An Outlandish Journey

It's my personal journey. It is not "journalism".

Four years ago I was working as a caregiver to the elderly, for a private Montreal company that catered to well-off clients, including two senators, the wife of the man who designed the Montreal metro, the mother of a McGill psychiatrist specializing in adolescent schizophrenia, and other fascinating people. One of my last clients was a beautiful, elegant 70-year-old woman whose husband had recently passed away. She now lived alone in their two storey duplex in a middle class neighborhood. Her client description was nothing special ("Highly intelligent. Likes to talk. Can be repetitive.") but didn't prepare me for being a live-in companion to a woman who I began to realize had been MKed while growing up in a remote northern village, and had likely killed people -- at least that would be my guess judging from her scattered references to violent events in her past. The more she talked about her life (in long staccato monologues delivered across her tiny table in a crampe...

(2023) Yes the Ellen Atkin story needs to be told. I'll have a go. It begins in Quebec where she was born in April 1962 - to parents who were both patients of Dr Ewen Cameron who abandoned his practice in 1963 when he submitted his resignation and eventually left McGill under a cloud of disgrace. Many lives hung in the balance and many of his victims never recovered. Six months later John F. Kennedy was shot, the CIA shut down Cameron's lab and Cameron moved back to Albany where he died while mountain climbing. It was a turning point for many of his victims. The Atkins moved back to southwestern Ontario, which became Canada's new MKULTRA hub. While Ruth was a late Boomer, Ellen and her brother were neglected, abused, Generation X kids -- all three going in and out of social services and institutions while their mother lay in bed and their father hobnobbed with the likes of Marshall McLuhan. Chosen at age 10 to be a page in the Ontario legislature, at 15 Ellen ran a...

MGM released "High Society" on July 17, 1956 https://share.google/sBiRNtaqXW1puLTiN Three weeks later, on August 4, my twin brother and I attended a party at Ravenscrag mansion on Mount Royal. It was for children only, plus the scientists. A few children died that sweltering afternoon playing games like "Jack in the Box". After the fun and refreshments -- LSD-spiked punch served in plastic cups -- they put on a record. Boys and girls paired up ballroom-style and danced to "True Love" sung by Grace Kelley and Bing Crosby. I danced with the boy from England.

Camille doesn't realize how much she's helping me write about a dark period I have deep reservations about delving into. Some people like to label everything in black and white. "Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones are Satanic" -- is a cliché we're all very familiar with. I prefer "Luciferian". The British Invasion was cooked up in London and served to America in 1964. Before the Beatles there was plenty of great music on American AM stations - I grew up listening to it and still know most of it by heart. But then came the Beatles -- exotic, cute and clever, promoted to the hilt so even though my pubescent friends and I were underwhelmed by their first appearance on Ed Sullivan, the hype primed us for things to come, i.e. the bad boys who really rocked, who really ripped this joint. The Rolling Stones we'd been waiting for, who came from Hell. My version of this often-told tale begins when I'm 5 and placed in an experiment at McGill Universi...

stalk2 /stôk/ verb gerund or present participle: stalking 1. pursue or approach stealthily. "a cat stalking a bird" Similar: creep up on trail follow shadow track down go after be after dog hound course hunt pursue chase give chase to run after tail literary move silently or threateningly through (a place). "the tiger stalks the jungle" 2. harass or persecute (someone) with unwanted and obsessive attention. "for five years she was stalked by a man who would taunt and threaten her" 3. stride somewhere in a proud, stiff, or angry manner. "without another word she turned and stalked out"