Investigative journalist Walter Bowart exposed government experiments on the effects of LSD, gas mask testing, and mind control testimony, leaving students in awe and amazement during a lecture Monday night.

Bowart, author of Operation Mind Control and self-proclaimed expert on mind control, is a recognized authority on the nation’s secret development of psychological warfare technologies.

About 60 students attended the lecture in the Student Center Ballrooms C and D. The Student Programming Council and the Southern Illinois Peace Coalition sponsored Bowart’s talk.

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During a break from the three-hour speech, Bowart showed films that showed 15 survivors of government experiments discussing their experiences and excerpts of testimony from two mind control survivors.

Bowart said the government used mind control tactics to coerce people into performing these experiments.

Many people believed in the government, he said. If you would die for your beliefs don’t I’ll use those beliefs to control you and manipulate you.

Bowart gave words of advice to audience members after the lecture on a key to mind control.

You need to find out what people want or need and they will give you anything.

As a display of some experimental acts against animals, Bowart showed graphic examples of a cat on LSD chasing various mice. The government used those tests to learn about the effects of LSD, he said. Bowart also showed clips of military members on LSD that were supposed to be at attention but were unable to because of the drug.

Bowart also showed clips of people testing gas masks that eventually failed.

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Greg Miller, a junior in History from Decatur, attended the lecture and said he was surprised at the subject of the lecture.

I was really amazed by the knowledge [Bowart] had, Miller said. Some of the things that he talked about seemed like it would be top-secret information.

It showed me things that most people don’t even know about.

Derrick Braun, a junior in marketing from Johnsburg, hosted the event on behalf of SPC-TV News and Views. He said he was not completely pleased with student turnout.

I thought there could’ve been a little bit more people, he said. Because of budget concerns, we didn’t advertise as much as we wanted to.

Braun also said the lecture could have been more thorough.

All of the students seemed interested in the topic, Braun said. The lecturer could have brought everyone on a common ground.

The message would have been better understood.

Bowart has had a history of activism on the mind control issue.

In 1994, he established a Arizona-based non-profit organization called the Freedom of Thought Foundation.

As a leading investigator into the revelations of the 1977 Senate hearings on the CIA’s Program of Research In Behavioral Modification, Bowart’s subsequent bombshell best-seller Operation Mind Control (1978) was published in five languages.

Now updated, expanded to more than 700 pages and available as a limited researcher’s edition, it includes nearly two more decades of allegations of government high jinx.

Last year, Bowart was featured in an HBO special about the filmmaking of the recent hit movie Conspiracy Theory, a story about a wacky hypno-programmed Manchurian candidate played by Mel Gibson.

Miller said he thought issues like mind control on behalf of the government would not be discussed on a public platform.

I’m surprised there aren’t more [government] people trying to prevent him from showing these clips to us, he said.