This is a very good book, and ought to be an instant classic of its genre. As a victim sounding the alarm about ongoing attacks against him, Matthew Pauly doesn't really need to be a good writer, but he is. His stories are so gripping and urgent it can be easy to overlook the clarity and concision that keep everything moving along so smoothly. On top of getting his story out, Matthew has succeeded in the difficult task of describing both the crude effectiveness and the vulnerabilities of dissoci

This is a very good book, and ought to be an instant classic of its genre. As a victim sounding the alarm about ongoing attacks against him, Matthew Pauly doesn't really need to be a good writer, but he is. His stories are so gripping and urgent it can be easy to overlook the clarity and concision that keep everything moving along so smoothly. On top of getting his story out, Matthew has succeeded in the difficult task of describing both the crude effectiveness and the vulnerabilities of dissociative mind control -- the struggle to resist hypnosis and amnesia under the influence of drugs and torture -- as well as the legal and political frameworks which allow these sorts of abuses to go unchecked. And he has succeeded in telling an amazing story of human endurance and transformation; he grows so much throughout the book that by the end he deserves not just an armistice agreement or cessation of hostilities, but some kind of diploma in Resistology or Countersurveillance! He has fashioned an incredibly suspenseful cliffhanger... one that casts an ominous shadow over the strange local headlines since the book was released.



The writing is direct and simply effective. He doesn't over-explain his motivations, and excuses for questionable decisions are frank and to the point. He doesn't over-describe his pain or fear or rage, and doesn't demonize his antagonists despite their heinous treatment of him. Their behaviour and the tradition of covert research they draw on is not ascribed to a fanciful evil or bottomless conspiracy; he presents only the context that the story demands, and draws connections to high-profile events only when clearly justified. (For example, not only does the Parliament Hill shooting fit the profile generally, but the shooter's permanently half-closed eyes are a specific symptom of scopolamine intoxication) None of Matthew Pauly's tormentors are cartoonish; on the contrary, they are human, all-too-human... in a couple of cases, even admirably so. The scene where one of the Canadian accomplices seems to attempt to make amends in a cryptic confrontation is a triumph of mixed feelings, and a testament to Matthew's generous spirit: a more bitter writer might only have perceived further intimidation, let alone been grateful for the gesture. Even the primary villain is allowed to appear, by the end, as a fellow victim and, if not a sympathetic figure, then at least a tragic one.



What is possibly the most frightening/chilling theme of this book is the extent to which these state actors seem to believe that what they are doing is not merely justified somehow, but downright LEGAL! It is a strikingly different picture from the conventional idea of covert agents as possessing some kind of blanket legal immunity, achieving their ends in total disregard for proper means. These operatives take care to fabricate a flimsy yet passable excuse to interrogate Matthew in the first place. They refuse to proceed until extracting a sham appearance of consent from him. They admonish each other to stop short of certain types of excessive assault, lest they commit a chargeable offence [!]. Everything else they're doing is clearly an atrocity and a crime against basic human rights, but is it a crime under Canadian law? They don't just threaten him, they taunt him with his legal helplessness. They gloat about the loophole which would allow them to secretly thwart any potential lawsuit. Even the attempts on his life require elaborate justification, implying that they are within the bounds of our legal agreements with the U.S. Have we explicitly allowed such things and tasked our elite services to assist in carrying them out??



This testament is valuable for researchers and activists anywhere, but obviously is of especially urgent importance to Canadians. Most of us are not aware of the precedent for Canadians being used as guinea pigs for American mind control research at McGill university, but even those who do know may not suspect the relationship is ongoing. And for the hometown crowd this book provides a hair-raisingly plausible context to the recent rash of motiveless stabbings in Toronto -- you couldn't ask for a more circumstantially suggestive crime spree to underline the urgent reality of the techniques revealed here: seemingly random crimes with details (of the perpetrator and/or their target and incidental behaviour) which present as strange but which exactly match the profile of the techniques Matthew Pauly describes... and this baffling miniature crime wave occurred in the month leading up to his first in-person public presentation. Similar sleepers could be lurking anywhere, but if you live here especially you need to read this amazing book! This is happening now!!