuff? Is it wild?
It's weird and it's creepy, Like I see why it
is off putting to people. But Blue Horse and listeners,
if you're not familiar with the Denver Airport has some
very unusual, dark, kind of imperialistic looking imagery where there's
(57:35):
like these kind of like big centurion figures wearing gas masks,
swinging sabers, and then there's like this line of emaciated
children and refugees and it's very very dark. Look it up.
Maybe we'll do one on that, and I'm not gonna
be a whole episode is worth, but it might be
worth fitting into something about unusual murals are across the world.
(57:56):
And we do have a video from early year, Yes,
we do Conspiratorial career. Speaking of video, the we have
to make the announcement now because it's going out. Yeah, yeah,
it's happening. It's all happening. So was it in September
of last year when we went to the guidestones. It
was a while ago. We went to the Georgia Guidestones
(58:18):
in Elverton, Georgia, or nine miles from Elverton, Georgia, and
we we shot the stones. We discussed with nol his
personal relationship with the granite. The three of us almost
got heat stroke. I have a personal relationship with granite,
that's true. Um, And an awesome older gentleman named Wyatt,
(58:42):
who you who had a talk with, several talks with
and uh, he has a an even closer relationship to
the granite. Again, no sleep here, okay, yes, So the
reason why there's no sleep is because I've been up
for the past three nights past two am working on
this thing. These guys have been writing and inter like.
(59:04):
We interviewed Nold for this thing, and we're using a
bunch of his footage. Been has just been writing his
took us off to make this thing happen. And we're
so excited that it's finally coming out and it's you know,
you've noticed that we haven't been doing the weekly videos lately,
and we've been getting a lot of questions as to
whether they're coming back or not. We've been kind of
beating around the bush about it a little bit. But
this is our first real kind of long form peace
(59:28):
and we are so proud of it. Um. I personally
am just insanely proud of Matt. He's done such an
incredible job. We kind of watched the whole thing for
the most it's fiple of days ago and since then
he's I don't even know, but it was looking phenomenal.
It's really a heartfelt story. There's a lot of interesting
(59:48):
twists and turns, things you might not have heard about yet. Um,
even if you're familiar with the story, even if you
listen to our podcast on it, So go back, check
out the podcast and be on the lookout. Where's it
gonna be math, So yeah, the main thing here is
that it's gonna be on Amazon Video, so you can
stream it on Amazon if you have a Prime account,
it'll be a commercial free. If you don't have a
(01:00:09):
Prime account, there might be a commercial or two in there,
but it's gonna be worth it. I garonn tee it. Yes. Yeah,
we're hopefully gonna put it on YouTube as well after
a little while. And for everyone who has listened to
our earlier audio episode on the Georgia guidestones door. This
is different enough that we promise you won't feel like
(01:00:32):
you're sitting through the same thing. With pictures, we we
took a different approach. If you are a fan of
our classic stuff they don't want you to know videos
you like this one, it will be worth your time.
We hope that you enjoy it as much as we have,
so let us know what you think. You can also
(01:00:54):
find us on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram where we're
conspiracy stuffing conspiracy of show. On our Instagram, you can
listen to every single audio episode we have ever done
at Deep Breath stuff they don't want you to know
dot com. Oh, last point of business. Um. In this
month of this year, we're participating in this thing called
(01:01:15):
tripod t r y pod, wherein we recommend a podcast
that we would like you to try. Um. The hashtag
tripod is being used all around for people to share
their favorite shows with their friends and four shows to
share their favorite shows with their audiences. UM. So you
(01:01:35):
guys want to do one what's the what's the favorite
podcast of yours? Well? I wanna kind of do an
internal shout out really fast for Stuff of Life. Hey,
congratulations to you Noel Brown, Well, thank you. Yeah. We
just launched season two of the Stuff of Life with
Julie Douglas. It's a show that I produce and it's
our most kind of soundscaped sort of like audio journey
(01:01:58):
kind of show in the style of like radio Lab
a little bit um and really proud of it. We've
got an episode up now called Broken, and that's gonna
be dropping Wednesdays, um for eleven episodes, So we're doing
another season of that. Um yeah, try that one for sure.
That would help me out a lot. To hear your
thoughts and you know, actually this this season is a
little darker than the last season and it's got a
(01:02:19):
little more of a political angle to it, um with
some of the stuff that's been going on in the
news right now. Stuff. It's called The Stuff of Life.
You can get it on iTunes, uh, Spotify, Stitcher, pretty
much all the places and let us know what you think.
But um, yeah, it broke my heart. I listened to
the first three minutes and fifty seconds and I was
(01:02:40):
cry my eyes out while I was trying to edit
because you were lacking the sleep. But thank you very much,
it is we did put our our hearts into it
and got a lot of original music by myself and
Dylan Fagan and um a buddy of mine, Tristan McNeil,
who makes incredible ambient music under the name Nude with
Liar l y Are find that on Spotify as well.
(01:03:02):
Stuff of Life a sincere, heartfelt hug for your ears.
It's a heart smart journey into the heart of darkness
heartily so well, I've got another quick one if that's okay. Uh,
shout out to the Church of What's happening with Joey
Coco Diaz. I learned about this gentleman. He's a comedian,
been around the block so many times that I don't
(01:03:24):
even I'm not even sure that he knows like what
street he's on anymore. He's incredible, hilarious. Um, he has
a lot in common with my wife, like from the
area in Jersey where he grew up. And he's he's
just hilarious. And that's the end of this classic episode.
If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode,
(01:03:47):
you can get into contact with us in a number
of different ways. One of the best is to give
us a call. Our number is one eight three three
std W y T k. If you don't want to
do that, you can send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at i heart radio dot com. Stuff
they don't want you to know is a production of
I heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
(01:04:09):
visit the i heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Oh right, it's time for a classic episode. We're uh,
where does shin dig? Where does sare? What's what's the action?
We're dropping some tabs. We're talking about revolutionary ideas possibly
brought to you by the CIA. Well, all right, man, yeah,
let's let's definitely do that. Let's drop into out and
(00:24):
listen to this classic episode. Did the CIA invent counter culture?
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies? History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello,
(00:54):
and welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
My name is no Hippie is an establishment label for
a profound, invisible, underground evolutionary process. For every visible hippie
barefoot the flower to be did there are a thousand
invisible members of the turned on underground, persons whose lives
are tuned into their inner vision, who are dropping out
(01:15):
of the TV comedy of American life. That's a quote
by Timothy Leary. I'm ben your you. This is stuff
they don't want you to know. And what do you think,
gentlemen about the nineteen sixties? It was a wild, heavy time,
a free love, free I don't know, it was easier
(01:36):
to get validated. That's the best music I think came
out of the Six Tunage, The Rolling Stones, the Beatles,
the Animals with Eric Burden. The zombies. Oh man, how
could we We'd be remiss if we didn't mention the zombies.
There were a couple of political dynasties that came out
of the sixties, at least that I was aware of,
(01:59):
the Kennedy's We're the Big One. There were some drugs,
A couple of drugs, yeah, a couple of the really
good ones, right, just about as much as you could
fit in your fist, yeah, or you know, could fit
onto a tiny piece of paper, put it right. They're
also proxy wars that were occurring in several different parts
(02:19):
of the globe between the United States and other countries. Today,
we were talking about the nineteen sixties in the United States,
one of the most culturally charged and powerful eras in
this nation's history, and one could argue that we have
sort of cycled back in a way to a similar
(02:41):
atmosphere now politically and culturally as the nineteen sixties. We
can talk about that more, but you know, in terms
of revolution, the idea of you know, being opposed to
the government and the government being you know, starting another
drug war and trying to shut down free speech things
like that. It's interesting parallel. Yeah, and uh, and the
(03:03):
way that technology empowers and hinders that sort of revolution.
But you're right, the more things change dot dot dot ellipses.
I don't know why I said that, Like, how is dramatic?
I'm just spelling out ellipses. What we're talking about when
we talk about these revolutionary attitudes in the nineties, sixties
(03:25):
and is Noel said in the modern days we record this, Um,
we're talking about something called counterculture, right, a way of
life and set of attitudes opposed to or at variance
with the prevailing social norm. And this could be any
number of things. It doesn't have to be one particularly
(03:46):
doesn't have to be drugs. It doesn't have to be,
um what, living off the grid or something like that,
But it could be living off the grid. Is um
what a militia maybe if you're in a group of
people who have decided to pick up arms and defend
maybe a small part of a rural area babes city.
(04:07):
I mean you could counter cultures ultimately, uh dependent upawn,
what is normal in your global neck of the woods. Right.
If you're a poncho person in an umbrella town, congratulations,
you are the counter culture, at least when it rains
stamped stamped right. And in the US, we tend to
(04:30):
use the term counterculture to describe the sixties in particular,
when you know, these wild and crazy hippie kids were
dropping out and tuning in and trying the drugs, and
they determined hell bent for leather to change the world
through a kind of a sort of a stoned version
of just loving everything, just being one coming together over
(04:54):
me right now? Sure, and also you know, becoming one
with the un verse or you know something. Um, yeah,
I know it's not really an unfair characterization, but it's
funny and we you know, not entirely untrue. Yeah, yeah,
I would agree. Here's what started changing in the nineteen
sixties versus the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties. These long
(05:19):
held values and norms of behavior seemed to break down,
specifically and especially among the young. So we have the
post World War two society in the late forties, it's booming.
In the fifties, you know, get your nuclear family, your
two point five kids, maybe two cars, a dog and
(05:40):
a half, A dog and a half and a lot
of college. A nuclear family sounds dangerous. It was. It
was at least frightening. It was. Originally before they knew
about the health risk, it was called the radioactive family,
and they were like, no, no, no, why are they
Why are the kids glowing like that? The atomic family
came along in the hydrogen family. Oh guys, just a
(06:01):
little f y. I Matt and Bend particularly are just
if they come off as a little bit punchy in
this episode because they've been up all night, pulled an
all nighter, uh, working on an amazing new video project
that we will be shoving out into the world very soon,
and keeping you posted about so keeping ear to the
ground on that one. I'm super excited about it. How
(06:23):
do you guys feel, I've punchy, I guess, but also inspired.
Good God, moving on, Yeah, you guys. You will enjoy it, hopefully,
ladies and gentlemen. And you will hopefully enjoy it, ladies
and gentlemen. It does feature It does feature Matt's video
(06:46):
Sorcery and Noel Brown on camera and been writing and
narrating like that old school stuff. They don't want you
to know style. Oh, yes, we will see right. Well,
you've seen it, shake the d stuff, You've seen it
multiple times. Uh. And speaking of fantastic segues, many college
(07:07):
aged men and women became political activist at this time, right.
They were the driving force but behind things like the
civil rights movement and anti war movements. Well, and these
were times where like these efforts on behalf of young
people felt like they actually had some potential for revolution
and to change policy. For example, with the civil rights
(07:30):
movement and protests and sit ins. A lot of this
sort of new left culture that was coming out of
the colleges and universities really did have an impact and
were a very visible part of some of these struggles. Right, Yes,
that's what we are talking about. Won't explore that in
a second with political activism, uh, And we have to
(07:51):
look at the other side of this too, in two
movements that are often lumped into each other. Uh, other
young people simply eric quotes dropped out and separated themselves
from mainstream culture just became you know, like the kind
of what's the stereotype about hipsters and Williamsburg whatever, which
is not entirely fair, but also not entirely untrue. We
(08:14):
can't really afford to be hipster and Williamsburg and and
not do anything because it's really expensive there unless you
have rich parents. Give her the term Trustafarians, that's a
good one. But yeah, they're they're dropping out bend. So
that is it a way to just show that I'm
not a part of this mainstream culture that I see
around me. I disagree with it, and that's not me.
(08:35):
Party assisted men at the same time kind of contributed
to giving their generation a bad rap for not being
participatory and literally just saying no, man, I'm done. I'm
gonna do my thing, and you guys do you and
I'm knocking never the Twain shall meet, and um it
(08:56):
was that did not represent the entire generation as we
will just guess with the political activism and say yeah.
And very important thing to know here as well is
that attitudes towards sexual more ray's or gender dichotomies appeared
to loosen, and women began to openly protest the traditional
(09:16):
roles of of your either a housewife or a mother.
And that's that's it, you know what I mean. So
now more than ever at this point in US history, Uh,
we're saying, oh, all these people are actually people. And
there is a tension that occurs because the post World
War two geopolitics blossomed into a full on cold wars.
(09:38):
The U s s R. And the US both vied
for global supremacy. As you mentioned earlier, Matt, this meant
proxy wars, of which the most famous is the Vietnam War.
Here in the States, at least, we've touched on the
Vietnam War in previous episodes Stuff they don't want you
to know dot com, where you can find every audio
episode we've ever done, including that the recent one about
(10:00):
abandoned soldiers. So for today, let's just say quick and
Dirty version t l d R. The Vietnam War was
tremendously unpopular for the public and tremendously supported by the establishment,
and this divide led to massive protest. So here's the
interesting thing, though, While I would say people today generally
(10:22):
associate hippies, this this vision of a hippie with these protests,
Vietnam War protests. However, there's this vibrant community focusing on
all kinds of issues, and they're called the New Left.
And for a time, these people seem to be set
to make some four real changes. As an All said earlier,
there it seems as though it's viable, like it's gonna happen.
(10:47):
I think it's gonna happen. It's not just some pine
in the sky thing where we imagine a better world.
We're gonna make it. So. Left wing politics in the
sixties was attracting pretty much primarily middle class college students. UM.
There was an organization called the Students for a Democratic
Society that was founded at the University of Michigan in
(11:09):
nineteen sixty and it acted as the organizational base for
this new left movement UM and the term itself was
actually coined in the group's sort of mission statement, the
nineteen sixty two port her On Statement, which version well
actually the there. If you've seen The Big Lebowski, will
remember a scene where the dude brags that he was
(11:31):
part of one of the organizing members that wrote the
report her On Statement. He said, but his was the
much better first draft, and I did a little research
on that. Apparently there was only one draft. The dude
abides just the same. You know, my parents told me
a lot about sts growing up, because they went to
Kent State University as many of you listeners know, and
(11:53):
they you know, at the time of the massacre, and
they said the sts they were one of the main
reasons that there was violence occurring, just because everybody got
so riled up by what was being said by that
group in the writings. So what did the porth Uran
statement say? Well, first of all, it criticized, um, this
lack of individual freedom UM sort of like the idea
(12:15):
of giving up your individual rights in order to be
you know, for the greater good. Uh. And also it
criticized the power of bureaucracy, which in their view had
ballooned out of control and government also in universities and
especially corporations. UM. And it called for a participatory democracy
in other words, grassroots political activists, powers of the people. Right.
(12:39):
Sounds like fairly recent protests in the early two thousands,
I'm talking about the occupied moment. Yeah. Again, Like that's
why I was saying, I really feel kind of a
kinship to this period we're talking about, especially now with
like the Women's March and some of the big you know,
the occupied movement years ago, but now especially it seems
like we're really seeing this grassroots uprising of folks that
(13:02):
are not happy with the state of government and corporation,
especially with like citizens United and corporations having more control
and all this de regulation we're seeing. I really do
feel like we're in an interesting, uh kind of circular
thing with with kinship with the sixties, and there is
strange political bedfellows. One thing that's different, well, there're two
(13:23):
primary things are different about this time. One is the
spread of communicative technology, which fundamentally changes the game. And
the other is that, you know, Matt, you mentioned you
alluded to the occupied movement, but that if that were
far left then also there's the Tea Party movement, which
is arguing very surprisingly similar stuff right in terms of
(13:48):
what they see as overreach of government control or the
quote unquote system before opposition to the Vietnam War, mushroom,
we're back in the sixties now. Uh. This organization, the
SDS and others like it, focused on student freedoms, you know, yeah,
fighting dress codes, uh, fighting what they felt were unfair
(14:09):
course requirements or discrimination by sororities and fraternity, fighting for
minority admissions, admissions to you know, matriculating into into college.
The New Left participated in these these enormous protests and
sit ins, and they were more and more often anti
(14:30):
war oriented. Also, it is important to note that associated
groups protested for gender equality and gay rights, and in
you know, in many cases, uh, in many cases, the
fight for gay rights was not as successful initially as
(14:50):
some of the other things. And now we get to
hippies versus anti left. So like this new left group,
these hippies, Uh, they have some stuff in common. They're
mostly middle class whites, but they've they've switched out the
political drive of the new Left with oh, I don't know,
(15:14):
what would you call it, um, the munchies. Oh that's
that's not right. That's that's so wrong, and that's not true.
Just a more laid back approach to to the political
dealings that are going on. Yeah, man, what's all this,
what's all this jive about? You're on a really bad
trip about geopolitics. You know, Like, let's just listen to music,
(15:37):
if you ever really listened to music. Let's play a
clip from an episode of Mr Show that kind of
give us a sense of how the powers that Be
viewed the hippies. Dad, Look, it's a hippie. Careful cissy,
(15:57):
don't worry, dad, Our hippie is won't harass you or
expose your children to any anti authority lifestyles. Our hippies
are the kind the whole family can enjoy. Hey, man,
my name's Gruby Grady, and I want to be your friend.
Take my hair too fun place where you won't have
(16:21):
a care and all your friends will be there because
you can ride all tap in Hippie Land. You can
fly in the air in Hippie Land. Hippie Land will
feature several attractions like Woodstock, the movie The Ride, a
three day roller coaster ride featuring the original members of
(16:41):
shann Anna. You're Blind Man, Fine Groupie Gravy say that
hippie was all right. That hippies all right with me.
And that's the thing. It's like, you know, and this
is gonna get into our there, this is where it
gets crazy. Bit that's coming. But the hippies were sort
(17:02):
of this like neutered version of that political activist sector
where you know, you had the sense that they weren't
really gonna do anything. They weren't necessarily a threat, uh
in terms of to the status quo from a government perspective.
They just wanted to like have that free love. Go
to some music concerts, drop some acid and and tooke
(17:22):
on some some jay's. But that's a different type of threat. Right.
They wore jeans, tiedyed shirts, sandals, beards, long hair, and
a lifestyle to embrace sexual promiscuity and recreational drugs. Right.
Uh yeah, hallucinogen c LST being the most popular. Right. Uh, marijuana,
you know, Um, I imagine there was cocaine in their qualudes?
(17:45):
Were was that a thing? Yeah? Okay, I don't know.
I wasn't there. You weren't there. I've just seen Woodstock,
the movie, the musical, The Ride. Yeah, dot org so
and it isn't now We're not not trying. Obviously a
lot of amazing art and amazing culture came out of
the counterculture, the hippie movement. You know, you've got the
(18:07):
Grateful Dead, You've got like bands from San Francisco, the
psychedelic movement. I mean, it's an amazing source of art
and culture. Um, And certainly there were folks that would
kind of split the difference between being and the hippie
scene and being actually political actors. I'm not trying to
say that hippies and the um psychedelic New Left movement
(18:28):
were completely devoid of of any kind of conviction and
that there wasn't overlap, because there certainly was, But we're
just we're kind of doing a little bit of a
black and white thing here to show that there certainly
was a divide, but then there's also a gray area. Yeah, yeah,
there's no false psychotomy here. But the question is, how
did so earlier we said that there were there was,
(18:50):
there was this hippie movement, this hippie scene if you will,
or demographic that in many ways was different in comparison
to the earlier uh social revolutionary affecting positive change, at
least as they saw it, new Left. So how did
the hippies get on the scene? How did people, largely
from the scene demographic move from protests, in other words,
(19:13):
interacting with the outside world to a more inward gazing
exploration of consciousness, of self identification and drugs. Well, guys,
while we wait for the acid to kick in, why
don't we take a quick sponsor break. All right, we're back.
(19:39):
Oh yeah, I feel like we were always here. We've
always been here. We've always been here. The thing is,
we can check out anytime we want. That's true. We
can never believe and as it turns out, you guys
have never left. They've been here again since last night. Um,
and that is how we roll. And what a fun
episode to do on zero sleep. Yes, yes, And the
(20:05):
question it seems like so many years ago, through the
magic of editing that we were we we launched into
that first sponsor break and now we're back. And the
people who folks blaze and gentlemen listening, now you have
no idea about the adventures that we went through. So much,
so much stuff. I got a brand new phone because
my other one broke, you know, and I'm glad my
(20:26):
hand grew back finally. So the question that we asked
so long ago was how how did this evolution, this
differentiation occur. The first and most obvious answer, of course,
would be something along the lines of, well, guys, people
are all different and all like different things, even if
they're from the exact same demographic. We interviewed every twenty
(20:50):
eight year old Han Chinese male living in Shankai and
then guess what, they're not gonna agree on everything even
though they're from the same place, they're the same age,
same gender, et cedric, et cedric, etcetera. So then the
protest of the early nineteen sixties became subsumed by a
hippie movement, which led to the increasingly self centered zegeist
of the nineteen seventies. And maybe that's just how things happen.
(21:13):
Maybe people are just different, maybe attitudes change. But what
if somebody orchestrated this change. What if somebody there was
a puppet master at work pulling the strings in order
to suck the wind out of this revolutionary way of thinking.
What if that was pushed them away from the left.
(21:36):
While these guys are like flipping out, it's sorry, well
we're leaving that in. The whole video team has been
here all night and they're outside having a full on
(21:58):
freak out meltdown right now, we're freaking out, man. We will.
We'll get into what that is in in the plug section.
For now, let's get back to the to the left,
the nitty gritty. Here's where it gets crazy. What if
there was no organic evolution of this culture? What if
(22:19):
instead this growth was influenced, manipulated, perhaps even controlled by
an organized and hidden force. Who would it be? Who
could it be? Now? Maybe the c I. That's right.
According to several conspiracy theorists, and various authors. The counterculture
movements in the United States was co opted by none
(22:43):
other than the c I. A. You know, the CIA
is fake news, right, I've heard it's a it's an
alternative intelligence. But they're the centralized central intelligence agency. Like
all of it goes towards them, no matter what direction
that's coming, is there d I A a decentralized until
(23:05):
Look at first, yes, this might sound insane. Why the
hell would the CIA care about this sort of thing?
You know? Where they care be a lot along hair
and wear jeans whatever. The money still spends the same
and the books still burn at the same rate when
you apply heat. That's a good point. I don't know
it to me, it seems like it gave them a target,
(23:27):
a subject of ridicule in a way to sort of
take the wind out of the sales of a potential
political uprising. And he's challenged to the status quo, you know.
And if you point to the hippie movement and say,
look look at the this is all we got this
hippie thing like this is this is laughable. There's no
(23:49):
threat there. Yeah, this was. If you look at the
history of what the CIA has done in the past
that we've covered on the show numerous times in all
kinds of different ways. Mk Ultra the experiments with LSD
that they did on unsuspecting people to see how it
would affect consciousness in a way and to see if
you could make someone more susceptible to being tortured or
(24:09):
you know, not tortured, but giving information on if you're
all wonky on the what it's not the sauce, it's
the the I don't know if there's word for it,
mind sauce. Mind sauce, I think is the correct? Oh, excellent, excellent.
We also see the CIA practicing extraordinary rendition where you
sweep someone away to a black site and they just
(24:32):
don't exist anymore. And you know, maybe those black sites
maybe they don't exist, maybe they still do. I think
whether whatever the reality on the ground is, the official
US position would be that they do not exist. But
you're absolutely right. And then there's also the CIA engages
in propaganda and foreign region change occasionally with the use
(24:55):
of quote unquote student groups and assets in nonprofit organizations.
These are not none. None of the things that Matt
just named are theories, right right, These all actually happened
and we can look at the CIA experiments with LSD
during the fifties, nineteen fifties. That is, uh, in less,
(25:17):
the CIA is much older than Noel Matt and I know, uh,
they conducted experiments with LSD just as Matt said. They
wanted to evaluate whether it could be used as a
truth serum or a brainwashing agent and interrogations, and I
also wanted to see if they could weaponize. This all
began to come into light with the formation of the
Rockefeller Commission, and that's how the US public and Congress
(25:43):
learned about some of the more bizarre experiments that the
CIA did. It's got an incredible name, Noel, midnight climax.
Is that like ribbed for her pleasure? No, they're really
not specifying, you know what what type of climax is occurring.
(26:06):
Who knows, just just more of the time. Yeah, yeah,
that word climax that it can never not be naughty. Yeah.
I I can't even to refer to like the thing
that happens at the end of a movie. I will
just say, you know the finale, right, midnight climax did
involve you know, a sexual aspect. Right. It was an
(26:27):
operation that paid prostitutes in San Francisco and New York
to dose unsuspecting John's with LSD and then get them
lured to a c I a safe house. And then
the agents, the CIA agents were watch and film these, uh,
the sex workers with their clients from behind, you know,
a mirror seems um Trying to figure out the value
(26:50):
for this, besides possible blackmail, I don't understand what the
value would be, you know, just to have it's just
sort of cool to have secrets, the collections. And then
there was another LSD related scandal the Commission uncovered. It
was the nineteen fifty three death of a biological warfare
specialist named Frank Olsen m He definistrated. I never get
(27:16):
to use this word, definistrated knocked out of a window,
and for some reason, no one finnishtrates. I don't know,
even just saying that that's like Superman could do it. Superman, Yeah,
I could totally do It's really hard, Like you know,
us mere mortals, we can go out of a window,
but if it's high up, it's like, you know, we
need a ladder, and then it's just called climbing a ladder. Yeah,
(27:36):
you know, well maybe we should get capes. We should
get stuff. They don't want you to know capes. Man,
oh God, not to derail the too much, but you
know what movie is on Netflix now. My favorite Mystery
Science Theater episode manose The Hands of Fate, featuring the
Goatman Torgo and the Master and he has this amazing
cape with red hands on it and I'm sorry, I'm
(27:59):
I'm done. Yeah, that deaf only doesn't derail things. Nol No, Well,
it makes it makes sense though, if we're if we're
talking about l you know who. My favorite LSD researcher
was John C. Lily, who would regularly take doses of
(28:20):
LSD in the early sixties when he was introduced to it,
and uh then he would put himself in the sensory
deprivation tanks or he can you imagine um? And he
also was big on dolphin research and he would often
take LSD and hang out with dolphins, and then his
research over time developed into much more dolphins centric work
(28:40):
where he was trying to communic communicate with dolphins felt
like they had some sort of psychic abilities that could
be exploited by being on LSD allows you to kind
of reach that level. And then you know, have psychic
conversations with these dolphins. And he even had an experiment
where he flooded a building and had a woman a
(29:02):
research assistant. I suppose you could say, live with a
dolphin in this flooded apartment and over time developed something
of a let's say, with said dolphin. But yeah, so
it was the wild West. Yeah, yeah, and longtime listeners
(29:23):
who recognize some of uh, some of that story from
previous episodes where the thing was was the dolphin actually communicating?
It was the dolphins simply taking indecent proposal style rewards
for certain behaviors, you know which pro quo claries. If
(29:45):
only one of us could make the dolphin noise, that's
not that was was pitch it up in Yeah, that
was like a Tom Waite's dolphin. Okay, yeah, so Frank
Olsen getting back to Frank Olsen to fenustrated. Did he
jump out of the window of his New York hotel
room about a week and a half after his drink
(30:05):
had been spiked with LSD at a work retreat by
his coworkers, or was he pushed When the real cause
of Frank Olson's death was finally made public by the
Rockefeller Commission in n It was a public relations nightmare
for the Ford administration, and they selected a guy to
(30:27):
run damage control on this issue. You might recognize him.
His name was Dick Cheney. So he did damage control
on this and then eventually they issued the US government
issued an apology to Frank Olson's widow. But the death
of Agent Olson, Frank Wilson, and the discovery of things
(30:49):
like Operation Midnight Climax easily overshadowed most of the other, uh,
most of the other things we found out about Project
mko Ultra. But another relevant finding was this the CIA
had funded academic research into LSD like a lot before
(31:11):
the drug was criminalized in nineteen sixty six. Oh yes,
and some of these academics working on LSD research knowingly
took money from the Central Intelligence Agency to do this stuff.
A lot of others had CIA money indirectly funneled to them,
and you know, maybe they didn't even know that this
was happening, but still that's what's funding their research. Um,
(31:33):
because they are all these front groups that the c
I U, c i A uses. We've discussed these before.
The FBI to the to any intelligence agency uses a
front group it's a front company. It's a very handy thing. Yeah.
Like the the general rule of thumb here is, at
least what the three of us have discovered is that
the more vague a group's name is, the more likely
(31:54):
they are a front for something, you know what I mean,
or just yeah vanilla. So it just feels very just
if there's yeah, like if there's and I'm making this up,
so any resemblance to a real thing is purely incidental.
But like if we met a representative that was like
people for ideas, I think, I know that's sketchy. You know,
(32:20):
people have all kinds of ideas, and they're all kinds
of people, I mean, be specific for ideas and things. Right,
other researchers who people for ideas and things, that's our
watch out, Rand Corporation. There's a new guy in town. Uh.
Other researchers who did scientific experiments with LSD did not
(32:42):
have any funding from the CIA, but the company might
send a covert agent to keep track of any interesting findings.
So you know, Hi, my name's John Smith. I'm the
new lab Tech. Yeah, I went to Anywhere university and
(33:03):
nowhere's vil USA, Yeah, right near America Town anyhow, what's
going on with these acids right that? I mean, it's
spot on, that's that's what happened, and this kind of
stuff can still happen to date for people who believe
the CIA created or co opted the American counterculture movement.
(33:26):
The experiments that occurred in the nineteen fifties naturally evolved
into programs during the sixties two, as we mentioned earlier,
neutralize that threat of social activism by turning the activists
into you know, his peace and love oriented And then
(33:47):
to me, I wonder if this was the case, was
it more about the perception as well, you know what
I mean, where it's like, if they're not taken seriously,
it's sort of neuters them a little that in terms
of like actually affecting change, getting other people to believe,
getting other people to sign on for their cause. And
you know, obviously the you know, like you said, there
(34:10):
was definitely a connection between the political activists scene and
the counterculture you know, psychedelic hippie movement for sure, But visually,
like from a pr standpoint, it's very easy for those
in power and people supporting those in power to view
this group negatively in a way where it's like, you know,
(34:32):
I'm not threatened by them. I just kind of feel
like they're lazy, shiftless, do nothings. That that means that
have no impact. You're not going to change the world.
And a pair of blue jean trousers. I'm gonna try
and we'll have to see how that how that hippies
journey turns out. After a word from our sponsors, it's
(34:53):
not gonna go well, thou jeans, Baby Queen, it has
been a bad bass mean baby queen. Baby Queen's alright.
It's like, uh, you know the toddlers in Tierra Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
(35:18):
that is like honey boo boo, pretty mercury as a baby.
Well that, as you can tell, the drugs have kicked in.
Um we were now in that country. Yes, and we
are still looking for evidence about this idea, right. One
of the biggest pieces of evidence for people who believe
(35:40):
that the c I a masterminded puppeteered a shift in
counter culture was the idea that Timothy Leary, whom quoted
at the top of the show, was himself a c I.
A asset. What Yes writer and Mark Reebling asked Timothy
(36:00):
Leary about this after Leary gave a speech in Gainesville, Florida,
and Leary said, they never gave me a dime. But
here's the thing. In fact, he did get money from
the Central Intelligence Agency. He didn't get very much, but
he did get. He got some some scratch, some cheddar,
(36:23):
some mula. I'm just going to choose words for money now, scrilla,
some scrilla, scrill is good, some wampum. Yeah. So, while
Leary perhaps didn't know that he had been a willing CI,
a temporary agent stooge. Yeah, Well, the agency or the
company ben as you called them before. I love calling
them the company their term, I know, but it just
(36:46):
calling it that is quite fun. A company man. They
tend to promote people who who truly believe in a cause,
but are unaware perhaps of what their re really advancing,
what the left hand is truly doing while the right
hand toils away over here. Yes. Yes, so that's a
(37:08):
great point because we know that in some foreign countries
where intelligence agencies and I know we're picking on the
CIA right now, but intelligence agencies in general will have
these kind of covert practices. Imagine, uh, you know, a
a developing country or some sort of unstable regime, right,
(37:28):
and your student protests group, and somebody comes up and says, yeah,
I also believe in the cause. Right, forget the monarchy
or forget the theocracy or whatever the current flavor of
democracy is. Here's some funding. And by the way, let
me teach you about protest techniques. You could totally think
(37:48):
that was just someone who knew their stuff, like pistachio democracy.
Pistachio democracy is a great democracy flavor. I would put
it up there, you know, in the top three. So
the as Matt said, someone could completely believe in a cause,
finds help from a well dressed stranger, right, well spoken stranger,
(38:12):
and not have any idea what that that person's ultimate
motivations were. So funds for Leary's research and drugs. The
material for it came from the CIA. And he has
an autobiography Leary does. It's called Flashbacks. It was published
three in that he credits a guy named cord Meyer,
(38:33):
the CIA executive in charge of funding uh the counterculture,
with quote helping me to understand my political cultural role
more clearly, and he goes on he says, the liberal
CIA is get this guy's the best mafia you can
deal with in the twentie century, which is which is
(38:54):
weird to hear the guy the dropout tune in guy best?
Like how better than like the Sopranos, like like that
kind of mafia? What are we talking? Yeah, I guess
so more efficient, less likely to break your legs. I
don't know. Yeah, I guess he just got along with him.
(39:15):
I guess they were just maybe they just didn't shake
him down for his debts at the dog Track. I'm kidding.
They probably kept him, you know, in acid. I'm sure,
you know what. That's a good point, and that makes
me think of that owls Ley fellow as well. So
other vanguards of the LSD movement, including Alan Ginsburg, certainly
believed that the CIA played more than a cameo part
(39:40):
in this culture jamming. Right, So, the first major public
statements in the seventies by countercultural figures um to actually
speculate on the relationship between the CIA and LSD happened
on October nineteen seventies seven, at a conference at the
University of California in Santa Cruz that was called LSD
A generation later sort of a post boredom um. Alan Ginsburg,
(40:03):
who compared the conference to an acid head class reunion.
Uh said quote am I Alan Ginsburg the product of
one of the CIA's lamentable, ill advised or triumphantly successful
experiments in mind control. Had they by conscious plan or
inadvertent Pandora's box, let loose the whole LSD fad on
(40:26):
the US and the world. Things that make you go.
That's right. And Timothy Leary was also at the conference.
He addressed questions about the LSD c I a issue,
and he said the LSD movement was started by the CIA.
To the CIA, hey can I do a voice? And
(40:47):
he said, the movement was started by the CIA. I
wouldn't be here now without the fore shit of the C.
I A shy and tish. It was no accident. It
was all planned and scripted by the Central Intelligence Agency.
And I'm all in favor of Central and Tyler is
that like a Sean Connery boys is Sean Connor ish?
(41:08):
Is what I'm calling it, because you know, I'm not
doing the whole I'm not quite going all the way there. Okay,
First of all, I love Sean Conner. Ish that should
be a thing, and I want to see this opportunity
to announce a new word that I have coined um
for addressing things that are going on in the news
right now, and it is hilarifying. Oh that is quite
(41:29):
im portmant to. No, well done, just I had to
lay it down on some media so that I can,
you know, claim on the record, my friend, hilarifying. Ladies
and gentlemen, please use that whenever you find it appropriate,
but do credit Noel Brown. It appears that that term
was used during the Hillary Clinton campaign as hillary Ifying. No,
(41:55):
I feel like hilarifying is totally different. Yeah, I just
want to typed it in. It's so when you when
you Hillary, if I something bedazzling it So there there's
another interesting party here. Hilarifying aspect to this guy, that's
really good. Handom still on that. That's awesome. I'm on
(42:17):
that trip, as can Cassy would say. Uh in. Guy
named John Marks, a former Foreign Service officer, published a
book called The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, and he
looked at all the different ways this agency attempted to
control the human mind for the purposes of espionage. And
(42:40):
just for the record, running on pretty much no sleep
makes saying former foreign service officer pretty tough. You do
it with a plum. Thank you. I feel like I'm
doing it very carefully, very rural. Jurl e um, he
did it deep in your plumes? What. In a chapter
(43:07):
covering the CIA's interest and experiments with LSD, Mars Rights,
CIA officials never meant that the likes of Leary, Keezy
and Ginsburg should be turned on. Yet these men were,
and they, along with many of the lesser known experimental
subjects like Harvard's Ralph Bloom, created the climate whereby l
(43:31):
s D escaped the government's control and became available by
the early sixties on the black market. No one at
the agency apparently foresaw that young Americans would voluntarily take
this drug, whether for consciousness expansion or recreational purposes. The
mk ultra experts were mainly on a control trip, and
(43:52):
they proved incapable of gaining insight from their own LSD
experiences of how others less fixated on making people do
their bid would react to the drug. So that's going
to marks what what we're finding is that the CIA
did indeed finance hundreds of experiments into LSD and maybe
(44:14):
even more, But what happened is that they couldn't control
the supply. I mean think about it. They're they're in
older they're in multiple college campuses, universities, right, and they
have h supplies of this hallucinogen left right, north, south,
east west. Kim Kisi was a janitor that one that
e he add access to it, And you're telling me
(44:35):
that guy didn't walk away sweetening the pot. Do you
guys remember that movie Half Baked abracadabra b a yeah,
scuben b which that line still doesn't make sense to me.
It haunts me at night. But in their you know,
David Dave Chappelle plays a janitor at a Yeah, a janitor.
(44:58):
What do they have like some kind of last It
was totally pre medical marijuana to that movie. So I'm
confused about why they had it. Was a research facility
of some kind. It was definitely I think the somebody
check us on this, But I feel like the furthest
they went was, you know, here's a lab, right, I think, So,
I don't know if they explained what they remember. I
(45:21):
remember they had all of the maui wauie. I remember
that was Yeah. I totally didn't understand a lot of
that movie when I first saw it. Yeah, yeah, that's
like when I saw pulp fiction when I was twelve.
In that whole scene with uh Uma Thurman where she
overdoses or whatever, I didn't understand the logistics of that,
(45:43):
the distinction between what she thought that thing was and
what it actually was. Then we're a family show. I'm
not going to get into it too much. But yeah, yeah,
kids don't don't see weird A rated movies about drugs
when you're when you're young. Yeah, I was like, I
remember thinking she is unwell and then thinking what a spoiler?
(46:03):
Uh and then thinking like is she a vampire? Why
did he? Did you have her in the chest? Here
are our conclusions. One thing we have to know is
that it is important to to recognize that the U
S counterculture at this time was probably no more than
ten percent of the youth popular you know, like the
(46:25):
youth population or that demographic. Like like Noel said, they're
just more visible, right, And this is something we see
speaking of cycles, this is something we see in mass
media today. The more visibly distinct people will be. You know,
(46:48):
the things that make good optics are good television. Even
if that's just one out of a hundred people, you're
gonna focus on that person. It also seems that the
CIA did have a power a full role in the
emergence of counterculture, but it might not have been so
much a grand puppeteering plan as it was a series
(47:08):
of whoops, eke my bads, you know, and unintended consequences.
This this goes to the idea of whether or not,
you know, there's this disconnect that occurs sometimes because the
idea of whether or not this agency is capable of
(47:30):
perpetrating something like that, right, It's it's a strange and
contradictory thing that occurs sometimes where you know, you'll hear
people say that a government or an organization is inefficient
and a bunch of thunder heads du faces, but then
(47:51):
also somehow capable of duping hundreds of millions of people,
you know, those That's a it's a its own sort
of double think. But one thing that keeps us from
throwing out this idea entirely is this. It turns out
the Central Intelligence Agency of the US is absolutely capable
(48:15):
of using culture as a weapon, and furthermore, has no
compunction whatsoever about doing so. So, as The Guardian reports,
the CIA quote used American modern art, including the works
of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem da
kooning Uh and also Mark Rothkoe as a weapon in
(48:36):
the Cold War in the manner of a Renaissance prince,
except that it acted secretly. The CIA fostered and promoted
American abstract expressionist painting around the world for more than
twenty years. So why did the CIA support them? Because
in the propaganda war with the Soviet Union, this new
artistic movement could be held up as proof of the creativity,
(48:58):
the intllectual freedom, and the cultural power of the US
Russian arts strapped into the communist ideological strait jacket could
not be that as a continuation of the quote, um,
there's a long one. You want to do? Sure? Yeah.
The decision to include culture and art in the US
Cold War arsenal was taken as soon as the CIA
was officially founded in They were dismayed at the appeal
(49:22):
Communism still had for a lot of intellectuals and artists
in the West, and the agency set up a division
called the Propaganda Assets Inventory or the p AI, and
its peak it could influence more than eight hundred newspapers, magazines,
and public information organizations. They joked that it was like
a Wurlitzer jukebox. When the CIA pushed a button, it
(49:44):
could hear whatever tune wanted playing across the world. So
the big question goes beyond just this this historical aspect.
The big question is not just whether the CIA actively
neutralized social activism via cultural influence in the nineteen sixties. Instead,
(50:04):
the big question is this, what is the c I
a messing with culture wise today? And does it affect you?
And how would you how would you decipher if it
is in fact happening to you right now? How could
you tell? You have to tell me if you're a
(50:25):
cop right now, I'm definitely not a cop. That's also
a myth. By the way, folks, totally I've tried. It
does not work, So I went to jail. Kidding kind
of words, sounds, speaking, colors, marshmallows, all of which means
(50:49):
that we hope you enjoyed our exploration of the CIA's
role in the course of culture, the evolution the social
dynamics upon which so much of history hinges in this country.
And we would like to thank our friend Henry H
(51:11):
who suggested this topic for us, along with a couple
of other topics. We're gonna follow up with some stuff
that that that Henry Hipt the Stupe And speaking of
our fantastic listeners, it sounds like it's time for chat
at corners. I'm gonna swoop in here, guys and do
one from rich Um. He wrote an email, Hello, std
(51:37):
W I c K love the show. I answered your
question about a million terabytes and threw in a little
extra about recording phone calls in this document. And then
he attached a PDF that reads as follows, I'm an
electrical engineering student and I'm writing you in regards to
the question about what a million terabytes is called a
million terabytes is an exabyte, and he gives us this
(51:59):
helpful chart. One terabyte is a billion bytes, and then
one kilobyte is a thousand bites. One terabyte times one
kilobyte equals one exabyte. Fun idea. One telephone call is
sixty four kbps, which is kilobytes per second. Eight bits
equals one byte. One exabyte is one times ten to
(52:21):
the eighteen bytes eight e one eight bits equals one exabyte.
And then he's got some figures here. It's a little
over my head, but thank you for the thoroughness in
your explanation of a million terabytes. As it turns out,
it is not a bagel bite. Um. No, no, but
(52:42):
that would be cool. Um. And then he goes on
to say. In February of Utah Governor Gary H. Herbert
revealed that the Utah Data Center would be the first
quote facility in the world expected to gather and house
a yata bite and yata bites. Um. Since then, conflicting
media reports have also estimated our storage capacity in terms
(53:05):
of zetta bytes and XA bites. While the actual capacity
is classified for national security reasons, we can say this
the Utah Data Center was built with future expansion in mind,
and the ultimate capacity will definitely be a lot of bites.
Rich love that one. Thank you so much, Rich for
(53:27):
the info and for the insight. Yeah, that was really great. Rich.
You lost me an ex a bite, but you know
it's all good. It was really I enjoyed it. When
I hear numbers like that, my brain doesn't function in
that way. It just kind of goes it seriously does
That was a good sound. And our next shout out
goes to Jessica P. Jessica writes in and says, Hi, guys,
(53:52):
I've found and started listening to your podcast about two
weeks ago while looking for something both interesting and informative
to listen to on my long commutes to work, I
spend about three hours in the car each day. Yeah,
that's rough one. Uh, thanks so much for the work
you put into these audio video series. They've certainly made
my commute more enjoyable. Secondly, have you guys ever done
(54:14):
anything on spontaneous human combustion? This one's near and dear
to me, as I vividly remember having seen a documentary
on it as a kid and subsequently spending the next
five to ten years and fear of suddenly catching on fire.
Any Time I would feel inexplicable centralized warmth on any
of my appendage is usually an arm. I'd rush to
(54:35):
the sink and start soaking the affected area in cold water,
just to put it out preemptively, I guess, to combat
what I was sure was the start of my fiery demise.
You'll be happy to hear that I grew out of
that fear, but I'd love to hear what you guys
have to say about it. If Varia got stuff up
and I missed it, please shoot me a link. Thinks
again look forward to more hours of hearing about the
(54:57):
stuff they don't want me to know. Spontaneous human combustion.
You know. That made me think of a thing that
I heard on NPR this weekend. I believe it was
um wait, wait, don't tell me it was about a
It was a news story where in a Florida lawyer.
And I'm gonna read this from the article that I
was pulled up. This is from the uh Syracuse dot com.
(55:20):
The headline is lawyers pants catch fire during Miami arson case.
So let's see um. As a Florida lawyer argued in
a court case on Wednesday that his client's car spontaneously
burst into flames, his own pants caught on fire in
front of the jury. During the argument. Stephen Gautieris was
fiddling in his pocket when smoke started billowing and he
(55:43):
had to rush out of the courtroom, reports the Miami Herald.
Jurors were then escorted out and Gutierres returned unharmed with
a burnt pocket. As it turns out, it was a
faulty E cigarette. But how amazing is it that a
lawyer arguing about a case about a car are spontaneously
combusting had their pants catch on fire. That's pretty fun. Well,
(56:07):
you probably have burned really badly. That's not fun. I'm
sorry about that, but it's too delicious not to No, no,
it's it says that he's okay in the article, and
our final shout out goes to Alex, who says, hey, guys,
love your show. Thank you Alex. And I'm living here
in Denver and it's a place right with conspiracies. We
have the murals at the Denver International Airport, lots of
(56:29):
weird stuff. They're the Stanley Hotel and nor Ad. Oh
that's what I'd like to delve into. I'd love to
hear a show about some of these. So keep up
the great work. Best Alex. Thank you Alex, and good suggestions. Yes,
thank you Alex, Thank you Rich and thank you Jessica.
I've got to ask, have you guys been to Colorado? Never? Once?
(56:52):
In my life? I have not either, although I actually
just reconnected with an old friend from youth group who
lives in Colorado and was very hid to offer a
couch to crash on any time I want to come
visit and spoke very highly of the place. That's awesome.
I I have only been to the airport. So I
don't know if you can. If you can count just
go into an airport as going to a place. I
(57:13):
don't know if you can. The Denver Airport. Did you
see all the weird murals and stuff? Is it wild?
It's weird and it's creepy, Like I see why it
is off putting to people. But Blue Horse and listeners,
if you're not familiar with the Denver Airport has some
very unusual, dark, kind of imperialistic looking imagery where there's
(57:35):
like these kind of like big centurion figures wearing gas masks,
swinging sabers, and then there's like this line of emaciated
children and refugees and it's very very dark. Look it up.
Maybe we'll do one on that, and I'm not gonna
be a whole episode is worth, but it might be
worth fitting into something about unusual murals are across the world.
(57:56):
And we do have a video from early year, Yes,
we do Conspiratorial career. Speaking of video, the we have
to make the announcement now because it's going out. Yeah, yeah,
it's happening. It's all happening. So was it in September
of last year when we went to the guidestones. It
was a while ago. We went to the Georgia Guidestones
(58:18):
in Elverton, Georgia, or nine miles from Elverton, Georgia, and
we we shot the stones. We discussed with nol his
personal relationship with the granite. The three of us almost
got heat stroke. I have a personal relationship with granite,
that's true. Um, And an awesome older gentleman named Wyatt,
(58:42):
who you who had a talk with, several talks with
and uh, he has a an even closer relationship to
the granite. Again, no sleep here, okay, yes, So the
reason why there's no sleep is because I've been up
for the past three nights past two am working on
this thing. These guys have been writing and inter like.
(59:04):
We interviewed Nold for this thing, and we're using a
bunch of his footage. Been has just been writing his
took us off to make this thing happen. And we're
so excited that it's finally coming out and it's you know,
you've noticed that we haven't been doing the weekly videos lately,
and we've been getting a lot of questions as to
whether they're coming back or not. We've been kind of
beating around the bush about it a little bit. But
this is our first real kind of long form peace
(59:28):
and we are so proud of it. Um. I personally
am just insanely proud of Matt. He's done such an
incredible job. We kind of watched the whole thing for
the most it's fiple of days ago and since then
he's I don't even know, but it was looking phenomenal.
It's really a heartfelt story. There's a lot of interesting
(59:48):
twists and turns, things you might not have heard about yet. Um,
even if you're familiar with the story, even if you
listen to our podcast on it, So go back, check
out the podcast and be on the lookout. Where's it
gonna be math, So yeah, the main thing here is
that it's gonna be on Amazon Video, so you can
stream it on Amazon if you have a Prime account,
it'll be a commercial free. If you don't have a
(01:00:09):
Prime account, there might be a commercial or two in there,
but it's gonna be worth it. I garonn tee it. Yes. Yeah,
we're hopefully gonna put it on YouTube as well after
a little while. And for everyone who has listened to
our earlier audio episode on the Georgia guidestones door. This
is different enough that we promise you won't feel like
(01:00:32):
you're sitting through the same thing. With pictures, we we
took a different approach. If you are a fan of
our classic stuff they don't want you to know videos
you like this one, it will be worth your time.
We hope that you enjoy it as much as we have,
so let us know what you think. You can also
(01:00:54):
find us on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram where we're
conspiracy stuffing conspiracy of show. On our Instagram, you can
listen to every single audio episode we have ever done
at Deep Breath stuff they don't want you to know
dot com. Oh, last point of business. Um. In this
month of this year, we're participating in this thing called
(01:01:15):
tripod t r y pod, wherein we recommend a podcast
that we would like you to try. Um. The hashtag
tripod is being used all around for people to share
their favorite shows with their friends and four shows to
share their favorite shows with their audiences. UM. So you
(01:01:35):
guys want to do one what's the what's the favorite
podcast of yours? Well? I wanna kind of do an
internal shout out really fast for Stuff of Life. Hey,
congratulations to you Noel Brown, Well, thank you. Yeah. We
just launched season two of the Stuff of Life with
Julie Douglas. It's a show that I produce and it's
our most kind of soundscaped sort of like audio journey
(01:01:58):
kind of show in the style of like radio Lab
a little bit um and really proud of it. We've
got an episode up now called Broken, and that's gonna
be dropping Wednesdays, um for eleven episodes, So we're doing
another season of that. Um yeah, try that one for sure.
That would help me out a lot. To hear your
thoughts and you know, actually this this season is a
little darker than the last season and it's got a
(01:02:19):
little more of a political angle to it, um with
some of the stuff that's been going on in the
news right now. Stuff. It's called The Stuff of Life.
You can get it on iTunes, uh, Spotify, Stitcher, pretty
much all the places and let us know what you think.
But um, yeah, it broke my heart. I listened to
the first three minutes and fifty seconds and I was
(01:02:40):
cry my eyes out while I was trying to edit
because you were lacking the sleep. But thank you very much,
it is we did put our our hearts into it
and got a lot of original music by myself and
Dylan Fagan and um a buddy of mine, Tristan McNeil,
who makes incredible ambient music under the name Nude with
Liar l y Are find that on Spotify as well.
(01:03:02):
Stuff of Life a sincere, heartfelt hug for your ears.
It's a heart smart journey into the heart of darkness
heartily so well, I've got another quick one if that's okay. Uh,
shout out to the Church of What's happening with Joey
Coco Diaz. I learned about this gentleman. He's a comedian,
been around the block so many times that I don't
(01:03:24):
even I'm not even sure that he knows like what
street he's on anymore. He's incredible, hilarious. Um, he has
a lot in common with my wife, like from the
area in Jersey where he grew up. And he's he's
just hilarious. And that's the end of this classic episode.
If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode,
(01:03:47):
you can get into contact with us in a number
of different ways. One of the best is to give
us a call. Our number is one eight three three
std W y T k. If you don't want to
do that, you can send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at i heart radio dot com. Stuff
they don't want you to know is a production of
I heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
(01:04:09):
visit the i heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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