If you look up the most prestigious names in 20th-century psychiatry, you’ll run into a wall of accolades for Donald Ewen Cameron. He wasn’t some back-alley quack. He was the first president of the World Psychiatric Association. He sat at the top of the American and Canadian Psychiatric Associations. He even helped evaluate Rudolf Hess during the Nuremberg trials.
But there’s a massive "but" here.
While the world saw a visionary, patients at the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal were living through a literal nightmare. Today, we mostly talk about Donald Ewen Cameron through the lens of MKUltra, the CIA’s clandestine mind-control project. It's often framed like a spy movie. The reality, honestly, was much grimmer and way more personal. It wasn't just about spies; it was about ordinary people who went in for help with postpartum depression or anxiety and came out unable to remember their own names.
The Man Behind the Machine
Donald Ewen Cameron didn't start out trying to build a brainwashing machine for the CIA. He was obsessed with "curing" schizophrenia and other mental illnesses that, at the time, were notoriously hard to treat. He had this theory. Basically, he believed the human mind was just a series of patterns. If a pattern was "broken" (mental illness), you just had to wipe the hard drive and reinstall the operating system.
That’s where Subproject 68 comes in.
The CIA was looking for ways to "break" people—to extract information or program new identities. They saw Cameron’s work and thought, this is exactly what we need. They funneled money to him through a front called the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology. Some historians argue Cameron didn't know the money came from the CIA. Others point to his ruthless pursuit of results as proof that he didn't care where the funding came from as long as he could keep experimenting.
Depatterning: The Psychological Eraser
To "reinstall" a personality, you first have to delete the old one. Cameron called this depatterning. It wasn't subtle.
He used a combination of three main "tools":
- Massive Electroshock (ECT): Most doctors at the time would give a patient one shock a few times a week. Cameron did it multiple times a day. We’re talking 150-volt shocks that lasted far longer than standard medical practice.
- Drug-Induced Sleep: Patients were put into chemically induced comas for weeks—sometimes up to 86 days. They were kept in a "sleep room" where their sense of time and reality completely dissolved.
- LSD and Cocktails: He injected patients with massive doses of LSD and other hallucinogens. They weren't "tripping" for fun; they were being chemically dismantled.
The goal was to reduce the patient to a "vegetable state" (his words, not mine). He wanted them to lose their memory, their habits, even their ability to speak or feed themselves. Once they reached this blank slate, he believed he could start the second phase.
Psychic Driving: The Endless Loop
Once the mind was wiped, Cameron started psychic driving. Imagine being strapped into a bed, often paralyzed by drugs like curare so you couldn't move or pull off your headphones.
Then, a tape starts playing.
It would play a message on a loop for 16 hours a day. Sometimes the message was negative—pointing out the patient's flaws to "break" them further. Then it would switch to positive messages meant to "reprogram" their behavior. These messages could be repeated up to half a million times.
One patient, Velma Orlikow, went in for postpartum depression. She was subjected to 14 doses of LSD and endless loops of tapes telling her she was a bad mother. When she finally left the institute, she couldn't remember how to use a toilet or tie her shoes. She wasn't "cured." She was broken.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Legacy
People like to think of Donald Ewen Cameron as a "mad scientist" outlier. The scary truth? He was the establishment. He was deeply respected by his peers while this was happening. It shows how easily "scientific progress" can be used to justify absolute horror when there's no oversight.
The CIA eventually pulled the plug in the early 1960s. Why? Not because they found it unethical. They stopped because it didn't work. You can't actually "program" a human being like a computer. You can only traumatize them until there's nothing left.
Cameron died of a heart attack while mountain climbing in 1967, never having to truly answer for what he did. It took decades for the survivors to get even a shred of justice. In the late 80s and early 90s, some received settlements, but many families are still fighting for a formal apology from the Canadian government and McGill University.
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Actionable Insights: Why This Matters Today
While the "Sleep Room" days are over, the story of Donald Ewen Cameron offers some vital lessons for how we look at medical ethics and technology now:
- Informed Consent is Non-Negotiable: The patients at the Allan Memorial had no idea they were part of a CIA-funded mind control experiment. Always ask for a clear breakdown of any "experimental" or "alternative" treatment.
- Question "Quick Fix" Narratives: Cameron was obsessed with a "fast" cure through technology (tapes and shocks) rather than the slow work of therapy. Be wary of any treatment that promises to "rewire" your brain overnight.
- The Power of Institutions: Even "world-renowned" experts can be wrong—or worse, dangerous. E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) isn't just a Google ranking factor; it's a personal filter. Just because someone has the "President of the Association" title doesn't mean their methods are beyond reproach.
- Watch for Front Organizations: Scientific research is often funded by groups with hidden agendas. If you're looking into medical studies, check who is actually footing the bill.
If you're interested in the deeper history of this era, I recommend looking into the Church Committee transcripts or the book The Search for the Manchurian Candidate by John Marks. They provide the actual declassified documents that prove just how far these experiments went.
Next Steps for Research:
- Look up the George Cooper Report (1986) for the Canadian government's official (and controversial) take on the Montreal experiments.
- Search for interviews with Lana Mills Sowchuk or other survivor advocates to hear the human side of the story.
- Investigate the Nuremberg Code to understand exactly which international laws Cameron’s work violated.