BehindTheMedspeak: Psychotropic Weapons

Academician Igor Smirnov of the Russian Academy of Sciences is often referred to as "the father of psychotropic weapons."

Here's a fascinating article from the November 10 Pravda about him and his research, translated by Anna Ossipova.
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Mind control: The Zombie Effect

Methods of latent impact on the human psyche are no longer secret

Academician Igor Smirnov of the Russian Academy of Sciences is often referred to as "the father of psychotropic weapons."

At the age of 28, he became the head of a laboratory in Russia's 1st Medical Institute.

He is the author of numerous sensational discoveries.

Back then, he was faced with the task of "creating" human-geniuses who would be capable of becoming great scientists or magnificent inventors.

Smirnov's main goal was to make those people use the reserves of their own psyche.

His first top-secret experiment in psycho-reconnaissance was carried out in 1984.

Professor Smirnov possesses several dozen patents on various inventions.

Nowadays, staff researchers of Russia's Scientific Research Institute continue to conduct in-depth studies of the human psyche under Dr. Smirnov"s direct guidance.

Methods of latent impact on the human psyche are no longer secret.

"I allow for the possibility that perpetrators can and do use such methods to manipulate one's consciousness for the purpose of creating terrorist-kamikazes," stated Dr. Smirnov in an interview.

Dr. Smirnov was in fact the world's first person to get into the human mind by means of a computer.

Now, the first thought that comes to mind is, what triggers a person to commit such an act of violence?

How is it that the instinct for self-preservation fails to block a person's inner urge to destroy himself?

This was the main topic of my discussion with Dr. Smirnov.

Q. How is it possible to erase a person's memory?

A. There exists an entire array of possible methods. The majority of them are psychochemical. Electroshock can also have the same effect on a person. However, nothing works better than the so-called semantic influence, when a person is given certain orders that he then executes without hesitation. Personally, I wouldn't want to go into detail on such matters.

As a result of such "outside influence," a person's "self" gets totally blocked. Instead, another "self" is created. That second identity in turn can have a number of various programmed urges, such as killing oneself.

Q. Are there many people in our country capable of carrying out such procedures?

A. I can't say for sure. Obviously, the knowledge acquired at school is not enough to carry out such experiments. I think the number of such specialists is rather limited.

Q. Do you think you could restore a person's memory?

A. This is a very hard procedure. The thing is, those people will have a difficult time recollecting that lost time fragment that had been torn out of their lives. We did manage to help several of our patients to regain their memory partially.

Q. Many still remain rather doubtful about the fact that it is possible to alter a person's behavior while bypassing his conscious mind. In reality, however, people have been doing this for a hundred years already.

A. As far as I know, we are the first in this field of research. Similar methods were developed in Russia and America almost simultaneously; in Russia, however, they emerged 9 months earlier. Our department at the Institute was in fact the first in the world.

An American laboratory in Michigan, however, is our main rival nowadays. In 1993, the U.S. established a company especially for me; I am currently a board member. Due to my loyalties, however, I refused to stay there for good. Many of my colleagues immigrated a long time ago and now lead pretty comfortable lives there. Unfortunately, our inventions are not in high demand in Russia.
 

Q. Is it possible to defeat terrorism?

Q. Only an informational war is capable of defeating terrorism completely. And we possess this weapon. People's actions can in fact be controlled by unnoticed acoustic influence.

Look - it's easy. All I have to do is record my voice, apply special coding which converts my voice to mere noise and afterwards, all we have to do is record some music on top of that. The words are indistinguishable to your conscious mind; your unconscious, however, can hear them clearly. If we were to play this music over and over again on the radio for instance, people would soon start developing paranoia. This is the simplest weapon.

An image can also be encoded. After 12-14 minutes the information begins to get into one's consciousness. Our department is the only one in the world that possesses such instrument of informational war. However, no one seems to be interested in it.

Q. Several years ago you were lobbying for a law that would protect people from uninvited interventions into a person's psyche. Where is this bill now?

A. Mr. Lopatin from the Security Committee worked on a bill concerning informational-psychological security back in 2000. However, he is no longer a delegate and the law is nonexistent. Russians remain unprotected from such concealed messages that could be "hiding" in the media. There is no state control at all over work in psychotechnologies. In the meantime, the U.S. studies this subject far more intensely. More than 140 American universities conduct serious research in this area.

[via Pravda]