Psycho-Correction:
Igor Smirnov and the Psychotronic Influencing System
Darl Turner, 1998.
Darl Turner, 1998.
|
Throughout the history of mind control, numerous machines have been reported by their victims which are able to influence and shape their behaviour. From James Tilly Matthews' 19th Century Air Loom, lurking in a cellar in London, to the ghost satellites VALIS, SPECTRA, FOCUS and POSSE orbiting high overhead, no device has ever been found. This, however, is the story of a very real device, sold on the private market for $80,000. and the people interested in it. In 1991 Janet Morris, major proponent of non-lethal weapons technology and resesearch director of the US Global Strategy Council (USGSC), visited Russia to view weapon application developments with a view to purchasing them for the US military. There she was introduced by former KGB General George Kotovto to Igor Smirnov of the Moscow Institute of Psycho-Correction, based at the Moscow Medical Academy. (Victorian, 1995) |
Smirnov had spent the last decade developing what the Glasgow Herald would later term the Psychotronic Influencing System, for the Russian military and security forces. BBC correspondent David Shukman was present with Chris and Janet Morris during a demonstration of the system, and was singuarly unimpressed by the low technology of the hardware, consisting of a small network of computers linked to flashing bulbs and electrodes placed on the subjects forehead. (Shukman, 1995.)
The device worked in two stages. The first was what Smirnov calls the Mental Probe. The subject places EEG electrodes on their forehead and is the subjected to a rapid barrage of visual or auditory words. Shukman reports that those words that he could actually see or hear were primarily two syllable nonsense words, sounding almost but not quite like true words, but when replaying and freeze-framing the video footage shot within the laboratory, was alarmed to see subliminal flashes of words such as `attack' and `submit'. The subject's response to these words, via the EEG `trodes, is then measured to determine the subconscious significance. As a result, a psychological map of the subject can be drawn up so as to determine pathological problems (suicide trends, sexual perversions, neurotic complexes, etc.), the origins of certain psychosomatic diseases, the subject's own name and those of their relatives, painful areas within the subject's subconscious and so forth.
Although the Mental Probe is a strict one-to-one process, with the subject aware of and directly connected to the system, wide-area probes could conceivably be conducted by analysing a random sample of individuals from a certain group, for instance ethnic groups such as muslims, countries such as Albania, or cultural groups such as football hooligans. By analysing the similarities within the mental topographies of the random sample, a map of the collective identity of the group could be produced.
The second stage is termed Mental Correction. According to Smirnov, `the essence of this method is the usage of semantic stimuli - words, various images, key symbols lying in the sphere of subconscious,' as defined by the Mental Probe. These key symbols arte then broadcast acoustically and subliminally through music, speech or white noise to the subject's subconscious. The subject's mind apparently grasps the suggestive nature of the key symbols, and is appropriately influenced by them, but consciously is not aware of this fact.
The effects of Mental Correction are alleged to be instantaneous, and can be used for a wide variety of functions. Smirnov himself gives three examples: the treatment of psychological problems, stress-therapy and the normalisation of the emotional sphere, and the optimisation of the subject's functional state when exposed to high risk. According to the relavent literature (see below), the latter of these functions has been the most imporatant use of the device: from boosting the moral of Russian troops in Afghanistan to removing those pesky proms of morality within the Russian Security forces. However, it is reasonable to theorise that the application of the device is limited only by human imagination.
Janet Morris was sufficently interested in the device to brief `senior U.S. intelligence and Army officials about the Russian [Mind Control] capabilities' together with the Richmond, Virginia, based International Health-line Corporation in 1992 ( Defence News. She was also theorising on expanding the range of influence by transmitting the key symbols through `Bone-conducting sound waves that cannot be offset by protective gear'. One hopes that Morris meant infrasound rather than the bone-conducting microwaves discovered by Allen H. Frey.
According to Agent BlueBird another Richmond, Virginia, based company, this time the Psychotechnologies Corporation entered into an agreement with Smirnov in early March 1993, whereby the Russian owners would teach the US investors how to build and operate the device, in exchange for superior US manufactured components and computer programmers. Almost immediately the Psychotechnologies Corporation started speading the news around the intelligence community that they were in possession of a Russian mind-control device right out of the most paranoid cold war warrior's nightmare. Not only that but, always ready to make a quick buck, they were willing to sell the technology as well.
On the 17th of March, 1993, Smirnov appeared in North Virginia to give a series of closed meetings to the FBI, CIA, DIA and ARPA allegedly concerning possible applications of the Influencing System, but more likely as a sales drive for the Psychotechnologies Corporation. The military participation was mainly due to the suspicion that some form of psychotronics had been used to boost the morale of Russian troops during the Afghanistan war, and it gave them a chance to meet the man who they had allegedly been tracking for years. According to Shukman (1995), interest in the device by the FBI was high, as representatives met with Smirnov four times that week.
The FBI were planning to use the Influencing System to bring the stand-off between them, the ATF and David Koresh and his followers during the Waco siege to an end. Interviews would be conducted with Koresh's friends and family, as well as members of his cult not holed up in Waco. From this, Smirnov would be able to determine possible strategies for influencing Koresh. The actual influence attempt would be conducted by the FBI over the phone to Koresh during the on-going negotiations, using (unbelievably enough) the voice of Charlton Heston as God, subliminally urging Koresh to surrender. Smirnov had other, less dramatic, ideas. According to Babacek (1998), Smirnov `suggested that voices of children and families inviting the suicidal people back home could be mixed with the noise of police car engines' outside the building, thus eliminating the need to pay Hollywood film-stars and lending a degree of sanity to the proceedings.
According to an anonymous participant at the meetings, the FBI `wanted the Russians to promise zero risk in using the device on Koresh, but the Russians wouldn't do that,' (Agent BlueBird) promising, at best, only a 70% chance of success ( Babacek, 1998 ). In addition, Smirnov had only brought his demonstration apparatus in the US for the meetings, and would need the more sophisticated hardware back in Russia to influence Koresh. Finally, the FBI were becoming increasingly worried to the potential public reaction that they had used and were in possession of a mind control device if the story ever broke out.
Which, inevitably it did. The July 1993 issue of Defence Electronics carried the story after a copy of a Psychotechnologies Corporation executive summary that had been circulated around US intelligence executives was leaked, presumably by the anonymous informant above.
So the FBI never bought the device, and presumably the military only turned up to check out the state of Russian psychotronics. The Psychotechnologies Corporation gambit failed, and Smirnov returned to Russia to work at the Institute of Psycho-Correction, using the system as therapy for drug-abusers from 1994 onwards (Elliott &Barry, 1994).
Babacek states that the Moscow Times ran a series of articles during March 1994 in response to the Village Voice press release. The emphasis was on the medical benefits of the Smirnov device, rather than Village Voice's `"scandalous news" that Russians are capable to control human behaviour', with Smirnov explaining that `in principle [controlling people's behaviour] can be done. And it is not difficult. But not interesting.' Taking the role of the benevolent inventor, Smirnov stated that his role was to heal and teach, then hinted darkly that the Russian Mafia had made attempts to purchase the system for amoral purposes.
This was also the subject of 1995 unknown German TV program reported by the The Glasgow Herald. Although no mention of Igor Smirnov was made, it was easily identifiable from the article's description: `The psychological weapons project relied on hypnosis and high-frequency radio waves to turn members of the Soviet security forces and military into fearless, conscienceless fighting machines The Psychotronic Influence System relied on passwords and numbered to activate its subjects.' Interestingly the article mentioned that although `hundreds of former Soviet soldiers, police, and KGB members' believed that they had been affected by Smirnov's device, and were now seeking compensation for the psychological problems that resulted, some Police Agencies were still using it, in addition to private security firms and the Russian Mafia, despite Newsweeks assertions in 1994 that although the institute was short of money, it refused to accept business from criminals.
Despite whatever operational successes Smirnov's Psychotronic Influencing System has been claimed to have in the past, one thing is certain: no military or government security agencies have bought the device since the collapse of communism. The US intelligence services were either not impressed (perhaps having something far more useful hidden away) or, like the FBI, feared adverse public reaction. Smirnov, always relectant to demonstrate his system outside the laboratory (hopefully for ethical reasons, although the fact that this may well be a confidence trick always remains) still manages to influence the press into reporting that the Mafia are just about to purchase his system, a dilemna that could be solved if some government somewhere showed enough interest to fund his researches.
Anonymous (1995). Brainwash Killers 'Still in Use.' The Glagow Herald. 26.05.95.
Babacek, M. (1998). Psychoelectronic Threat to Democrary : The Secret Arms Race .
BlueBird, Agent. Vodka in the Medical Kit? Igor Smirnov & Kit Green.
Elliott, D. & Barry, J. (1994). A Subliminal Dr. Strangelove. Newsweek. 22.08.94.
Opall, Barbara. (1993). U.S., Russsia Hope to Safeguard Mind-Control Techniques. Defense News, 11-17.01.93.
Shukman, D. (1995). The Sorcerer's Challenge.
Smirnov, I. Computer Psychotechnologies
Tapscott, M. (1993) DOD, Intel Agencies Look at Russian Mind Control Technology, Claims FBI Considered Testing on Koresh. Defense Electronics, July 1993.
Victorian, A. (1995). Psychic Warfare and Non-Lethal Weapons.
URL: http://www.mk.net/~mcf/babdoc.htm
URL:
http://www.brotherblue.org/brethren/smirnov.htm
URL: http://www.psycor.ru/english.htm
URL: http://area51.simplenet.com/ufo/The-Avairy/nexusavi.html
If you've just linked to this page, then you're missing the Meme:334 site's frameset,
click here to reload the site and escape someone
else's frames.
Copyright MEME:334 1999