James Thornwell
The protagonist. The documented wound and moral anchor.
A new play by Russell H. Johnson III
THE INITIATION OF THE WORLD
Wright, Robeson & LSD
A naive Black patriot-private, falsely accused of espionage and tortured in a documented CIA mind control experiment, awakens in a bardo kitchen with Richard Wright, Paul Robeson, and Candy Jones — four victims of the same hidden machinery racing to free their souls before the room closes in on them forever.
The story begins with James Thornwell
Before the bardo kitchen, there is testimony.
Thornwell’s case gives the project its clearest public historical entry point: a Black soldier, a false accusation, LSD in a water glass, a metal chair, and the state’s power to deny what it had done.
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The four voices
Four victims. One room. One unfinished inheritance.
Richard Wright
The philosopher. The mind trying to name the room.
Paul Robeson
The conscience. A voice the state could not domesticate.
Candy Jones
The witness. Split identity, coercion, memory, survival.
Why now
The same drugs once used to harm are now being studied to heal.
PTSD. TBI. Addiction. Suicide. Veterans. The national conversation has reversed: compounds once weaponized against vulnerable minds are now being studied as medicine.
Historical Questions
The play is fiction. The people are real.
Explore Thornwell, Robeson, Wright, public interviews, congressional investigations, and unresolved historical questions.
Explore Historical Questions