The Respectable Building Where They Learned To Break People: A Tavistock Story

Or: How Shell Shock Research Became the Blueprint for Controlling Entire Populations

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The Respectable Building Where They Learned To Break People: A Tavistock Story

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Foreword: Before You Go Down This Rabbit Hole

Look, I need to be straight with you before we start.

This article is not for everyone.

I’m serious. If you’re already feeling overwhelmed by the state of the world, if you’re struggling with anxiety, if you’re in a fragile headspace—bookmark this and come back when you’re in a stronger place. Or don’t come back at all. That’s okay.

What follows is documented history. Sources at the end. But documented history doesn’t make it easier to digest. Sometimes facts are heavier than fiction.

Why am I writing this then?

Because I’ve spent 27 years developing what I call dimensional thinking—recognizing patterns across scales and domains. And once you see certain patterns, you can’t unsee them. This is one of those patterns.

The thing about trauma-based social control is that it doesn’t stop existing because you don’t know about it. But knowing about it can either:

1. Wake you up to how systems actually work, or

2. Send you spiraling into paranoid doom-thinking

The difference is your frame of mind going in.

Here’s my approach:

I use “maybe logic” borrowed from Robert Anton Wilson. Nothing is certain. Everything is provisional. I could be connecting dots that don’t belong together. You should verify everything yourself. Question my reasoning. Challenge my conclusions.

This isn’t about creating fear. It’s about pattern recognition. Understanding how psychological techniques scale from individuals to populations. How crisis creates malleability. How institutional knowledge gets applied.

But here’s the thing:

If reading about:

• Systematic psychological manipulation

• Intelligence agency experiments on unwitting subjects

• Trauma as a tool for behavioral modification

• How crises get exploited for social control

...is going to keep you up at night, ruin your day, or push you toward unhealthy thinking patterns—don’t read this. Seriously.

Your mental health is more important than any article.

If you choose to continue:

• Take breaks if it gets heavy

• Remember this is historical documentation, not current conspiracy

• Focus on patterns and systems, not individual villains

• Keep “maybe logic” active—question everything, including this article

• Don’t let this become your entire worldview

The goal isn’t to make you paranoid. It’s to make you literate in how power operates through psychology. There’s a difference between informed skepticism and doom-spiraling cynicism.

A note on tone:

I use dry humor throughout. Not to make light of serious subjects, but because humor is how I process heavy information without drowning in it. It’s a Swedish thing, maybe. Or just my thing. Either way, the humor doesn’t mean I’m not taking this seriously.

Final thought before we start:

You’re about to read about a century of documented psychological techniques designed to make people more compliant through strategic application of shock and stress. This happened. It’s still happening in various forms.

But you’re still here reading this, which means you still have agency. You can still think. You can still choose. Understanding the game doesn’t mean you’ve lost—it means you can play better.

Or you can close this tab and go look at cat videos. Both are valid choices.

Ready? Let’s talk about what happened in that respectable building in London in 1921.

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Layer 1: What’s the obvious answer? (Surface Thinking)

Walk into 51 Tavistock Square, London, in 1921. It’s a respectable-looking building. The brass plate reads “Tavistock Clinic.” Inside, doctors in white coats are treating soldiers returning from World War I with shell shock—what we now call PTSD.

The official story? Noble work. Compassionate psychiatry. Helping traumatized men recover their shattered minds after the horror of trench warfare.

And that part is true. Sort of.

Scottish neurologist Hugh Crichton-Miller founded the clinic on September 27, 1920, with donations from wealthy benefactors. First patient: a child. The clinic had two departments—Adult and Children’s. Revolutionary for its time. They used the “new psychology” of Freud and his followers. They genuinely wanted to help people who’d survived hell.

So far, so wholesome.

Except.

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The Uncomfortable Discovery Nobody Talks About

Among those treating shell-shocked soldiers was a man named John Rawlings Rees. He’d studied war neuroses in France during WWI as a medical officer. And he noticed something. Something that would echo through the next century of social control.

Shell-shocked soldiers weren’t just damaged. They were malleable.

Rees came to believe that “under controlled conditions, neurotic behaviour could be induced, and through these methods, individual behaviour could be absolutely controlled.”

Read that again slowly.

Not “healed.” Controlled.

Trauma doesn’t just hurt people. It makes them compliant. Pliable. Open to suggestion. The breaking point—that moment when a human mind fractures under stress—wasn’t a tragedy to be prevented. It was a lever to be studied.

In 1933/34, Rees ousted Crichton-Miller and took control of the clinic. Almost immediately, he secured Rockefeller Foundation funding. The work shifted. Electroconvulsive shock. Barbiturates. Hypnosis. Not just to heal, but to experiment.

By 1946, the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations was formally established—again with Rockefeller money. Rees stepped down from the Tavistock in 1947 to become the first President of the United Nations World Federation of Mental Health in 1948.

Let that sink in. The man who pioneered breaking people’s minds to control them became the founding president of the world mental health organization.

You couldn’t write this as fiction. Nobody would believe it.

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Layer 2: What am I missing? (Blind Spot Angles)

Here’s what the respectable histories gloss over:

The Methodology

Tavistock researchers discovered that psychological malleability increased dramatically after shock and stress. They developed techniques:

• Depatterning (breaking down existing thought patterns)

• Disorientation (disrupting behavioral routines)

• Isolation (removing social support)

• Defamiliarization (making the familiar strange)

Sound familiar? These are the exact techniques later used in MK-Ultra.

The Network

During WWII, 44 Tavistock staff members were called to active duty. Brigadier Rees led the British Army’s psychological warfare efforts. After the war, they returned with a question: How do we apply wartime psychological techniques to peacetime populations?

Their answer became the blueprint for modern mass psychology.

The Export

Here’s where it gets interesting. Tavistock’s methodology crossed the Atlantic. Two Americans, Edward Bernays (Sigmund Freud’s nephew) and Walter Lippmann, worked closely with the Tavistock network. They helped establish the Creel Commission—the first American propaganda agency.

Bernays would go on to write Propaganda (1928), which opened with this gem:

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”

He called this “the engineering of consent.” Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, reportedly studied Bernays’ methods.

The irony is thick enough to choke on.

The CIA Connection

Fast forward to 1953. The CIA launches MK-Ultra under chemist Sidney Gottlieb. The goal: find a drug or technique for mind control. They bought the world’s entire supply of LSD for $240,000.

Where did the theoretical framework come from? Tavistock’s trauma research.

Key connections:

• Kurt Lewin became Tavistock’s director in 1932, later set up Harvard Psychology Clinic

• Ewen Cameron’s “psychic driving” experiments at Montreal’s Allan Memorial Institute (Subproject 68 of MK-Ultra) used Tavistock techniques

• Gottlieb distributed LSD to hospitals, prisons, and clinics through fake foundations

Ken Kesey got his first LSD from an MK-Ultra experiment. So did Robert Hunter (Grateful Dead lyricist). So did Allen Ginsberg. The CIA accidentally created the 1960s counterculture while trying to develop mind control weapons.

You couldn’t make this up. Reality is more absurd than satire.

The Doctrine

Naomi Klein later termed this the “Shock Doctrine”—systematic exploitation of public disorientation following collective trauma. Economic crashes, terrorist attacks, natural disasters, pandemics. Each crisis creates a window where populations become psychologically malleable, ready to accept changes they’d normally resist.

Tavistock researchers explicitly studied this. They sent “flying squads” to disaster zones and war-torn areas to study shocked populations. The data fed their understanding of mass psychology.

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Layer 3: What question should I actually be asking? (Reframe)

Here’s the question nobody wants to ask:

If psychological malleability through trauma works on individuals, why wouldn’t it work on entire societies?

Because it does. And we have the receipts.

Think about the pattern:

• Economic shocks (2008 crash)

• Terrorist attacks (9/11)

• Pandemics (2020 lockdowns)

• Climate emergencies

• Political crises

Each creates disorientation. Each is followed by rapid policy changes that would’ve faced massive resistance under normal conditions. Not because of conspiracy, but because trauma creates psychological conditions where people accept—even demand—drastic action.

The Tavistock research didn’t disappear. It evolved. It scaled.

Modern behavioral economics, nudge theory, crisis management, public relations, social media algorithms—they all draw from the same well. Understanding that psychological states are malleable, especially under stress.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: The techniques work. That’s why they persist. Not through some grand conspiracy (though those exist), but through institutional knowledge passed down through universities, think tanks, PR firms, government agencies, intelligence services.

The question isn’t whether these techniques exist. They do. The research is public. The question is: Who decides when and how they’re applied?

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The Receipts (For Those Who Like Primary Sources)

Tavistock Itself

• Founded 1920, 51 Tavistock Square, London

• Hugh Crichton-Miller (founder), John Rawlings Rees (director 1933-1947)

• Rockefeller Foundation funding beginning 1933

• Formal institute established 1946, chartered 1947, opened 1948

Key Figures

• John Rawlings Rees: British Army Brigadier, founded World Federation for Mental Health (1948)

• Wilfred Bion: Led “Operation Phoenix” post-WWII restructuring

• Eric Trist: Rockefeller Foundation Medical Fellow, researched drug/hypnosis-induced states

• Kurt Lewin: Director from 1932, set up Harvard Psychology Clinic

The American Connection

• Edward Bernays: Freud’s nephew, “father of public relations”

• Walter Lippmann: Journalist, helped establish Creel Commission

• Both worked with Tavistock methodology for Wilson administration

• Helped manufacture American support for WWI entry

MK-Ultra Connections

• CIA program 1953-1973, 149 subprojects

• Sidney Gottlieb (director): chemist, bought world’s LSD supply

• Ewen Cameron (Subproject 68): “psychic driving” and “depatterning”

• Direct application of Tavistock trauma research to individuals

• Unwitting subjects at universities, hospitals, prisons

Observable Patterns

• Shock → Disorientation → Malleability → Policy Changes

• Individual techniques scaled to populations

• Crisis exploitation as systematic methodology

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What This Means (The Part You Won’t Like)

The shell-shocked soldiers of 1920 weren’t just patients. They were prototypes. Proof of concept.

Once you understand that psychological states are malleable, especially under stress, two paths open:

1. Use this knowledge to heal people

2. Use this knowledge to control people

Tavistock walked both paths. So did its successors. The techniques themselves are neutral—they’re just tools. But tools in whose hands?

Here’s the thing about trauma-based manipulation: It doesn’t require grand conspiracy. It just requires institutional knowledge meeting opportunity. A crisis happens. Someone with training in mass psychology gets involved in the response. They apply techniques that “work.” The population accepts changes it would’ve rejected yesterday. Rinse and repeat.

You don’t need a shadowy cabal. You just need professional classes trained in these methods, working within institutions that reward “crisis management.”

The Tavistock legacy isn’t a secret society pulling strings. It’s a body of knowledge about human psychology that exists in universities, government agencies, PR firms, intelligence services, think tanks. It’s taught, published, peer-reviewed, and applied.

That’s more unsettling than conspiracy. Because you can fight a conspiracy. How do you fight institutional knowledge?

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The Monty Python Moment

There’s a scene in Life of Brian where the People’s Front of Judea asks, “What have the Romans ever done for us?” Someone mentions the aqueduct. And roads. And sanitation. And medicine. And education. And wine. And public baths. The list keeps growing.

“Alright, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system, and public health... what have the Romans ever done for us?”

Same energy with Tavistock’s intellectual descendants.

What has behavioral psychology ever done for us? Well, there’s advertising that knows your desires before you do. Social media algorithms that keep you engaged. Crisis messaging that shifts public opinion. Nudge theory in government policy. Behavioral economics. Public relations. Corporate HR. Political campaigns. Media narratives.

“Alright, but apart from completely reshaping how modern societies manage human behavior, what has Tavistock methodology ever done?”

The answer is: Everything. And most of it happens so smoothly you never notice the levers being pulled.

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Three Questions To Ask Yourself

1. When was the last time you changed your position on a major issue immediately following a crisis?

Not saying you were wrong. Just notice the timing. Did the crisis create clarity, or did it create psychological conditions where change felt urgent?

2. How many “temporary emergency measures” from past crises are still in place?

Patriot Act (2001). Bank bailouts (2008). Lockdown precedents (2020). Emergency powers have a funny way of becoming permanent once populations accept them under stress.

3. Who benefits when you’re scared?

Fear creates compliance. Compliance creates control. Control creates power. Follow the incentives.

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The Reading List (For The Obsessive)

1. Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control - Stephen Kinzer
   (The MK-Ultra chemist who brought LSD to America)

2. The Mighty Wurlitzer - Hugh Wilford
   (CIA front groups and media manipulation)

3. Propaganda - Edward Bernays
   (The godfather admits everything)

4. Crystallizing Public Opinion - Edward Bernays
   (The blueprint for manufacturing consent)

5. The Society of the Spectacle - Guy Debord
   (Media and culture as control systems)

6. Amusing Ourselves to Death - Neil Postman
   (How entertainment reshapes attention)

7. The Human Zoo - Desmond Morris
   (Society as controlled environment)

8. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism - Shoshana Zuboff
   (Modern algorithms as behavioral levers)

9. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - Robert Cialdini
   (The manipulation tactics playbook)

10. The Shock Doctrine - Naomi Klein
    (Crisis capitalism and disaster exploitation)

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Final Thought

The Tavistock Institute still exists. It’s still doing research. Much of it legitimate. The methodology isn’t secret—it’s published in academic journals.

The question isn’t whether these techniques exist. They do. The question is whether you notice when they’re being applied to you.

Shell shock research taught us that trauma makes people malleable. Everything that followed was just scaling that insight from individuals to populations.

You can’t unknown this. Once you see the pattern, you see it everywhere. Crisis → Response → Acceptance → New Normal. Repeat.

The respectable building at 51 Tavistock Square was where they learned to break people. The next century was where they learned to break everyone.

And the most British thing about it? They did it all with institutional respectability, peer-reviewed papers, and Rockefeller funding.

Quite proper, really.

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P.S. If you found yourself getting anxious while reading this, notice that feeling. Then ask yourself: Am I anxious because this information is false, or because it might be true? That distinction matters.

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Sources & Documentation

Primary Historical Sources

Tavistock Institute Official History

• Tavistock and Portman NHS: Our History
  https://tavistockandportman.nhs.uk/about-us/news/stories/how-two-wars-shaped-tavistock/

Academic Research on Shock and Stress

• “Shock and Stress” (SpringerLink, 2024)
  https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-41850-1_2
  Comprehensive academic analysis of Tavistock’s evolution from shell shock treatment to population control

MK-Ultra Documentation

• CIA FOIA Reading Room: Project MK-Ultra
  https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/06760269

• Britannica: MK-Ultra Overview
  https://www.britannica.com/topic/MK-ULTRA

• Wikipedia: MK-Ultra (comprehensive timeline)
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra

Edward Bernays Connections

• SourceWatch: Edward Bernays
  https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Edward_Bernays

• History of Information: Bernays and Freud
  https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=3128

Historical Analysis & Context

John Rawlings Rees

• Wikipedia: John Rawlings Rees
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rawlings_Rees

• RCP Museum: Rees Biography
  https://history.rcp.ac.uk/inspiring-physicians/john-rawlings-rees

• Encyclopedia.com: Rees Profile
  https://www.encyclopedia.com/psychology/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/rees-john-rawlings-1890-1969

Tavistock-CIA-Social Engineering Connections

• “Edward Bernays, the CIA, Tavistock Institute, and Social Engineering” (Hive)
  https://hive.blog/hive-122315/@richq11/edward-bernays-the-cia-tavistock-institute-and-social-engineering

• “Bernays and Tavistock” (Infrakshun)
  https://infrakshun.wordpress.com/2015/03/11/bernays-and-tavistock/

Shell Shock and WWI Context

• History Today: “The Lessons of Shell Shock”
  https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/lessons-shell-shock

Critical Analysis

• “The Fall of the Tavistockians: Defeating the ‘Mother’ of All Brainwashing” (Canadian Patriot)
  https://canadianpatriot.org/2024/03/22/the-fall-of-the-tavistockians-defeating-the-mother-of-all-brainwashing/

• Wikispooks: Tavistock Institute
  https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Tavistock_Institute

MK-Ultra and Mind Control Programs

Historical Documentation

• History Channel: “The CIA’s Appalling Human Experiments With Mind Control”
  https://www.history.com/mkultra-operation-midnight-climax-cia-lsd-experiments

• NPR (2019): “The CIA’s Secret Quest For Mind Control: Torture, LSD And A ‘Poisoner In Chief’”
  https://www.npr.org/2019/09/09/758989641/the-cias-secret-quest-for-mind-control-torture-lsd-and-a-poisoner-in-chief

• All That’s Interesting: “MK-Ultra, The Disturbing CIA Project To Master Mind-Control”
  https://allthatsinteresting.com/mk-ultra

Academic Papers

• “Mind Control: From Nazis to DARPA” (SM Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, 2018)
  https://www.jsmcentral.org/assets/articles/fulltext_smpmr-v2-1007.pdf

Princeton Connections

• Princeton Special Collections: “The CIA’s Quest for Mind Control: Project MK-Ultra and its Princeton Connections”
  https://specialcollections.princeton.edu/2025/10/the-cias-quest-for-mind-control-piecing-together-project-mk-ultra-and-its-princeton-connections-part-i-allen-w-dulles-class-of-1914/

Contemporary Analysis

Modern Perspectives

• Wondergressive: “Tavistock Institute: The Powerhouse of Social Engineering”
  https://wondergressive.com/2023/08/03/tavistock-institute-the-powerhouse-of-social-engineering/

• Global Organization Design Society: “The Genesis of Tavistock Institute”
  https://globalro.org/media/1839

Critical Commentary

• Cabal Times: “On Modern Psychiatry” (Tavistock connections)
  https://www.cabaltimes.com/2021/01/20/tavistock/

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Recommended Books (Deep Dives)

Mind Control & Intelligence Operations

1. Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control - Stephen Kinzer (2019)
   The definitive account of MK-Ultra’s chemist and the LSD experiments

2. The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America - Hugh Wilford (2008)
   CIA front groups and cultural manipulation networks

3. Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties - Tom O’Neill (2019)
   Investigates potential MK-Ultra connections to 1960s counterculture

Propaganda & Social Engineering

4. Propaganda - Edward Bernays (1928)
   The blueprint for mass manipulation, straight from the architect

5. Crystallizing Public Opinion - Edward Bernays (1923)
   How to manufacture consent and shape public behavior

6. The Engineering of Consent - Edward Bernays (1955)
   Later refinement of manipulation techniques

Media & Social Control

7. The Society of the Spectacle - Guy Debord (1967)
   How media and culture function as control mechanisms

8. Amusing Ourselves to Death - Neil Postman (1985)
   Entertainment as pacification and attention management

9. Manufacturing Consent - Edward S. Herman & Noam Chomsky (1988)
   How media serves power structures

Contemporary Applications

10. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism - Shoshana Zuboff (2019)
    Modern algorithms as behavioral modification tools

11. The Shock Doctrine - Naomi Klein (2007)
    Crisis exploitation as systematic economic and political strategy

12. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - Robert Cialdini (1984)
    The tactical playbook of behavioral triggers

Human Behavior & Society

13. The Human Zoo - Desmond Morris (1969)
    Society as controlled environment for human animals

14. Propaganda and the Public Mind - Noam Chomsky (2001)
    Interviews on manufacturing consent and media control

15. The Century of the Self - Adam Curtis (BBC Documentary, 2002)
    Essential viewing on Freud, Bernays, and mass psychology

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Related Academic Fields (For Further Research)

• Group Dynamics - Tavistock pioneered this field under Wilfred Bion

• Object Relations Theory - Key Tavistock therapeutic framework

• Behavioral Economics - Modern application of influence research

• Nudge Theory - Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein (government policy applications)

• Social Psychology - Mass behavior and group influence studies

• Organizational Psychology - Workplace behavior modification

• Political Psychology - How populations respond to leadership and crisis

• Media Effects Research - Impact of information environments on behavior

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Archive Resources

CIA Reading Room
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/
Declassified documents including MK-Ultra files

National Security Archive (George Washington University)

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/

Extensive government document collections

Rockefeller Archive Center

https://rockarch.org/

Rockefeller Foundation grant records (Tavistock funding)

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Further Reading on hejon07.substack.com:

• The COGNITIVE-LOON Dimensional Series

• Pattern Recognition Across Scales and Domains

• The Three-Layer Thinking Framework in Practice

• Why “Maybe Logic” Beats Certainty

• Swedish Democratic Paradoxes and Political Philosophy

• Due Process vs. Snapshot Judgment in Public Discourse

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Note on Sources: This article synthesizes publicly available historical documentation, academic research, declassified government documents, and contemporary analysis. All claims are sourced from verifiable materials. The interpretation—connecting these documented facts into a coherent pattern—is my own analytical framework.

Epistemic Humility Disclaimer: This is dimensional thinking applied to historical patterns. I could be wrong about connections I’ve drawn. Always verify primary sources yourself. Question everything, including this article.

Got thoughts? See something I missed? Challenge my reasoning? Drop it in the comments. Let’s figure this out together.

🪶Peace, Love and Respect

If you like what i do?

https://buymeacoffee.com/cognitiveloon

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