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         MindNet Journal - Vol. 1, No. 57a * [Part 1 of 2 parts]
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         V E R I C O M M / MindNet         "Quid veritas est?"
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    The views and opinions expressed below are not necessarily the
    views and opinions of VERICOMM, MindNet, or the editors unless
    otherwise noted.

    The following is reproduced here with the express permission of
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    Permission is given to reproduce and redistribute, for
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    Editor: Mike Coyle

    Assistant Editor: Rick Lawler

    Research: Darrell Bross

    Editor's Note:

    The following work, entitled _Spin Programming_ by John D.
    Lovern, Ph.D., was written in 1993. Dr. Lovern informed me in a
    phone conversation on 12/14/95, that he now has "doubts" about
    the conclusions presented in his original work. He requested
    that I accompany the distributed article with his most recent
    clarification letter, which is included below as Appendix A.

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    SPIN PROGRAMMING: A NEWLY UNCOVERED TECHNIQUE OF SYSTEMATIC MIND
    CONTROL

    By John D. Lovern

    Feb. 1993

    ----------------------------------------------------------------

    The following paper was presented at The Sixth Western Clinical
    Conference on Multiple Personality and Dissociation, Irvine, CA.

    John D. Lovern, Ph.D.
    2141-B West Orangewood Avenue
    Orange, California 92668-1941

    REVISED. February 5, 1993

    Abstract

    Information obtained clinically from seven multiple personality
    patients with recalled histories of ritual abuse has revealed a
    coercive technique previously unknown to psychotherapists. This
    technique here labeled "spin programming," appears designed to
    spread effects such as pain, painful emotions, and other feelings
    or urges globally throughout a patient's personality system for
    purposes of either designing and building a young victim's
    personality system, or harassing older victims and disrupting
    psychotherapy. Spin programming appears to be based on a
    combination of physical spinning, cognitive and imagery training,
    and repetition and practice aimed at creating an internal
    multi-alter spinning "mechanism" that can transmit the pain  or
    affective components of numerous traumatic memories
    simultaneously to large groups of targeted alters. This paper
    presents signs and symptoms commonly seen in patients subjected
    to spin programs, training methods apparently used to create
    spin programs, and an analysis of strengths and weaknesses of
    spin programming.

    Spin Programming: A Newly Uncovered Technique of Systematic Mind
    Control

    That old black magic has me in its spell, that old black magic
    that you weave so well. Those icy fingers up an down my spine,
    the same old witchcraft when your eyes meet mine, that same old
    tingle that I feel inside, and then that elevator starts its
    ride: Down and down I go. 'round and 'round l go, like a leaf
    that's caught in a tide (...) Darling, down and down I go, 'round
    and 'round I go, in a spin, loving the spin I'm in, under that
    old black magic called love.

    Johnny Mercer, (c) 1942, 1969

    Discussion of ritual abuse as a cause of multiple personality
    disorder is a fairly recent phenomenon (Coons & Grier, l99O;
    Ganasway, 1989; Hassan, 1990; Kluft, 1989; Los Angeles County
    Commission for Women, 1989; Mayer, 1991; Neswald, Gould, &
    Graham-Costain, 1991; and Van Benschoten, 1990). Use of the term
    "ritual abuse" here relies on the definition developed by the
    Los Angeles County Commission for Women (1989):

    Ritual abuse is a brutal form of abuse of children, adolescents,
    and adults, consisting of physical, sexual, and psychological
    abuse, and involving the use of rituals. Ritual does not
    necessarily mean satanic. However, most survivors state that they
    were ritually abused as part of satanic worship for the purpose
    of indoctrinating them into satanic beliefs and practices. Ritual
    abuse rarely consists of a single episode. It usually involves
    repeated abuse over an extended period of time. The physical
    abuse is severe, sometimes including torture and killing. The
    sexual abuse is usually painful, sadistic, and humiliating,
    intended as a means of gaining dominance over the victim. The
    psychological abuse is devastating and involves the use of
    ritual/indoctrination, which includes mind control techniques and
    mind altering drugs, and ritual/intimidation which conveys to
    the victim a profound terror of the cult members and of the evil
    spirits they believe cult members can command. Both during and
    after the abuse, most victims are in a state of terror, mind
    control, and dissociation in which disclosure is exceedingly
    difficult. (p. 1)

    The topic of ritual abuse is controversial (Kluft, 1989), and
    several authors have either questioned the credibility of reports
    of ritual abuse or have advised caution in interpreting the
    usually unsubstantiated accounts (Coons & Grier, 1990; Ganaway,
    1989; Noll, 1989; and Van Benschoten, 1990). This paper avoids
    taking a position on the accuracy of clinically derived accounts
    of ritual abuse, and instead simply presents information that has
    come to light consistently and repeatedly during intensive
    psychotherapy with a number of different patients with recalled
    histories of ritual abuse.

    The information presented here is offered in hopes of making
    available recently discovered and preliminary findings that may
    be of value to some members of the psychotherapeutic community
    and may stimulate additional investigation by some members of the
    scientific community. The information is admittedly too new,
    derived from too small a sample, and too unsubstantiated by other
    investigators to he presented as fact. Nevertheless, the
    description of spin programming, if valid, shines a valuable
    light on the techniques employed by ritual abuse perpetrators and
    provides important insight into how problems frequently seen in
    multiple personality patients with recalled ritual abuse
    histories might more successfully be approached.

    Programming

    Therapists working with victims of ritual abuse often discover
    (or encounter compelling evidence) that their patients have been
    subjected to sophisticated mind control techniques, often called
    "programming," designed to compel them to do various things,
    including engaging in self-destructive behaviors such as suicide
    or self-mutilation; allowing access to perpetrators so that abuse
    may continue; responding to various cues, such as sounds, hand
    signals, lights, names or numbers, etc., by carrying out specific
    behaviors or behavior chains; disrupting psychotherapy in a
    number of ways, including thought-stealing or scrambling,
    outbursts of various emotions (anger, depression, terror,
    jealousy, apathy, etc.) and distancing from the therapist (by
    fearing the therapist, attempting to protect the therapist from
    harm by others or by the patient herself or himself, etc.).
    Neswald, Gould, and Graham-Costain (1991) provide a listing and
    descriptions of a number of typical ritual abuse programs.

    Patients with histories of ritual abuse often reveal that
    programming techniques have been applied to them for at least two
    distinct purposes: (a) current or recent programming designed to
    harass or disrupt psychotherapy, and (b) programming begun early
    in life (often at birth), as the means by which programmers
    designed and built their victims' entire personality systems in
    order to achieve and maintain control over them. One technique
    has recently come to light that appears to have had utility both
    for harassment/disruption and for system-building. The technique
    is based on spinning.

    Sources of Information for This Paper

    This paper is based on information that came to light during
    psychotherapy sessions in which the author was the therapist or,
    in some cases, co-therapist. The patients, of whom there were
    seven, all carried diagnoses of complex multiple personality
    disorder and had clearly defined and consistently expressed
    histories of ritual abuse by satanic or similar cults. They had
    been in therapy intensively for at least a year before disclosing
    any information about spin programming. They were all female and
    ranged in age from their mid-twenties to their mid-forties. Their
    education levels ranged from two years of college to masters
    degrees. They were all white, the majority were married, and just
    over half were employed full-time. They disclosed some of the
    information about spin programming during conversations in which
    they and therapist were "brainstorming" about their programming
    histories, and they revealed the rest either spontaneously
    (generally making their discoveries between sessions) or in
    response to direct questioning carried out with due regard to the
    dangers of leading them by directly or indirectly suggesting
    desired responses. Before an item of information about spin
    programming and related phenomena could appear in this paper, it
    had to be verified by comparable experiences and reports from at
    least two patients. In most cases, information was verified by
    all patients, with only minor variations. Informal conversations
    with other therapists about their experiences with similar
    patients have consistently verified the information presented
    here.

    Description of Spin Programming

    SPECIFIC VERSUS GLOBAL TARGETING OF PROGRAMS

    Programmers appear to rely on certain criteria in deciding which
    mind control strategies they will select. One meaningful
    criterion is specific versus global, that is, whether they intend
    to target a single alter (or a small, defined group of alters) in
    a specific way, or the entire system (or a large portion of it)
    in a global way. Spin-based programming is a globally targeted
    programming technique. Programmers apparently use it when they
    intend to disseminate an effect throughout either a large portion
    of a victim's personality system, or the entire system.

    Examples of the types of effects that may be spread in this way
    are physical pain, confusion, depression, self-destructive or
    suicidal urges, alienation, apathy, hopelessness, fear of
    abandonment or rejection, panic, terror, urges to run away,
    jealousy, doubt, suspicion, rage, violent urges, sexual arousal
    or urges, lethargy, immobility, sleepiness, sleeplessness,
    hunger, loss of appetite, and urges to use drugs or alcohol.
    Programmers may spread these effects throughout a personality
    system as a method of disrupting the total functioning of the
    person, or they may use the possibility of spreading them as a
    threat to enforce compliance with directives or prohibitions they
    have issued.

    Spin programs are also useful in system-building, both because of
    their ability to quickly transmit information within or
    throughout a personality system, and because of their ability to
    establish power relationships between alters and groups of
    alters. How these links and power relationships are established
    will be explained in the section on training methods.

    SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF SPIN PROGRAMS

    Patients who are suffering the immediate effects of a currently
    activated spin program tend to present with a number of typical
    features. These features include: global effects, symptoms
    occurring like a "storm," pressure, dizziness, a sense of
    spinning inside, physical movements related to the internal
    experience of spinning, and spinning-related imagery and
    vocabulary.

    Global Effects. When a patient is affected by a specifically
    targeted program, she or he typically experiences one or a small
    number of alters having emotions or urges or manifesting
    behaviors, while most or all other alters remain unaffected. The
    patient might say, for example, "Somebody inside wants to cut,"
    or "Joey is feeling suicidal." When a spin-based program is
    active, every alter with whom the therapist talks is likely to be
    suffering from the same or similar symptoms. At such times, the-
    patient might say, "Everybody in the system is depressed;~ "None
    of us has any hope or any energy or any interest in anything;" or
    "We are all terrified that you are going to abandon us.

    Stormlike Symptoms. The experience of dealing with a
    spin-programmed patient is, for patient and therapist alike,
    somewhat like riding out a storm. The flurries of pain, affect,
    or impulse tend to grow in intensity, build to a crescendo,
    maintain that peak for a time, and then gradually diminish before
    finally subsiding. Nearly every alter in the system is lashed by
    the "wind and rain" of the storm, often without understanding why
    these effect are occurring, and doing their best to minimize
    damages until the storm passes.

    Pressure. As will be seen in a subsequent section, spin training
    relies in part on conditioning the patient to connect, through
    cognition and imagery, the experience of spinning with internal
    buildups of centrifugal force. When spin programs are active, the
    affected alters subjectively experience high levels of force or
    pressure, as if they were sitting at the outside edge of a
    rapidly rotating disc. They feel overwhelmed by this pressure,
    finding it impossible to resist, and they often complain of
    symptoms that would be caused by mounting internal pressure, such
    as headaches that feel like they are going to cause the head to
    explode from the inside, disruption of speech, vision problems,
    and similar phenomena.

    Dizziness. As the internal spinning associated with spin
    programming increases in speed and force, patients frequently
    complain of dizziness. At these times, they may be literally
    feeling the sensations caused by the original spinning, because
    they are experiencing a planned (i.e., produced by intervention
    of the abusers) revivification or flashback of that event.

    Sense of Spinning Internally. Along with the dizziness, patients
    experiencing active spin programs often notice a sense of
    spinning internally, or comment that "everything seems to be
    spinning." If they do not mention this feeling spontaneously,
    they will often admit it when questioned, for example, by
    answering in the affirmative when asked, "Do you feel as if
    someone inside is spinning a mile a minute?"

    Physical Movements. When the internal spinning is at its most
    intense, patients often move in ways that a person might move
    while being physically spun. These movements tend to be rhythmic
    and repetitive, they may involve any part of the body, and they
    are subtle and may escape the therapist's attention unless the
    therapist is looking for them. For example, a patient may stare
    blankly or appear to be wincing from pain or closing her eyes
    tightly, then move her head or upper body very slightly and
    rhythmically from side to side, forward and back, or in a
    circular motion. Feet or hands and arms are also often involved
    in these movement. The movements tend to be slower, smoother,
    more fluid, more subtle, and more regular and rhythmic than
    typical "nervous" movements.

    Spinning-Related Imagery and Vocabulary. When describing their
    subjective sensations during an active spin program, patients
    often utilize imagery or words that are related to the experience
    of spinning, possibly because these images and words are literal
    descriptions of their experiences, and possibly because they were
    taught these images during the original spin training. Patients
    may use this kind of imagery spontaneously during sessions or in
    writings or drawings produced outside of sessions, or they may
    only describe them in response to questioning. Typical words used
    include: vortex, whirlpool, whirlwind, tornado, cyclone, abyss,
    falling, drowning, sinking, being pulled or sucked down, being
    blown or shot or exploded out, tumbling, hurling, whirling,
    swirling, and twirling. Typical visual images include drawings
    depicting the ideas listed above and various doodles that will be
    described later in the section on training. Some alters have
    programmer-assigned names related to spinning (e.g., Spinner,)
    which is a name that was independently assigned to alters in the
    personality systems of several different patients).

    Training Methods

    Pain Contests. Pain as Power. and Multiples within Multiples. A
    patient disclosed during a psychotherapy session some time ago
    that the most powerful alters in her system were those who had
    endured the most pain. Subsequent exploration of this notion,
    combined with abreactions of memories of "pain contests"
    eventually led to the discovery of spin programming.

    Many patients with cult abuse histories have had to endure
    contests  in which they and another person received steadily
    mounting pain until one of them (the loser) could not stand it
    anymore. Generally,only one alter was allowed to remain out
    during the contest, or else worse abuse would follow. The
    requirement that only one alter remain out had some profound
    ramifications, leading to the conjecture that this condition
    (only one alter staying out), not the outcome of the contest, was
    the primary purpose of the competitions.

    In order to stay out continuously instead of leaving the body to
    a rapidly switching succession of alters (the more typical
    pattern of dissociation during trauma), the single alter had to
    create a group of internal alters to whom she or he could send
    the pain. The typical result of this type of experience appears
    to be the creation of an internal analogue of multiple
    personality disorder, or a "multiple within a multiple."

    In other words, just as traumatic experiences in general can lead
    to the creation of a number of alters in one "outside" body to
    produce multiple personality disorder, this specific type of
    experience can create a similar phenomenon one level in,
    consisting of a number of alters "within" the alter undergoing
    the contest. However, since the alter has no physical body, the
    newly created alters do not necessarily exist "inside" that
    alter, but more likely coexist with or near the original alter in
    internal space--the "inside world").

    One source of internal power arising from this arrangement stems
    from the ability of the original alter to send pain to her or his
    next level of alters inside the multiple within a multiple
    subsystem, allowing her or him to intimidate them by threatening
    to activate a flashback of the original training, thus forcing
    them to re-experience the pain. The multiple within a multiple
    subsystem taken as a unit is more powerful than other, simple
    alters, because, as a system, it possesses or is capable of
    possessing greater and more varied capabilities than a lone alter
    might be able to produce.

    Graphic Depiction. Another patient, after looking at a drawing of
    a tree structure that was my rough attempt to depict the
    connection between pain transmission and power (Figure la),
    suggested that the drawing ought to be circular instead of tree
    shaped (Figure lb). The original alter, according to this new
    view, was located at the center of a circle of alters, and the
    ring or rings) of alters surrounding this alter comprised the
    multiple within a multiple" system. Secondary alters could
    dissociate further by creating alters of their own, resulting in
    branches of tertiary and beyond) alters. She indicated further
    that her entire personality system, not just individual multiple
    within multiple systems, was arranged in this kind of circular
    array consisting of concentric rings, with the most powerful
    alters located at the center.

    Tree and Circular Diagrams Depicting Pain Distribution Among
    Alters During Pain Contests

    This patient then became visibly frightened, stating that some
    internal alters felt that I may not be a safe person because I
    knew too much. Subsequent discussions with other patients about
    this topic and other topics related to spin programming have
    elicited similar reactions from them; it appears that information
    about spin programming is highly secret and not for "outsiders"
    to know.

    However, in spite of her fears, this patient disclosed more
    information at the next session, revealing that her system
    contained a number of alters who have been trained to create
    internal multiple personality systems, and that alters of these
    systems often received additional training that made them into a
    coordinated, self-monitoring and self-correcting mechanism
    designed to employ internal spinning to send pain (and other
    experiences) to large groups of alters outside their system.
    Discussions with all of the patients (the two mentioned above,
    plus the five others) provided the rest of the details comprising
    this paper.

    Overall Training Strategy. According to patients' disclosures,
    spin training begins at an early age, perhaps age three or four,
    or even younger. Training appears to utilize a combination of
    three basic elements: (a) the creation of internal multiple
    personality systems (by pain contests and similar experiences)
    whose alters are separated and given specialized training to make
    the internal systems into self-regulating mechanisms; (b) actual
    spinning both to teach senders the sensations of spinning so that
    they can re-create it internally and to force them to spin
    internally in order to avoid the extremely painful sensations of
    "real" external spinning; and (c) cognitive and imagery training
    to build and reinforce connections between internal re-creations
    of the experience of spinning and the sending out of pain as a
    means of escaping it. Along with this, connections are also
    established and reinforced between velocity, centrifugal force,
    and the intensity of the pain and other feelings that are spun.
    In addition, some programming is necessary to convince the
    spinning alters that they are not connected to the other alters
    in the system, so that they do not feel guilty about hurting
    someone about whom they care Material must be available to "feed"
    into the spin mechanism, and this material consists of large
    numbers of dissociated memories that contain pain and other
    feelings capable of acting as punishments or sources of
    disruption. Finally, there may be additional programming to
    create controls over such things as which material is to be spun,
    when or under what conditions it is to be spun, to which alters
    or groups it is to be targeted, which groups of alters will be
    exempt from the spin, etc.

    Actual Spinning. All patients reported having had many
    experiences  of being physically spun by ritual abusers
    throughout their lives. While being spun, they were invariably
    drugged, usually with sedative or hypnotic drugs as well as
    anti-nausea agents, often shown or forced to look at white or
    colored lights or to listen to music or rhythms, often given
    verbal instructions, and sometimes given other kinds of pain (in
    addition to the extreme pain of spinning). The spinning was of
    various types, including horizontal spinning on a table, similar
    to a record player; horizontal spinning about an axis, similar to
    being turned on a spit; vertical, "wheel-of-fortune" type
    spinning; and vertical spinning about an axis, on a pole, hanging
    upside down by the feet, or inside of a cylinder.

    Patients who have experienced a great deal of spinning have a
    number of sensitivities that they usually do not understand until
    they are consciously aware of having been spun. For example, many
    patients become very disturbed by flashing lights, because they
    are similar to the lights they had to watch while belong spun.
    For similar reasons, they are also often disturbed by watching
    rapidly changing colors or circular, swirling motions of any
    kind, as well as by certain types of music.

    Programmers apparently take advantage of these sensitivities by
    simulating spinning when it would be impractical (due to
    unavailability of equipment, etc.) to actually spin a victim, or
    when they want to intimidate a reluctant alter by threatening her
    or him with spinning as a punishment. Rapidly changing lights
    moving across the victim's visual field, for example, can very
    effectively bring back the full experience of a past actual spin.
    Exposure to other stimuli that accompanied spinning, such as
    spoken words or music, can also trigger experiences of spinning.

    Abusers trigger the re-experiencing of traumatic events by taking
    advantage of their victims' means of coping with trauma. When a
    victim experiences a painfully traumatic or terrifying event,
    including administration of drugs to enhance state-dependent
    learning, the victim dissociates the experience, breaking it into
    component parts (as in the BASK Model: Braun, 1988a, 1988b).
    Abusers apparently record the contents of these dissociated
    experiences and know which aspects of them to remind victims of
    in order to bring about a vivid replay of a component or portion
    of them. By simply introducing such a cue to the victim, the
    abusers can initiate the experience of spinning.

    Dissociated components of any traumatic memory appear capable of
    being moved from one alter to another, making it possible to
    "collect"  the pain or affective component of dozens of
    experiences that contain similar elements (e.g., physical pain,
    terror, abandonment, grief, etc.), feed these into the spinner,
    and thereby spread massive amounts of these feelings throughout
    the personality system or to targeted groups of alters.

    Visual Aids, Demonstrations, and Practice. All patients reported
    having observed as children (or when spin training was done, if
    later than childhood) a wide range of demonstrations apparently
    intended to teach them to think about and perform spinning in
    ways that are advantageous to the programmers. For example,
    several patients report having watched mechanical devices, such
    as centrifuges or devices similar to those sometimes seen at
    fairs that make pictures by spreading paint with centrifugal
    force; people, such as "whirling dervish" dancers who are made
    (presumably by drugs and special effects) to seem as if they are
    able to spin so fast that they become a blur; and object lessons,
    such as people who are tortured or killed for failing to spin
    properly.

    Patients also report having spent a great deal of time as
    children (again, only those programmed as children) practicing
    spinning at a conscious level. For example, they may have spun
    around furiously at play time, but the spinning was done in grim
    earnestness, not for fun. They may also have been involved in
    organized activities that involved spinning, such as ballet or
    figure skating lessons.

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