Interview: Michelle Horsley / Aut Naught Aut

Talking with Michelle Horsley, autistic researcher, artist, and writer of the Aut Naught Aut, mapping the parapolitical architecture of the autism industrial complex… From her personal experiences growing up autistic to her extensive research into the historical and current narratives surrounding autism.

Her insights challenge mainstream as well as alternative perceptions and reveal layers of political and social complexities. She advocates for a more informed and empathetic understanding of autism that truly centers the voices of those within the community.

On being five and nearly institutionalized, on cousins who disappeared into care and were never spoken of, on the mercy of small schools and open fields, on learning to speak through rote phrases like operating systems, on meaning blindness, on writing poetry to break the blocks, on internet relay chat in 1992 and the joy of text-only communion, on autistic people discovering each other online for the first time, on the flowering of recognition, on the anti-vax people arriving in autistic spaces and tearing it all down, on being told your identity is a disease, on Scientologists using communication tech as a weapon, on the split between autistic adults and parents of autistic children that became unbridgeable, on Leo Kanner, on childhood schizophrenia, on post-immunization encephalopathy, on Bernard Rimland wearing two hats — hero to the parent community and career naval psychologist directing future technologies, on the 1958 National Defense Education Act and the state’s interest in gifted minors, on gifted and talented programs, on MKUltra, on Kim Peek, on the military search for savants, on Scientology level OT VIII, on Operation Snow White, on RFK Jr., on Generation Rescue, on Bob Wright, on ARPA-H, on the after-party to TED Talks, on Andrew Wakefield’s very small study that said nothing about the MMR, on overstimulation and the mind whiting out, on the map that is always provisional, on following the hacktivists. on the state being hostile to ordinary people, on questioning everything, on c self-expression, on being less autistic than she used to be, on identifying plants intuitively, on tending a vineyard and making wine and losing goats to wolves, on the techno-utopian dystopia not working, on the return to non-technological ways of living, on failure as liberation…

Excerpts

On Hyper Associational Autism

 we have hyper associational kind of minds, … so I do make links between things that seem unrelated… I’ve been building this map. And as the map comes together and informs, I can start to make predictions. And if it’s accurate, then I know my map is pretty close to what’s really going on.

On Autism and Scientologists

This battle between autistics and Scientologists has been going on for decades.

Bernard Rimland completely took over the perception of what autism is. On one hand , in the autism parent community, he was Mr. Hero. But on the other side, he was a career naval psychologist, a research psychologist, director of future technologies and recruit enhancement.

Scientologists don’t just, they’re very careful about who they associate with. So for a Scientologist to be an in-house lawyer at Children’s Health Defense means that organization is affiliated with Scientology strongly.” “It’s not even a cult. It’s more what is it. You could say it’s a cult that’s that’s operationalized in terms of it’s intelligence work.

On Vaccines and Autism

Vaccines don’t cause autism, but vaccines are not good. In fact, vaccines probably are injuring children, but the two things got all mixed up together and he’s (RFK JR) part of that.

 I just want to really encourage listeners to question, recognize that the Health Freedom movement is full of Scientologists and they’re not your friends. Not everybody who’s communicating with you is telling you the truth, especially, online.

Aut Naught Aut

Aspie Quiz

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Artwork by Michelle Horsley