Harassment Diary - Part 17: Hypnosis, truth serum, etc

by Paulette Cooper more

Source: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.scientology/msg/a9b3d2252451e823

Part 17: Hypnosis, truth serum, etc.

However they [addendum 1997: the government] still wouldn't drop it [addendum 1997: the case] until I could give them some proof of innocence. ^[1] (Funny, I always thought in our system of justice one was innocent until proven guilty.)

I tried hypnosis twice, but couldn't relax enough. Sodium pentothal or "truth serum" was suggested that summer, but doctors thought it was highly dangerous in my poor physical condition, especially since by then I only weighed 83 pounds. (I spoke to Dr. Cath [addendum 1997: earlier psychiatrist I went to, the one whose office the Scientologists broke into looking for my records] by phone on at least two occasions concerning this, and it was his memos on those two conversations that were later mailed anonymously to me by the Scientologists.)

Footnotes

1. I tried another lie detector firm but they said my responses showed too much stress to be conclusive. While they said that that type of heavy stress is often manifested by guilty people, it could also reflect the stress of an innocent person going through such an ordeal.

We also called in Dr. Fred Barnett, the lie detector expert at F. Lee Bailey's firm... [Addendum 1997: F. Lee Bailey's firm, realizing this trial would get a lot of publicity, wanted this case and offered to try it very cheaply. My parents refused, preferring to go with far more expensive lawyers, because they felt that the image of F. Lee Bailey was that he defended rich guilty people.]

Barnett [addendum 1997: the lie detector expert at Bailey's firm] felt that not only my unusual background, but also the way my (Jewish) parents and grandmother were always trying to make me feel guilty, would lead me to be a "guilt reactor" who would fail any lie detector test if accused of anything, regardless of whether or not they did it. He wanted me to be retested by a Chicago specialist who had devised a test for people like me. I was all for it, but my lawyers wanted the sodium pentothal. [Addendum 1997: truth serum]