---
category: Scientists & Researchers
created: 2026-06-03
location: Denver, Colorado
summary: Psychologist who conducted CIA-funded hypnosis research at the University
  of Minnesota and University of Denver, exploring whether subjects could be programmed
  with separate personalities and durable amnesia.
tags:
- Person
- CIA
- MKULTRA
- Hypnosis
- BehavioralControl
updated: 2026-06-03
---

Alden Sears was a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Minnesota who conducted [CIA](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/)-funded [Hypnosis](/concepts/hypnotism/) research beginning in the early 1950s, later moving his project to the University of Denver. The [MKULTRA](/programs/project-mkultra/) men farmed out most of their hypnosis work to Sears, who worked with student subjects to define the nature of hypnosis. Among other things, he investigated whether a hypnotist could induce a totally separate personality and whether a subject could be sent on missions he would not remember unless cued by the hypnotist. Sears, who later became a Methodist minister, refused to talk about the methods he experimented with to build second identities.[^1]

By 1957, Sears wrote that the experiments that needed to be done "could not be handled in the University situation." Unlike [Morse Allen](/people/morse-allen/), he did not want to perform the terminal experiments. Sears maintained the fiction that he thought he was dealing only with a private foundation, the [Geschickter Fund](/organizations/geschickter-fund-for-medical-research/), and knew nothing of CIA involvement. Yet a CIA document in his MKULTRA subproject says he was "aware of the real purpose" of the project. Moreover, [Sid Gottlieb](/people/sidney-gottlieb/) brought him to Washington in 1954 to demonstrate hypnosis to a select group of Agency officials.[^1]

[^1]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*, Chapter 11.