Hypnotism

Hypnotism emerged as a significant area of research in the twentieth century, particularly in relation to mind control programs and the manipulation of memory. George H. Estabrooks, a prominent figure in the evolving field of hypnotherapy, believed that hypnotism and emotional shock produced the same resultant state of dissociation. In 1959 he applied to the National Institute of Mental Health for funding of a proposed study titled Hypnotism in Juvenile Delinquency. This institute at the time functioned as a cutout used to fund MKUltra research into various prospective methods of mind control, some involving children.¹

Estabrooks wrote in his study proposal of the especially high levels of susceptibility children had to hypnotic techniques. He noted that while one out of five adults were good hypnotic subjects, four out of five children fell into this category. This understanding made children particularly valuable as research subjects for programs seeking to induce dissociative states. In August 1961, Subproject 136 of the MKUltra program was approved for funding under the title Experimental Analysis of Extrasensory Perception, with the objective of inducing dissociative states in children through drugs and hypnosis to create multiple personalities.¹

Estabrooks claimed in a 1971 article published in Science Digest to have successfully created multiple personalities through hypnotic techniques in officers of the US Army's intelligence division during World War II. While it remains unclear whether Estabrooks was directly involved with MKUltra, his research interests aligned closely with the program's objectives. The subproject's agenda included inducing dissociative states in children to create compartmentalized personalities that could be activated independently.¹

The text notes that both dissociative identity disorder and false memory syndrome explanations converge on the point that hypnotism can be used to access repressed memories, or implant false ones, within splits of the human personality. This shared understanding placed hypnotism at the center of debates about memory reliability in abuse cases. The Belgian investigation into the Dutroux affair examined whether hypnotic techniques had been used to manipulate witness testimony, with some arguing that recovered memories required validation through real world evidence before being taken seriously.¹

The practical application of hypnotism extended into criminal investigations and therapeutic contexts. In the Dutroux affair, witnesses reported recovered memories of abuse that emerged through hypnotic regression. These memories formed the basis of the X-dossier investigations, though they were later challenged by proponents of false memory syndrome who argued that the memories had been implanted through suggestion. The debate over hypnotism's role in memory recovery became central to the legal proceedings, with courts ultimately preventing X-witnesses from testifying at the trials of Marc Dutroux and Michel Nihoul.¹

CIA Pursuit of Hypnotic Control

No mind-control technique captured popular imagination more than hypnosis, and CIA officials institutionalized the dream of hypnotic control in the early Cold War, hoping to compel unwitting victims to do their bidding. The agency's first behavioral research czar, Morse Allen of ARTICHOKE, took a four-day 1951 course from a stage hypnotist and then ran CIA secretaries through exercises in which they stole SECRET files and started fires; on February 19, 1954 he staged a simulated programmed assassination, telling a hypnotized secretary that her rage would be so great "that she would not hesitate to 'kill,'" whereupon she picked up an unloaded pistol and "shot" a sleeping colleague before showing apparent amnesia. Allen remained unconvinced the result would hold operationally.²

MKULTRA Hypnosis Research

When Dulles transferred behavioral research to Sidney Gottlieb and MKULTRA, the new team pursued control in smaller steps. The case officer John Gittinger held that "predictable absolute control is not possible on a particular individual," while Gottlieb farmed out most hypnosis work to Alden Sears at the University of Minnesota, who by 1957 concluded the needed experiments "could not be handled in the University situation." The consultant Milton Kline insisted a programmed assassin was possible ("It cannot be done consistently, but it can be done"), a view other equally credentialed consultants rejected. In June 1960 TSS launched an expanded program with James Angleton's Counterintelligence Staff aimed at rapid induction in unwitting subjects, durable amnesia, and posthypnotic suggestion; its one documented field test, in Mexico City in July 1963, failed when the hypnotic consultant froze. A program veteran finally conceded that the same results could be had without hypnosis, "so it has no use."²