💧 CIA releases 1200 documents on LSD-brainwashing program

Welcome back to The Drop In, DoubleBlind’s newsletter serving up news, culture, and independent journalism about the psychedelic underground straight to your inbox.

Our featured story is about one of the CIA’s most sinister projects: MKULTRA. A collection of 1,200 documents was recently released that provide a clearer (but more chilling) picture of what went down inside the mind control experiments. If you keep scrolling, you’ll also find a story on Psychedelic Safety Flags, a system designed to help people spot predatory and abusive facilitators in psychedelic and wellness spaces. The best part? You’ll only find these news pieces here in our newsletter.

Our hearts are with everyone affected by the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles County. The magnitude of loss is staggering and unfathomable. If you’re looking for ways to help, check out this list of organizations to donate to. If you’ve been affected by the wildfires and need assistance (or know someone who does!), see this list of local shelter, food, and mental health services. Stay tuned for Thursday’s Drop In, featuring a story about how LA’s psychedelic community has been affected — and how people are responding. 🫂

Solidarity,

Mary Carreón
Senior Editor

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New Collection of MKULTRA Documents Just Dropped

The recently released collection of documents further exposes the scope and magnitude of MKULTRA's mind control experiments.

Fifty years ago, the New York Times published Seymour Hersh’s explosive exposé uncovering MKULTRA, a covert CIA program in the 1950s that used LSD in experiments to develop mind control and manipulation tools (or weapons, depending on your perspective). Even with the limited information on the project, it remains one of the intelligence community’s most egregious ethical violations. However, thanks to the National Security Archive and ProQuest, 1200 MKULTRA documents are now available to the public.

The new collection is called CIA and the Behavioral Sciences: Mind Control, Drug Experiments, and MKULTRA. It was released on Dec. 23, 2024, and it presents the information in a way that clarifies the scope and purpose of the project, as well as its related initiatives. MKULTRA — which also went by code names “ARTICHOKE” and “BLUEBIRD” — was carried out between 1953 and 1963. But, the documents show it was more than a singular project. It served as an umbrella for a web of scientific, psychological, and military ventures, many of which predated its official launch and lingered long after its so-called conclusion.

The National Security Archive says there were considerable challenges in compiling this documentation. One such hurdle was that Richard Helms, the former CIA director, and Sidney Gottlieb, a longtime MKULTRA chief, destroyed most of the original project files in 1973. Still, the newly organized records that remain present a compelling — albeit disturbing — narrative of the CIA’s decades-long effort to test ways to erase, re-program, and control the human mind…and see if LSD could be used on people as a “truth serum” to extract information.

The majority of this trove of files comes from John Marks, the former State Department official who filed the first FOIA requests on the subject and authored the seminal 1979 book The Search for the “Manchurian Candidate.” Marks later donated his papers to the National Security Archive, where time and further investigations revealed the content behind many redactions, which are available in the new scholarly collection.

You can find a link to CIA and the Behavioral Sciences: Mind Control, Drug Experiments, and MKULTRA here.

Use Psychedelic Safety Flags to Spot (and Avoid) Predatory Practitioners

In a largely unregulated culture, assessing a practitioner’s trustworthiness is essential. Now, there’s a resource to help you determine if your facilitator is safe.

We’ve said it before: Psychedelics and wellness cultures have a sexual assault problem. It’s the leading scourage of the psychedelic underbelly that’s often ignored because of “love and light” and “fear of damaging the movement” despite its rampant prevalence. Due to the fact these alternative spaces remain largely unregulated and attract unscrupulous characters, the problem isn’t likely to stop. That means the responsibility falls on us (the people) to arm ourselves with the skills to assess whether a practitioner is safe and trustworthy.

To help fill the knowledge gap, 10 practitioners, harm reduction experts, and mental health professionals teamed up to create a framework for spotting predatory or abusive facilitators. They penned “Psychedelic Safety Flags,” an assessment system designed by survivors to help individuals navigate the ethical complexities of psychedelic therapy and ceremonies. (There’s also a website!) It was inspired by Art of Consent UK’s “Consent, Power and Abuse” guide and uses a color-coded flag system to categorize behaviors ranging from best practices to outright abusive.

Green flags signify facilitators following best practices, such as discussing consent and boundaries in detail, creating transparent agreements, avoiding cultural appropriation, making sessions financially accessible, and maintaining trauma-aware protocols. Yellow flags suggest areas needing improvement, like facilitators who offer vague boundaries or rely on buzzwords and jargon, which can create a superiority dynamic. Orange flags indicate troubling behaviors, including dismissing power dynamics or neglecting proper preparation and integration. Red flags, the most egregious category, highlight unsafe or abusive practices, such as coercive behavior, unwanted physical contact, or outright violations of consent. Additionally, Psychedelic Safety Flags encourages participants to self-screen practitioners, offering reflective questions to help them prepare for sessions and identify their boundaries.

This collaborative document isn’t the only place to learn about psychedelic and ceremonial safety. Brittany Jade Wilson, an Indigenous herbalist, midwife, and educator, leads a course (with the help of Mikaela de la Myco) called Eco Sensual in which she lectures on a red flag / green flag system from an Indigenous perspective on ceremonial spaces. Wilson’s course is where I first learned about the safety system in the fall of 2023. 

This evolving safety flag system is crucial in an unregulated culture rife with the potential for harm. The Psychedelic Safety Flags document is an invaluable resource to keep in your arsenal as you navigate psychedelic spaces.

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🗓️ There are many ways to approach microdosing. Every day. Every 3 days. 5 days on, 2 days off. But is there really a difference in how it works? In this article, we dig into the science of microdosing protocols and how to find the right one for you. 

🏉 Until now, there wasn’t much you could do to heal from a concussion other than wait. Psychedelics may be the answer, and professional athletes want access. Discover why it works here.

🍄 The Trinity mushrooms are booming in popularity. It may be because they contain unusually high concentrations of baeocystin, a curious alkaloid that allegedly boasts anti-anxiety effects. Read more here.

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In addition to underwriting individual stories, the Fellowship aims to establish and nurture a new generation of journalists covering the frontlines of this rapidly changing field.  We’re looking for big, underreported, narratively compelling stories placed in rich political, economic, scientific, and cultural contexts. 

Applications are due January 31, 2025.

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There are many, many ways to consume magic mushrooms. One of our favorites? Mushroom tea. It’s relatively simple, brings them on faster, and can help reduce nausea. In this video, we walk you through the ins and outs of mushroom tea, herbs you might want to add, and a few pro tips. Watch the video here.