SUMMARYFrom the zombi to MKUltra to the screen (Nov 6, 2026; user lens: "it connects heavily to MKUltra and media programming"). THE AIM, Record (CIA's own words): a Project ARTICHOKE memo (Jan 1952) asked, "Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature, such as self-preservation?" That is the zombi idea in a government memo. ARTICHOKE began Aug 1951 (as BLUEBIRD; first subjects North Korean prisoners, Oct 1950) and used hypnosis, drugs, forced addiction, isolation and induced amnesia; MKUltra followed (1953–73). EMPTYING THE VESSEL, Record: Ewen Cameron at the Allan Memorial Institute, Montreal (1957–64, CIA-funded through the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology). "Depatterning" erased memory back to a childlike state; "psychic driving" played recorded messages on a loop up to 16 hours a day; drug comas (one about 86 days); LSD; electroshock up to 75 times normal. Canada compensated 77 survivors (1992) and denied 250+; the US settled with 9 (1988). THE LAND'S PLANTS, Record: the CIA funded Gordon Wasson's 1956 Mazatec mushroom expedition through MKUltra Subproject 58 (cover name: Geschickter Fund for Medical Research); Life magazine (May 1957) spread it; María Sabina was jailed and her house burned. Record: datura (in Davis's zombi powder) contains scopolamine, which the US Navy and CIA tested as a truth drug (Project CHATTER, 1947–53). DUVALIER, Record/Disputed: Papa Doc built his image on Baron Samedi, lwa of the dead (dark glasses, deep nasal voice; better source needed), backed by the US; the Tonton Macoutes were his terror. THE SCREEN, Record: Seabrook (1929) to White Zombie (1932) to I Walked with a Zombie (1943) to Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Dawn of the Dead (1978, set in a shopping mall). The plantation's held worker became the consumer horde, and Haiti was cut out of its own story. Record: the CIA had working ties with US journalists; the Church Committee (1976) found about 50, and Carl Bernstein (Rolling Stone, 1977) reported more than 400. The Pentagon has run a Hollywood liaison office since 1948; the CIA has had one since 1996. Pattern: the land's knowledge of the body as a vessel was called superstition, while the state paid for the same goal (will-less control) in labs and spread the zombi through film
OPENany document tying MKUltra to Haitian zombi practice directly; needs deep research (FOIA search of the MKUltra subprojects for "Haiti," "voodoo," "datura").