Part 9

The enemy held my will in his power and from it he made a chain and shackled me.

– St. Augustine Confessions, Book VIII

The trial of Patricia Hearst sent shudders of fear through the Establishment. There was grave concern by the hierarchy that the techniques of hypnosis would be exposed. Patricia Hearst had to be sacrificed in an effort to downplay, to conceal the truth about hypnosis. The stakes were great, an entire nation was watching the court proceedings.

The secret government that controls this country is extremely powerful. The position and wealth of Patricia's parents could not save her. The eloquence, persuasion and skill of her attorney, F. Lee Bailey, could not save her. Patricia Hearst was found guilty; not for her involvement in the bank robbery nor for the hold-up at Mel's Sporting Goods Store, or for remaining a fugitive at large (and did not seek escape from her captors), nor because she was a wealthy Hearst; but because the truth had to be suppressed, because the truth about hypnosis and all its implications had to be withheld from the watching public. She was the scapegoat. If she were punished as the villain, hopefully, no one would look further for the real villain.

Prior to her ordeal, Patricia Hearst had been a normal 19-year old with a stable life situation and a responsible orientation to society. She had no predisposition whatsoever toward crime, and had no antisocial or revolutionary inclinations. On February 14, 1974, Patricia Hearst was forcibly kidnapped at gun point, gagged, bound, blindfolded and tossed into the trunk of a waiting car. On April 15, 1974, some sixty days later, she emerged as a "revolutionary" and participated in the Hibernia Bank robbery.

Now, what did really happen to this "normal" young American girl? Suppose we take the blinders off, separate ourself from our prejudices and conditioning and sincerely desire to see the truth. We are confronted with two things: The facts and the truth. First, what are the facts? They are:

  • – Some time after her capture by the SLA she made a series of tape recordings denouncing her parents and professing allegiance to the Symbionese Liberation Army.

  • – She took part in a bank robbery.

  • – She could have escaped from her captors but did not. She remained a fugitive from the law.

  • – She participated in a robbery at Mel's Sporting Goods Store by firing two guns at the store.

  • – She was defiant when captured.

  • – She took the 5th Amendment 42 times.

Patricia Hearst was convicted upon the undisputed facts, by the soulless, mindless, heartless machinery of the letter-of-the-law. These are facts. The facts conveyed reality, certainly, but the lesser part of reality. The truth is also a part of reality, in this case, the greater part of reality. What, then is the truth? The truth is:

  • – She was forcibly kidnapped at gunpoint, threatened with certain death, gagged, bound, blindfolded, tossed into the trunk of a car and carried off by her abductors.

  • – She was locked in a dark closet, blindfolded and bound for almost two months.

  • – She was deprived of food and sleep.

  • – She was continually threatened with bodily harm and death.

  • – She was physically abused, molested and raped.

  • – She was lied to by the SLA – she believed her captors.

  • – She believed her family had abandoned her – did not care for her – did not comply with the ransom demands and believed "it was all right with them if she were put to death."

  • – She was in a perpetual state of terror.

  • – She was forced to participate in a bank robbery.

  • – The guilt of committing an unlawful act made her afraid of the law which then bound her tighter to the SLA.

  • – The action of the police, of the FBI, of the TV coverage of the SLA's shoot-out in Los Angeles burned into Patricia Hearst's mind an unshakable conviction that the police were out to get her.

  • – She believed she was an outlaw and had no alternative but to continue as a SLA member.

  • – The shooting at Mel's Sporting Goods Store was an attempt to avoid capture by the dreaded police.

There is a great deal more truth:

  • – The jurors were "normal" people who were ignorant, and remained ignorant, of hypnotic mind control techniques. Like most Americans, they believed, egotistically, that they could not be hypnotized against their will.

  • – The jurors found it difficult to believe that Patricia Hearst was involuntarily hypnotized and committed criminal acts against her will.

  • – The jurors were not willing to grapple with something they did not understand – the disturbing issue raised by the concept of hypnosis.

  • – The jurors would have been compelled to confront their own vulnerabilities, their own susceptibilities to hypnosis and programming.

  • – Attorney Bailey's fundamental argument was that Patricia Hearst was hypnotized and programmed. If it were not for the kidnapping there would have been no bank robbery.

  • – Judge Carter nullified Bailey's argument by instructing the jurors that they could not find Patricia Hearst innocent of the bank robbery simply because she had been kidnapped.

  • – Judge Carter would not admit as evidence the results of lie detector tests given to Patricia Hearst which were administered by a polygraph expert, Dr. David Raskin, a University of Utah professor.

  • – Dr. Raskin confirmed that Patricia Hearst was threatened with death by her captors and that she was forced to help rob a bank.

  • – Judge Carter withheld from the jurors a 175-page document prepared by Dr. Louis West and Dr. Margaret Singer that provided a most accurate and complete expert account of Patricia Hearst's state of mind at the time of the bank robbery. (Dr. West is chairman of the psychiatry department at UCLA and director of its Neuropsychiatric Institute. Dr. Singer is now professor of medical psychology at UC San Francisco. Both are experts on coercive persuasion and have worked extensively on this in the past; she for the Army and he for the Air Force.)

  • – The document stated, in part, that the shock and stress of being violently abducted, brutalized and subjected to a prolonged period of torture induced in Patricia Hearst a psychiatric illness of the type known as traumatic neurosis.

  • – The document further stated that Patricia Hearst was in the Hibernia Bank in a state of reduced mental capacity, under true duress, in genuine fear for her life. Following the bank robbery, she believed she was irrevocably bound to the SLA, and that government agents would kill her if they found her.

  • – When asked why she did not escape, she replied, "Where would I have gone?" (!)

  • – The court would not deal with the truth that Patricia Hearst was hypnotized, acted under duress, and against her will.

No one has ever been free of the weaknesses of the mind. The bravest can be turned into criminals and murderers through deprivation, brutality and terror tactics. Individuals who survived the terror of Buchenwald and other torture

Most judges are incompetent by constitutional standards. If the judge informs the jury that they can decide only the facts, he is breaking the law. The jury has "an unreviewable and unreversible power... to acquit in disregard of the instructions on the law given by the trial judge." U.S. v Dougherty, 473 F 2d 1113, 1139 (1972).

[Something missing here] ... camps in Nazi Germany – and many had high moral ideals – when starved and terrorized became snarling animals, obedient to their masters, the SS.

We have seen strong, resolute, trained military soldiers, prisoners of war, turn against their country and their comrades under the frightening pressures, duress, anxieties, fears and terror brought upon them by their Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese captors.

When brainwashing became a major issue during the Korean War, it was frequently charged, and often proven, that U.S. prisoners of war were subjected to prolonged interrogations and brutalities which were calculated to capture their minds and produce "confessions." These treasonous acts were performed under great duress and without free will or malice. Court martial proceedings against returned prisoners of war were sympathetic and lenient. The military tribunals understood coercive persuasion and its ramifications.

Patricia Hearst was captured by a "revolutionary army" and early SLA writings literally called Patricia Hearst a prisoner of war. The trauma of her capture disabled her reasoning, conscious mind and she fell under the law of her captors. She became a mindless robot who uncritically obeyed the will of her master, Field Marshall Donald (Cinque) DeFreeze. She had become a soldier.

What an awful experience for a young girl to go through! The trauma of her captivity had transformed Patricia Hearst almost beyond recognition and had made her capable of committing a crime, of killing if necessary, on orders.

Patricia Hearst's trial was the first of its kind. Since we have no law against the use of destructive, hypnotic mind control techniques, a brainwashing defense is not common in our civilian criminal trials. Unlike the military, the court was not sympathetic towards the defense; it couldn't be. Too much was at stake; the people had to remain ignorant of their hypnotic proclivity, of their hypnotic enslavement to the conspiracies of their own government.

This is the truth that had to be suppressed. This is the reason why Patricia Hearst was sacrificed. Thus it has often happened that the suppression of the truth turns into tragedy and disgrace for the innocent party.

The trial and subsequent imprisonment of Patricia Hearst is an indictment against our judicial system, against our "democratic" government. It shall always remain a disgrace – a wound in our national honor and integrity.

Evil is imbedded in our law and order system. Alexandr I. Solzhenitsyn stated in an address before a Harvard University graduating class: "It is impossible for any of us to stand through the trials and tribulations of this threatening century with only the support of a legalistic, letter-of-the-law structure... life organized legalistically has thus shown its inability to defend itself against the corrosion of evil." God help us; we need the full armor of God to protect us from both the "law" and the lawless.

Our courts oppose the righteous man; fairness is unknown. Truth falls dead in the streets, and justice is outlawed.

– Isaiah, 59:14, The Living Bible

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