CIA’s Project Artichoke File Reveals Hypnosis Training Video Leak
The CIA’s newly released (2025) Project Artichoke file reveals a hypnosis training video, exposing hidden methods and psychological control techniques. How far they can go will shock you.
In a world where truth often hides in footnotes and blacked-out pages, the CIA has once again peeled back the curtain—just a little.
A recently declassified document from the agency’s Project Artichoke archives reveals something chilling:
a reference to a “training video” on hypnosis.
Yes, hypnosis.
Not the stage-show kind with swinging pocket watches, but something far darker, potentially used in covert operations and psychological manipulation.
So, what exactly is Project Artichoke, and why should you care about a file released decades after it was stamped "Top Secret"?
Because it proves that even the wildest conspiracy theories sometimes have a paper trail.
This isn't just some dusty file tucked away in an archive; it’s a glimpse into the murky underworld of CIA mind games, where intelligence agencies experiment with the human psyche in ways few dared to imagine.
This “training video” on hypnosis was designated for an advanced group of operatives simply known as “Unit B’s”.
Get Ready.
“‘Unit B’s’ functions are varied, but among are the study of advanced interrogation methods and research involving the control of the words, thoughts, and activities of individuals either willing or not.”
— From the Project Artichoke File
The Origins of Project Artichoke
When and Why It Started
To understand the hypnosis training video unearthed from the CIA’s Project Artichoke files, we first need to rewind to the early 1950s. The world was locked in a tense Cold War, and intelligence agencies were desperate for an edge. T
he CIA, freshly formed and already suspicious of Soviet brainwashing efforts, launched Project Artichoke in 1951 under the Office of Scientific Intelligence.
The project asked a question that sounds like it came from a dystopian novel: Can we control a person’s mind?
And they weren’t just wondering.
They were experimenting—with drugs, hypnosis, psychological torture, isolation, and more. The idea was to create a reliable method for extracting information, planting ideas, or even turning someone into a “Manchurian Candidate”–style operative.
The project didn’t shy away from human testing either.
Some of the test subjects weren’t even aware they were part of an experiment.
Relationship to MK-Ultra
Project Artichoke is often overshadowed by its more infamous successor, MK-Ultra, but it was actually one of the early blueprints for what would become the CIA’s most notorious mind control program.
Artichoke walked so MK-Ultra could run.
Where Artichoke focused heavily on hypnosis and forced drug use (especially with substances like sodium pentothal, LSD, and mescaline), MK-Ultra expanded these efforts on a larger, more disturbing scale. However, many of the same goals overlapped: memory erasure, thought implantation, and manipulation of human behavior at will.
This isn’t science fiction. This was funded, coordinated, and carried out by the U.S. government.
Uncovering the Hypnosis Training Video
Summary of the Newly Released File
The document in question, recently made public via the CIA Reading Room, is brief but packed with implication. Labeled under Project Artichoke, the memo refers to a hypnosis “training film” designed to instruct CIA personnel in behavioral control techniques using hypnosis.
The file references an internal meeting in which the film is discussed as part of an "experimental approach" to interrogation and agent training. Although the actual footage hasn’t been released—yet—the language in the memo is blunt, clinical, and unsettling.
The file confirms that hypnosis was not a fringe interest but an operational tool, tested with seriousness and intention. It mentions experimental footage used to demonstrate suggestibility, memory manipulation, and even post-hypnotic commands.
The Curious Mentions: Mindszenty and Vogeler
The CIA’s newly released document makes a cryptic but revealing statement:
“The film does not propose to answer the imponderables arising from the cases of Cardinal Mindszenty, Robert Vogeler, or others, but it will show some of the unusual aspects of hypnosis…”
That line is a quiet thunderclap. It doesn’t accuse. It doesn’t confirm. But it strongly implies that hypnosis—or something like it—may have played a role in these infamous Cold War cases. Let’s unpack that.
Cardinal József Mindszenty: The Puppet on Trial
Cardinal Mindszenty was Hungary’s top Catholic figure, a fierce anti-Communist, and a symbol of moral defiance.
That made him a problem.
In 1948, the newly Communist regime arrested him on charges of treason and conspiracy. A year later, the world watched in horror as he confessed in a show trial that stank of coercion.
Even before he was arrested (but knew it was coming), he wrote a note to the effect that “any confession I might make will be the result of duress.”
And yet, a full confession. With no qualms.
While nothing was proven, his eerie behavior (now supported by this document) planted the seed of suspicion: Could a man like that be reprogrammed?
Robert Vogeler: The American Confessor
Robert Vogeler was a U.S. businessman working in Hungary for ITT when he was arrested in 1949. Like Mindszenty, he too gave a public confession to espionage—one that seemed suspiciously scripted.
After his release and return to the U.S., Vogeler wrote a memoir, I Was Stalin’s Prisoner, in which he described sleep deprivation, isolation, and psychological pressure.
But this document suggests that deeper methods were used—hypnosis, suggestion, or drugs.
What if hostile regimes were already using hypnosis as a weapon?
That fear fueled Project Artichoke’s darker questions: If they can do it, why can’t we?
And can we do it better?
KEY INSIGHTS OF THE VIDEO
Though we don’t have the video itself, the document implies it was used as evidence of hypnosis’s effectiveness in altering behavior—a visual proof-of-concept that could be used to train CIA operatives in the technique.
The CIA training video primarily centers around a fictional character named “Mary Jones”.
In it, they discuss what they refer to as the “slow induction method.”
This hypnosis technique involves guiding a subject gradually into a hypnotic state through calm, repetitive verbal cues and sustained relaxation over an extended period. Unlike rapid induction methods—which rely on sudden stimuli, surprise, or shock to overwhelm the conscious mind—slow induction is subtle, patient, and designed to build deep trust between the subject and the hypnotist. It’s often used to achieve a more profound trance state, making the subject more responsive to suggestion without resistance or awareness.
Here’s the chilling part. While “Mary Jones” is likely an actress in this film, real life subjects are used to demonstrate the effectivieness of hypnosis.
“The following scenes will be shown to demonstrate what activities an individual is physically capable of performing while under hypnosis. These scenes should be designed to show that a person while fully in a trance state, can appear to completely “normal” and white activities because of this “normal” appearance would deceive even the most astute observer.”
—Excerpt from Artichoke Document
In then documents some wild scenarios with the subject under hypnosis control:
Placing an incendiary bomb in a desk
Robbing a drunk person who is in a stupor
Placing “knockout drops” in a person’s drink, adding that it might be a “roofie” (Mickey Finn, it calls it) or a lethal dose of some poison.
But the last demonstration scene is the most instance and has been echoed in MKULTRA documents.
YES. The non-actor in this scene would shoot a blank at another individual, with the cold addition that a live round could have been used and they would have been none the wiser.
Here are some other wild scenes, but I encourage you to read the full document yourself:
1. The Theft Scene: Amnesia in Action
The film opens with a woman, Mary Jones, walking casually down a corridor. She passes two coworkers and exchanges friendly greetings. Nothing unusual—until she enters an office, closes the door behind her, and walks calmly to a safe. She unlocks it, removes a portfolio marked “TOP SECRET,” and discreetly places a document from it into her handbag. Then she returns the empty folder, locks the safe, and leaves the office through a rear exit. Waiting outside is a car and a driver. Without a word, she hands him the stolen file. The car drives away. Mary? She just strolls off.
The kicker? The next day, Mary has no memory of what she did. Zero. As if someone else had taken over her body for the night.
2. The Backstory: Groomed and Programmed
Later in the film, we’re given a glimpse into how Mary Jones was turned into an unwitting agent. It begins innocently: she meets a man at a cocktail party. He’s charming, attentive—clearly interested. Over time, they go on a few dates. But on one of these dates, the tone shifts. He drugs her drink (likely a sedative) and waits until she’s asleep before beginning the slow induction hypnosis process.
He implants suggestions while she’s unconscious and continues conditioning her in future meetings. There’s no physical violence. No overt threats. Just a methodical erosion of her will, bit by bit, masked as romance.
3. Post-Hypnotic Suggestion: The Real Weapon
The narration pauses to explain the real star of the show: post-hypnotic suggestion. Described in the film as “the most important of all hypnotic phenomena,” this is the ability to embed a command deep within a subject’s subconscious during hypnosis—set to trigger later, when the person is fully awake.
Think Inception, but without the spinning top. The subject can be made to act on the implanted command hours, days, even weeks later, without any memory of the hypnosis. The suggestion could be triggered by a word, sound, or event.
And here's the chilling part: the only way to undo the command is through forced compliance or re-hypnosis. In other words, unless someone knows what to look for—and how to break it—the subject has no clue they’re under someone else's control.
4. Triggered by a Phone Call
In a later scene, Mary is back at work. She’s bright, smiling, utterly normal. Everything about her screams ordinary.
Then the phone rings.
She picks it up. The caller uses a pre-arranged signal, and instantly, without showing any external change, Mary slips into a deep hypnotic trance. To everyone else, she appears entirely awake—still working, still alert. But internally, she's operating under a hidden command.
She walks to the same safe, retrieves the same top-secret portfolio, and repeats the theft just as before. But she won’t remember it. Not unless someone tells her—or triggers the command again.
Each of these scenes illustrates how hypnosis wasn’t being treated by the CIA as a sideshow curiosity. This was strategic. Deliberate. Operational. The training film was evidence of a blueprint—a chilling look at how far the agency was willing to go in their pursuit of behavioral control.
Declassified, But Far from Fiction
The release of this Project Artichoke file is more than just another Cold War curiosity—it’s a smoking-gun moment that cuts through decades of speculation. Alongside the scattered remnants of MK-Ultra, Operation Bluebird, and countless other classified projects (many of which were deliberately destroyed or still unreleased), this document makes one thing clear:
Hypnosis is real.
Not as a parlor trick. Not as swinging watches and “you’re getting very sleepy.” But as a tool for behavioral control, memory manipulation, and even covert programming—studied, refined, and operationalized by the world’s most powerful intelligence agency.
And yet, despite this, public perception of hypnosis remains locked in cartoonish misunderstanding. Why?
Because Hollywood trained us to think it’s fake.
Over the last 50 years, films and TV shows have drip-fed us fantastical versions of hypnotic control: dramatic, exaggerated, and wrapped in fiction. But fiction, like hypnosis, doesn’t need to tell you it’s real to influence you. It just needs repetition and a touch of suggestion
Take The Manchurian Candidate (1962, remade in 2004)—a film explicitly about post-hypnotic assassination programming. Audiences walked away thinking, "Great story. But that could never happen."
Then there’s Jason Bourne, who has no memory of his past life as a trained killer—a narrative echo of CIA fears made real.
Even shows like The Americans, Homeland, and The Blacklist have woven these threads into entertainment, further dulling our response.
And in that dulling, something else happens:
We accept the impossible as implausible. We mistake documented evidence for dystopian fiction. We’re programmed—ironically—to ignore the programming.
It’s a clever inversion. Through suggestion, we’ve been taught to believe that hypnotic suggestion doesn’t work. That’s not just irony. That’s strategy.
So when a declassified document like this surfaces, confirming that the CIA made training films to condition people, plant commands, and erase memory—what do most people do?
They shrug.
Because they’ve seen it in a movie.
The Project Artichoke hypnosis training video is just one sliver of a massive, often-invisible machine. And while it may not be as flashy as sci-fi thrillers or mind-control blockbusters, it’s far more disturbing because it’s real. This document—and others like it—challenge our assumptions about agency, autonomy, and what’s possible when science is weaponized in the shadows.
It proves that behind the myths and pop culture distractions, there were real experiments with real consequences. It proves that hypnosis, in the hands of the powerful, was not about healing or stage tricks—it was about control.
And maybe it still is.
FAQs
1. What was the goal of Project Artichoke?
Project Artichoke aimed to explore methods of mind control, especially through hypnosis, drugs, and psychological conditioning, for use in interrogation and covert operations.
2. Is hypnosis really effective for behavior control?
Yes, under certain conditions. The CIA’s own documents confirm the use of post-hypnotic suggestion to influence actions, memory, and even moral decision-making.
3. Was the hypnosis training film ever released to the public?
No, only a document referring to it has been declassified. The actual footage remains unreleased or possibly destroyed.
4. What other programs were related to Project Artichoke?
Project Artichoke was a predecessor to MK-Ultra, Operation Bluebird, and MK-Search, all of which explored similar themes of psychological manipulation and control.
5. Can hypnosis still be used in modern intelligence or military applications?
It’s unclear, but likely that such methods are still explored in some form. The techniques have evolved, and likely remain classified or buried in redacted files.