In the first half, author, artist, and director Paul Davids shared the insider story of how innocent Princeton students (specifically, he and co-author John Selby) got caught up in and nearly done in by the CIA's late-sixties LSD-laced hypnotic research. As a volunteer subject at the New Jersey Neuro-Psychiatric Institute in 1967, he had no idea that the study was secretly being funded by the CIA and their MK-ULTRA mind control program. One of the experimenters was the psychiatrist Humphry Osmond, who coined the term 'psychedelic,' and whom Davids greatly respected. Selby started experiencing a mental breakdown as a result of the experiments and fled Princeton, while Davids stayed in the program some months longer. MK-ULTRA, he noted, was a particularly insidious program, as in many cases Americans had no idea they were being given drugs like LSD, in order to see how it would effect and sometimes break down their personality.
Davids also shared updates and reminiscences of his film and art career. He recalled the development of his Roswell film made for Showtime in 1994, and how he was inspired by his own UFO sighting. His controversial movie "Jesus in India" was recently screened at a special showing in Italy, his documentary "The Sci-Fi Boys" is being presented at the Pasadena Art Museum as part of an exhibit, and his "Life After Death Project" was featured at a Fortean conference in Baltimore. Further, a solo exhibit of Paul's paintings opens at Houshang's gallery in Santa Fe on August 17th.
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Retired arson investigator Jim Barfield turned his attention for detail of sifting through rubble to the study of biblical antiquities. In the latter half, he discussed his friendship with the late archaeologist Vendyl Jones and their focus on the Copper Scroll, one of the most mysterious documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It contains descriptions of gold, silver, gems and temple artifacts, which upon discovery may signal the coming of end times, Barfield contends. The Copper Scroll, discovered in 1952 near Qumran, differs from the other Dead Sea scrolls in that it's engraved on a sheet of copper rather than parchment.
As of yet, no archaeologists have been able to decipher exactly where the treasures referred to on the Copper Scroll are buried, though Barfield suggests that the gold alone could be worth more than $1 billion. Of more interest to him, are the possible artifacts and relics which he believes will contain "biblical knowledge that is going to affect every single one of us." There are some 57 sites referred to in the Scroll where the treasures may be found, he said, and he's lent his expertise to map studies and traveled to Israel in an effort to locate them. Further details here.
News segment guests: Jerome Corsi, Mike Bara