In March (2025) came the release of a new book that attracted my interest. Titled ‘The Sleep Room. A Very British Medical Scandal,’ it investigates the career of controversial British psychiatrist Dr. William Sargant. There are many reasons – whether alleged or not – as to why the shadow of controversy follows him and his legacy…
During the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s – within the walls of a National Health Service hospital in the heart of London – he’s said to have wiped the memories clean of an untold number of his patients through a concoction of drugs, ECT, and enforced sleep – hence the title of this book by novelist and journalist Jon Stock. Although never proven conclusively thus far, the author highlights allegations that Sargant was working for British intelligence as well as the CIA and its MK ULTRA program.

Regarded as an expert on brainwashing and mind-control, Sargant stated publicly that he believed the 1960s “youth culture,” along with the mass appeal of The Beatles, to have been a ‘physiological technique’ in order to steer and manipulate a generation. Now, this assessment, was it based on his own firsthand, yet Top Secret, experience? Well, as I mention in the presentation, his alleged involvement in MK ULTRA-type experiments in 1960s England alongside a hypnotist doctor who was almost blood related by marriage to a member of the band might make one wonder.  

Jon Stock’s book is available here:  
https://www.littlebrown.co.uk/titles/jon-stock/the-sleep-room/9780349128894/

So, I’m posting this on December 8th… 44 years to the day that John Lennon was shot dead as he was making his way into his New York apartment at the Dakota building.

In November last year I posted a chat here at 'Spreaker' that I’d recorded with David Whelan, a British-born TV-producer and former television-news researcher, and who, when I posted our conversation online, was just days away from releasing a book he’d researched and written –that had been three years in the making - that challenges the officially-friendly narrative surrounding John Lennon’s death. I only managed to grab an opportunity in my rather busy life to read it a couple of months or so ago, so, yes, I have been a little late, but now that I have, I’ve prepared a presentation largely based on what caught my attention within its pages and that might catch yours too.    

• Matt Sergiou