10:44 AM -:- Posted by Allen    

Jail Horror Picture Show

20-some years ago a federal fugitive stopped by the house on his eventual way to prison. He wanted counsel. I'm a minister (alternative sect), and he knew he could trust me.

He talked, I asked questions designed to help him sort out all his thoughts in the relevant matters - liberty, patriotism, his family, the greater good... daily annoyances like these.

He arrived clearly at two firm points. First, he was doing what he was doing for all the right reasons and he was not afraid to go to prison for what he was doing. But second, he was terrified of going to prison.

Why the conflict? He was convinced that while he was in prison he would be physically or chemically lobotomized and that would be the end of him as a patriot and as the man he and we all knew.

So he decided to remain on the run. The feds did catch up with him, though, and he did time.

He came by the house again afterward, to thank me for my willingness to help him, for my lack of fear of being identified. He apologized for having put me and my house at risk by being there. I reminded him that as a supplicant and confessant, he should never concern himself with such things. Besides, I also reminded him, the feds damn well already know who I am, I made Nixon's List before I could vote. (And then voted for Nixon!)

But that's not the point. He was not the man we all knew. He had not had surgery in prison, had never been hurt and knowingly drugged. But his fire was out. He was no longer concerned about the state of the country, and he was particularly disinterested in whether "they" had 'gotten to him'.

Rose Lear tells us that her husband seems to have changed his tune. He's telling her that the Feds control us all and we have to do what they want.

Dick Simkanin, formerly a firebrand in his own way, reportedly has plea bargained to the point of agreeing to lie about what he was thinking before.

What's going on?

Early after Simkanin's arrest, I got an email on one list or another talking about the arrest and lack of bail, etc. Normal-looking email, except for the casual notation that Simkanin was apparently being held in a medical facility.

Huh! A tax non-conformist held in a medical facility? Why did that take me back more than 20 years to a conversation about chemical lobotomies?

But let's not jump to conclusions. Chemical lobotomies might not be anything to do with anything. And I'm certain we could all inspect Simkanin's skin in as much detail as I did our old friend's and find no scars.

Several years ago, while I was a member and sometimes-speaker at an advanced research club that was investigating connections between physical science and the mind, I avoided a meeting. So did another metaphysical practitioner whom I respect.

When I found her standing outside the meeting room, and asked why, she told me that no way was she going to sit in that contraption and allow herself to be manipulated without knowing the program in advance and without having options. Yup. Same reasons I had. So we stood outside and watched the crowd move spontaneously among several emotional and energetic states while listening to a speaker drone on emptily about electronics and wave-forms and brain scans.

Nothing in that talk to get anyone excited, but at one point the crowd was almost unanimously cheering and aplauding every statement as though it were an announcement of ultimate spiritual liberation. And the next moment they would all be contemplative, then sad, then fidgety, whatever. But nothing in the talk to elicit any of these as reactions.

How was this happening, then?

Before the meeting, a couple of technicians "wired" the room. They placed a series of electronic wave-form generators around and cross-hatching the room. People came in and carefully stepped over the connecting wires and took their seats, marvelling at the devices and speculating.

Now, a lot of the members of this group are true explorers. They seek out altered states as hoped-for means to knowledge of the world, the self, existence, stuff. But in my opinion they were not good scientists. They'd try things for the personal experience without checking safeguards. All they needed was to be told that they would not be damaged but only temporarily manipulated emotionally, and that the effects would pass immediately in most cases. Nobody asked about the other not-most cases. They all volunteered, and the demonstration was on.

What's the point? Surgery and chemical mental-function suppression are completely unnecessary.

I have personally seen people manipulated without being touched, electronically.

Think about that. What if the gadgets could be set to do nothing more than subsume the individual into a penitent mindset? And what if prolonged exposure to the influence could entrain his own electromagnetics so that he'd stay in that framework for a long time? Might he not come, seemingly of his own accord, to the conclusion that he'd been wrong, and that the problem was him and not the formerly-identified evil-doers?

A man goes to prison for 16 or so months and comes out erased, his face speaking for another personality?

A man spends his entire life demanding integrity from the world, goes to jail a few months and starts telling his wife to do what "they" want?

A man goes to jail for a few months and then signs a perjorious statement as part of a plea bargain?

Maybe this all makes sense after all.