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The Cult Dossier · No. 160 · Psychiatry / The Asylum

MKULTRA and the Allan Memorial Institute

Depatterning; psychic driving; MKULTRA Subproject 68

1948 – 1964 (litigation continuing) · Montreal, Quebec, Canada; funded from the United States

XV. THE ASYLUM — WHEN MEDICINE DECIDED WHOSE MIND WAS WRONG

None.

Who led it

DONALD EWEN CAMERON (1901–1967), Scottish-born psychiatrist, director of the Allan Memorial Institute at McGill University, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION 1952–53 and later president of the World Psychiatric Association.

What it worshipped and taught

THAT A PERSONALITY COULD BE ERASED AND A NEW ONE WRITTEN IN ITS PLACE. Cameron called the first half DEPATTERNING: electroconvulsive shock at many times the standard dose, several times a day, combined with drug-induced sleep lasting weeks, LSD and other agents, and sensory deprivation, continued until the patient lost continuous memory, language and control of their bladder and could not recognise their own family. The second half was PSYCHIC DRIVING: recorded messages played back on loops, in some cases hundreds of thousands of repetitions, into the blank he had made.

Who was in it

Ewen Cameron; the CIA, through the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology; the Government of Canada, which also funded the work; JULIE TANNY and LANA PONTING, the representative plaintiffs; the patients, who came in for depression, anxiety and postpartum illness.

How it ended, or where it stands

UNRESOLVED AFTER SIXTY YEARS. Cameron died in 1967 without facing any proceeding. The class action authorised in July 2025 is the first time the institutions themselves will answer in court.

The dead

No death toll is established. The documented harm is destroyed memory, lost capacity and lost families.

Of note

THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FILE IN THE DOSSIER FOR ANYONE READING 150.

Entry 150 records that the brainwashing theory FAILED IN AN AMERICAN COURT in 1990, and that no prosecution since has been able to argue that a mind was captured and rewritten. What entry 160 records is that TWENTY YEARS EARLIER THE AMERICAN AND CANADIAN GOVERNMENTS PAID A PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION TO TRY TO DO EXACTLY THAT, on people who had come to him for help with depression.

THE TWO FACTS BELONG TOGETHER AND ARE ALMOST NEVER PUT TOGETHER. The anti-cult movement claimed cults could erase and rewrite a person. Courts said no such mechanism was demonstrated. Cameron had already tried to build the mechanism with a state budget and a research programme — AND HE FAILED TOO. He did not produce reprogrammed people. He produced damaged ones. That is the strongest available evidence that the thing the deprogrammers feared is not a thing that can actually be done, and it was obtained at a cost nobody consented to.

CAMERON WAS NOT A CRANK OPERATING IN SECRET. He led his profession, he was trusted with assessing a Nazi defendant's sanity at Nuremberg, and he published this work under his own name. NOTHING ABOUT IT WAS HIDDEN EXCEPT WHO WAS PAYING.

Its timeline

  1. 1945 Cameron is sent to Nuremberg on the panel assessing whether RUDOLF HESS was fit to stand trial. HE WAS PRESENT AT THE PROCEEDINGS THAT MADE MEDICAL CONSENT AN INTERNATIONAL QUESTION. The Nuremberg Code came out of the separate Doctors' Trial that followed.
  2. 1948–1964 The experiments run at the Allan Memorial Institute. Patients admitted for ordinary psychiatric complaints are depatterned. MANY NEVER RECOVERED THEIR MEMORIES OR THEIR CAPACITY TO WORK OR PARENT.
  3. 1957–1964 The CIA funds the work as MKULTRA SUBPROJECT 68, routed through a front foundation. Cameron was not a covert operative; he was an eminent psychiatrist who took the money and published.
  4. 1973 CIA DIRECTOR RICHARD HELMS ORDERS THE MKULTRA RECORDS DESTROYED, which is why the documentary record is fragmentary and why some victims can never prove they were included.
  5. 1977 MKULTRA surfaces publicly through United States Senate hearings, after surviving financial records escape the destruction order.
  6. 1988 Nine former patients who sued the CIA in ORLIKOW v. UNITED STATES settle out of court. THE SETTLEMENT IS REPORTED AS 750,000 DOLLARS IN ALL; another account gives about 67,000 dollars per plaintiff.
  7. 1992 The Canadian government pays 100,000 dollars each to 77 survivors, who sign away the right to sue. ABOUT 250 MORE ARE REFUSED — for lack of medical records, late filing, or not having been harmed enough — and campaign for decades.
  8. JULY 2025 ON 31 JULY, JUSTICE DOMINIQUE POULIN OF THE QUEBEC SUPERIOR COURT AUTHORISES A CLASS ACTION against the Royal Victoria Hospital, McGill University and the Government of Canada, on behalf of everyone depatterned at the Allan Memorial between 1948 and 1964, together with their successors and families. JULIE TANNY and LANA PONTING are the representative plaintiffs. THE CASE IS LIVE AND THIS FILE WILL GO STALE.

Its people

Donald Ewen Cameron

D. Ewen Cameron

Director, Allan Memorial Institute; MKULTRA Subproject 68 · 24 December 1901 – 8 September 1967 · active 1943–1964

A Scottish-born psychiatrist who reached the top of the profession — PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION IN 1952–53 and later of the World Psychiatric Association — and who was sent to Nuremberg in November 1945 on the panel assessing whether Rudolf Hess was fit to stand trial. At the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal he developed DEPATTERNING: electroconvulsive shock at many times the standard dose several times daily, weeks of drug-induced sleep, LSD and sensory deprivation, continued until patients lost memory, continence and the ability to recognise their families. He then applied PSYCHIC DRIVING, playing recorded messages on loops. THE PATIENTS HAD COME TO HIM FOR DEPRESSION, ANXIETY AND POSTPARTUM ILLNESS. The CIA funded the work as MKULTRA Subproject 68; the Canadian government funded it too.

Before the law. NEVER CHARGED, NEVER SUED IN HIS LIFETIME, NEVER SANCTIONED BY ANY PROFESSIONAL BODY. He died in good standing.

Where things stand. Deceased 1967. LITIGATION ABOUT HIS WORK IS STILL LIVE: a Quebec class action against the hospital, McGill and the Government of Canada was authorised in JULY 2025 — fifty-eight years after his death. See 160.

  1. NOVEMBER 1945 Assesses Rudolf Hess at Nuremberg.
  2. 1952–53 PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION.
  3. 1948–1964 Depatterning and psychic driving at the Allan Memorial Institute.
  4. 1957–1964 Funded by the CIA as MKULTRA Subproject 68.
  5. 1967 Dies of a heart attack while mountain climbing, facing no proceeding of any kind.

Checked 2026-09-05

Julie Tanny

—

Representative plaintiff, Allan Memorial class action · — · active 2015–present

Daughter of a man admitted to the Allan Memorial Institute and subjected to Cameron's depatterning. IN JULY 2025 A QUEBEC SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE AUTHORISED THE CLASS ACTION, with Tanny and LANA PONTING as representative plaintiffs, covering everyone depatterned between 1948 and 1964 together with their successors and families.

Before the law. REPRESENTATIVE PLAINTIFF IN A LIVE CLASS ACTION. Authorisation is a procedural threshold, NOT a finding of liability, and nothing has yet been decided on the merits.

Where things stand. LIVING AND LITIGATING. THIS FILE WILL GO STALE — the case was authorised in July 2025 and the next step had not been reported when this entry was written.

  1. 1992 Canada makes ex gratia payments of 100,000 dollars to a limited group; many families are excluded.
  2. 2015–2025 Tanny campaigns and the class action is prepared.
  3. JULY 2025
  4. Ongoing No trial and no judgment yet.

Checked 2026-09-05 · living: health details are kept at home

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