Monarch Mind Control and the case of Frances Fox

One woman’s metamorphosis from cult abuse victim to Miami Beach shaman

For a top-secret program bravely exposed by courageous whistleblowers over 30 years ago, there’s surprisingly little in the Lexis-Nexis news database about Monarch Mind Control. The earliest hit I can come up with is a story by Carol Gentry from the St. Petersburg Times, March 1994, titled “Military controls my mind, woman says.”

Frances Fox, age 45 at the time, was the owner of a bridal shop in the west Florida town. Chic Parisien, which she started with her husband Emilio, was (and still is) the premier boutique in St. Petersburg’s Miracle Mile. Fox was well-respected in the local business community. She was also in therapy — which was less common than it is now, but only relevant because of what was happening in therapeutic circles at the time.

The Courage to Heal was published by William Collins, Sons (now HarperCollins) in 1988, and it was a huge hit. It was popular among women like Frances Fox, who were unhappy but perhaps didn’t understand why. The book was written by Ellen Bass, a poet and creative writing teacher, and her student Laura Davis. It promotes a kind of folk therapy, more creative writing than science. In fact, the authors are careful to point out that they’ve had no training, outside of whatever therapy they’ve had and self-help books they’ve consumed themselves. The premise is that if you have any complaints about your life at all, any of the sorts of things that might prompt you to seek therapy, they’re probably symptoms of childhood sexual abuse that you don’t remember. Through various exercises, the book encourages you to “remember” — actually, invent — memories of abuse.

The mid-20th century was a time of innovation in the world of psychology. Both LSD and existentialism influenced R.D. Laing, while Marx and Lacan would help define the anti-psychiatry movement. A few years later, humanistic psychology was repackaged as a consumer product in Erhard Seminars Training, or est. Research-based modalities were shunted aside to make room for therapies originated by gurus, charlatans, and anybody, really, who had a little charisma and a good rap.

By the 1980s, a community of women who had been abused and ignored by mainstream psychology began to take control of their lives and their mental health. Naturally, since the system had at best ignored them, they looked to the outsiders for help. Unfortunately, a lot of the therapy happening outside of the mainstream was just as bad — and worse — than the mainstream stuff. Add to this the emerging Satanic Panic, a moral panic based on fear of roving bands of Satanists guilty of every murder and kidnapping in America, and you can begin to see what might have been going on in the mind of Frances Fox.

She began to toy with the idea that she might secretly be some sort of psychic mind control spy after an intensive four-day recovered memory therapy session in Minnesota in 1989.

This is worth unpacking for a minute: Not only was Fox in therapy, she was a comfortable (if not wealthy) individual who could fly around the country, attending seminars and workshops and days-long therapy sessions. She sought comfort in a community that specialized in tinkering with peoples’ minds (and profiting off of it). This group taught that you couldn’t heal unless you uncovered memories of abuse. In an environment like this, it’s only a matter of time before she dredged up these memories.

After the Minnesota meeting, Fox dreamed that her father was chasing her and laughing, saying “You can't get away from me.” When she woke up, she knew what the dream meant: She had been abused by her father — and the CIA. After this “breakthrough,” Fox worked with a succession of therapists to uncover memories of abuse, including a Satanic ritual in Panama where a baby was killed and eaten.

Carol Gentry, the reporter at the Times, reached out to the CIA. Unsurprisingly, the spokesman said he wasn’t familiar with any programs involving ritually killing babies.

Fox’s father passed away before Fox had these revelations, so she announced her intention to sue an uncle who was also part of the conspiracy. I haven’t found any evidence that this occurred (the suit might have come up against the statute of limitations).

The purpose of the lawsuit, she said, was to get the government to open up about something called the Monarch Mind Control project. “I’m looking for a negotiated peace settlement with the government,” Fox told Gentry. “I am looking for ... the keys to my programming so that I may complete my therapy and healing process.”

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