“We Deliberately Set up That Condition of Multiple Personality to Further the Ends of Military Intelligence”

G. H. Estabrooks, PH.D.

“I can hypnotize a man — without his knowledge or consent — into committing treason against the United States,” boasted Dr. George Estabrooks in the early 1940s. Book 1994: Operation Mind Control by Walter H. Bowart

Book 1994: CHAPTER 4. Operation Mind Control by Walter H. Bowart

“HYPNOSIS COMES OF AGE” by G. H. Estabrooks, PH.D.

There is not space here to detail all the techniques and methods that have received attention from the CIA and others. The basic methodology was revealed decades ago by George Estabrooks – a prominent psychologist under contract to the intelligence services – in his book Hypnotism, first published in 1943. Estabrooks candidly acknowledged that his “main interest has always been the military application of hypnosis.” While ‘Esty’ notes that the “intelligent reader … will sense that much more is withheld than has been told,” there is nevertheless enough information given to construct a fairly accurate picture of the fundamentals of mind control.
        What is needed is a subject suffering from what used to be termed Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), and what is now termed Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). This condition can already exist within the subject or can be created by the therapist. In all cases, however, the condition is created by severe trauma – so severe in fact that the traumatic episode cannot be integrated into the experiences of the core personality.
        Far and away the most common cause of MPD is early childhood abuse, usually inflicted by a parent or other adult guardian. As Dr. Frank Putnam stated in 1989: “I am struck by the quality of extreme sadism that is reported by most MPD victims. Many multiples have told me of being sexually abused by groups of people, of being forced into prostitution by family members, or of being offered as sexual enticement to their mother’s boyfriends. After one has worked with a number of MPD patients, it becomes obvious that severe, sustained, and repetitive child abuse is a major element in the creation of MPD.”

        When the abuse is of an extreme nature, the natural human reaction is to build a wall around such experiences, so to speak, by creating a separate and distinct personality to deal with future episodes of abuse. Once the core personality is split, it is then possible to control one or more of the alters that have been created, without the conscious knowledge of the main personality. This, according to Estabrooks, creates the ‘Super Spy,’ willing to follow orders unquestioningly without even being aware that he is doing so.

        Estabrooks only alludes to the severe trauma that is required to create a true multiple, often referring to the trauma euphemistically as a form of hypnotism. At one point, he notes that “[multiple personalities] are caused by a form of hypnotism in the first place! We will see that emotional shock produces exactly the same results as hypnotism.” Later, he comes closer to the grim reality when he states: “multiple personality could be both caused and cured by hypnotism. Remember that war is a grim business. Suppose we deliberately set up that condition of multiple personality to further the ends of military intelligence.”

        Elsewhere, Estabrooks acknowledges that he himself had written previously that: “everyone could be thrown into the deepest state of hypnotism by the use of what [I] termed the Russian method – no holds barred, deliberate disintegration of the personality by psychic torture … The subject might easily be left a mental wreck but war is a grim business.” Also noted is that children make especially good subjects, given that they “are notoriously easy to hypnotize.” Which is to say, children are particularly vulnerable to abuse and have more of a tendency to dissociate traumatic experiences, thereby creating alter identities that can be later exploited and controlled.