A brief take on the History of Psychology in areas of conflict with Spiritual States of Mind

The Double Edge of PsyOps

Psychological Operations (PsyOps) are planned political, economic, and military activities that aim to influence foreign governments, organizations, and individuals. Their goal is to create emotions, beliefs, and behaviors that support political and military objectives. PsyOps teams operate in hostile environments and provide strategic options to commanders and ambassadors. They use a range of methods, from high-tech to no-tech, and overt to clandestine.

Individual vs Social Psychology

Electroshock therapy, or electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), was sometimes used in conjunction with behaviorist principles, as a way of modifying problematic behaviors on an individual level.

Psychological studies like the ones Stanley Milgram conducted, however, in the early 1960s, revealed the surprising extent to which individuals were willing to obey authority figures, even when it conflicted with their personal morals and ethics, and what brings even greater concern is how state based institutions continue to utilized these studies as a means of evaluating methods of social control from without.

Social experimentation

Other forms of manipulation studies began in the mid-20th century with the launch of antipsychotic drugs, which enhanced our knowledge of psychiatric conditions. However, many studies took place in asylums, prisons, hospitals, and other hidden locations worldwide. While some psychologists, like Rosenhan, fought against biological diagnoses, others, like Zimbardo, explored how authority affects behavior by placing individuals in a mock prison, showing how easily people accept roles without questioning the underlying conditions of mental health in administrative conditions. These scenarios raise serious questions about human behavior and the balance between exploitation and resilience. The role of context and perception in these cases also points to the need to rethink systems that affect mental health and individual behavior in social settings, especially in the wake of similar psychological settings in black sites and detention centers of uncertain reputation all across the world.

From the Witch Trials to MKULTRA

Spirituality and Mystical States of Mind are at Question

Recent psychological studies on social control are just the start. The links between witch trials, the Spanish Inquisition, and MKUltra show ongoing efforts by governments worldwide to restrict exploration of consciousness and the human experience to maintain control over society and heretical efforts to experience mystical states of mind.

The witch trials of the 15th to 18th centuries were steeped in paranoia and the societal need to eliminate perceived threats to religious and social order. Individuals accused of witchcraft were often subjected to severe interrogation methods, aimed at extracting confessions or information, akin to the objectives seen in MKUltra. These trials reflected an attempt by the state to consolidate power by targeting those who deviated from accepted norms—an act steeped in the manipulation of fear and ignorance.

Similarly, the Spanish Inquisition, established to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in the face of heresy, utilized psychological terror as a means of control. Torture, public humiliation, and forced confessions were standard practices aimed at eliminating dissent and maintaining societal order. Here, the manipulation of an individual’s psyche served not only as an instrument of state power but also highlighted humanity's vulnerabilities when confronted with authority.

Fast forward to the mid-20th century, Project MKUltra represents a modern iteration of these historical precedents. Conducted under the auspices of the CIA, MKUltra's focus on mind control and interrogation through controlled exposure to psychological stressors, including drugs and sensory deprivation, reflects an ongoing exploitative relationship with human consciousness. The project aimed to find ways to influence and alter states of mind for purposes that resonate with historical coercion—using the very vulnerabilities identified by earlier inquisitions.

In each of these contexts, the pursuit of power—whether through the eradication of witchcraft, the enforcement of religious conformity, or the manipulation of the mind—demonstrates a profound intersection of fear, control, and the exploration of the human psyche. Each episode captures the complex dynamic between societal authority and individual autonomy, raising ethical questions about the nature of knowledge acquisition, the parameters of acceptable practice in psychological exploration, and the overarching influence of state power on the human condition.

Thus, the exploration of consciousness—be it through witch hunts, religious persecutions, or modern psychological experiments—reveals a consistent theme: the drive to harness and control the human mind has been a tool of societal regulation throughout history. In examining these connections, we gain insight into the enduring challenges of balancing our understanding of human psychology with ethical considerations and the impact of state endeavors on personal and communal spiritual growth.

It is important to recognize that the long-term effort to explore unusual psychological or mystical states has not been in vain. History and research reveal many altered states of mind uncovered in remarkable ways. However, the controversy and manipulation surrounding these secretive intelligence studies have led to stigma against these practices and created various harmful issues. This affects how information about such states is shared socially and regulated by the state, as explained below.

Military Operations Related to PsyOps

Montreal MKULTRA Experiments

Read the full article from The Canadian encyclopedia here.

From the article:
Connection to the Central Intelligence Agency

Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron’s experiments and research caught the attention of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The agency provided funding through a front organization called the “Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology” from 1957 to 1964. Cameron is also believed to have received half a million dollars in funding from 1950 to around 1965 from the Canadian government. Former director of the CIA Richard Helms ordered files related to the Montreal Experiments to be destroyed when the MKULTRA program was concluded in 1973. In 1977, it was revealed that not all these files were destroyed. The CIA’s connection to the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology was subsequently confirmed.
...
Aftermath and Legacy

In 1975, the US Senate’s Church Committee investigated abuses done by the CIA, National Security Administration and Federal Bureau of Investigation. As a result, MKULTRA became public knowledge.

Canadians first became aware of what had occurred at the Allan Memorial Institute in 1980. An episode of the CBC’s The Fifth Estate revealed what had happened. Survivors of the experiments also spoke publicly about their experiences for the first time. In 1984, it was revealed that the US sent a formal apology to the Canadian government. However, the US also asked the Canadian government to not share any details about the MKULTRA program with former patients seeking an apology and financial compensation.

In the mid-1980s, the directors of the Allan Memorial Institute defended Cameron’s actions. They stated that psychiatrists weren’t expected to inform their patients of the experiments or treatment they were conducting in the 1950s and 1960s. They further claimed that there was no evidence Cameron was aware the CIA was funding his experiments.

Over 300 individuals made claims for compensation from the Canadian government. In 1988, nine survivors received compensation from the US government. In 1992, 77 survivors were awarded compensation from the Canadian government. However, more than 250 claimants were denied compensation because individuals couldn’t produce medical records, filed too late or weren’t considered to have suffered enough. Then-justice minister Kim Campbell also refused to accept liability. In recent years, the families of those denied compensation have attempted to secure compensation from the government. In some cases, they were compensated only if they agreed to sign strict confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements. Advocates argue that the strict rules prevent people from speaking openly about what they experienced. The rules also discourage more victims from coming forward and further ensure the government won’t take responsibility for their actions.

Neither the CIA nor the Canadian government has apologized for the human experimentation conducted at the Allan Memorial Institute that they funded.
-- Read the Full Article
Evidence from Universities

There is a long and complex history of PsyOps research conducted within the confines of prisons, hospitals, asylums, black sites, and various nondisclosure zones all across the world. Early behaviorism studies and early experimental psychiatry studies often took advantage of individuals thought to lack human rights, and exceptionally abusive tactics were used in the exploration of the mind, born from intelligence industry research tied to mind control techniques.
Noteworthy researchers, such as Ron Johnson, have emphasized the connections between military programs and notorious locations like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. He even notes the use of aerial phenomena, including the unsettling sound of dentistry drills and other curios occurrences related to conceptually conceived entities often thought to be tied to emissaries and spirits.
Ganzfeld experiments, conducted primarily in the 1970s and 1980s, utilized a controlled environment to reduce sensory input and enhance the conditions for psychic phenomena to manifest where one participant, the "sender," would concentrate on a specific target—such as an image or video—while another participant, the "receiver," attempted to perceive or describe what the sender was focusing on.
Results from early ganzfeld experiments sparked interest in parapsychology and raised questions about the nature of consciousness and human perception. Subsequent research continued to explore the boundaries of human experience, which gave rise to studies in 'remote viewing' from the intelligence industry which sparked interest into larger governmentally operated research programs like Project Stargate tied to numerous labs and institutions across all across the world.
If one takes the time to investigate the details, credible evidence can indeed be uncovered. It is an unsettling truth that these controversial program have not been discredited within the confinse of intelligence industry labs by any established mechanism of evaluation or oversight. Operative programs only seem to get disbanded as a strategic measure to mitigate public awareness of unethical activities, allowing clandestine operations to continue unimpeded.
You can even look at reviews of Project Stargate from Universities across the world. An example is listed below
https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/psychic-spying-research-produces-credible-evidence-0
'Psychic Spying' Research Produces Credible Evidence

Secret government experiments on "psychic spying" have produced the most credible evidence to date that humans have paranormal abilities, according to two academic experts. The U.S. government research program has produced statistically significant results, the experts agree, but they disagree about how to interpret those results. "At this stage, using the standards applied to any other area of science, the case for psychic functioning has been scientifically proven," says Jessica Utts, a UC Davis statistics professor who specializes in evaluating parapsychology research. Ray Hyman, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon in Eugene and a noted debunker of psychic phenomena, disagrees. "The case for psychic functioning seems better than it ever has been," he says. "Inexplicable statistical departures from chance, however, are a far cry from compelling evidence." Utts and Hyman evaluated a previously classified 20-year, $20 million basic-research program funded by various U.S. intelligence agencies. The full text of Utts' report is on the World Wide Web at http://www-stat.ucdavis.edu/users/utts/ and Hyman's at http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~uocomm/newsrel/Hyman.html.
Media Resources
The Men Who Stare at Goats

Read Micheal Shermer’s book review here.
I am sure that people have heard of the movie "The Men Who Stare at Goats" but I am not sure if people have really understood how long the programs have been in operation. It is not like the operations would ever cost much to run or operate, but we are talking about millions of dollars over the span of 25 years. There would be no way to entertain that level of commitment if it did not produce positive results, especially when considering how the research goes back even further to a total of about 80 years. The CIA has held close ties to all of the preliminary research on pharmacological concoctions in prisons and asylums all across the world which have been tied to clandestine CIA projects like MKULTRA and other toxic laboratory work all across the world. What should also be noted is that the lead of information at the very end of the movie depicts how the psychic spy program has in fact evolved away from the lower budget project Star Gate operation to a more refined and higher budget program under the broader division of newfound PsyOps programs and other forms of related types of deployment.

The programs have indeed been longstanding and enduring and there is no reason for the military to hold on to that kind of work unless they believe they are accomplishing something with it, and ex practitioners from the program even tout how highly successful the programs have been. I have cited the book Mind Race from Russell Targ and Keith Harary from 1984, but the original university research program tied to these CIA projects was initiated 2 years after MKULTRA was closed down during the Church Committee Congressional Investigation. Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff's book Mind Reach from 1977 depicting the scientific methods and success of their research on PsyOps ideas has even been reprinted in 2005, which is nearly a decade after the Star Gate project was purported to be publicly closed down -- even though it was never discredited and is in fact being reaffirmed with the investment commitment of another printing.

One of the concerns that we have to keep in mind is that these programs were top secret and there was an extremely strong demand to not only to control the research environment, but to also control the exposure of the programs themselves. I have addressed concerns about how liabilities were controlled while working on this type of research within the military, but we have to keep in mind that it is in the military's best interest to mitigate public awareness of their operations and some of the information that is publicly disclosed may not be as straightforward as we might otherwise want to believe. You will clearly be able to pull genuine documents from the CIA and research labs themselves, but you have to keep in mind how the structures are oriented in order to keep a level head when evaluating the value of these projects.

With that in mind, I have found a small piece about the book that Jon Ronson wrote about "The Men Who Stare at Goats" but also keep in mind that the review was written by Micheal Shermer (from above) and try to keep track of how his review unfolds because he might not be as distanced from the material as he can be. A person does need to be skeptical, perhaps not professionally skeptical, but it is definitely worth it to look into these programs and this subject matter because the context and gravity of their operations are far more concerning than anything else when thinking about militarized spirituality.
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Be sure to read Micheal Shermer's review of the book to learn about references to "dentistry drill" aerial phenomena and connections to Abu Grabe and Guantanamo Bay.
The Psychic Warrior: Inside the CIA’s Stargate Program

Read about how operatives have attempted to expose the militant aspirations of the Stargate project within the CIA. There are some interesting passages in the book that describe the types of operations the military was engaged in, and other books like Russel Targ and Keith Harary's book Mind Race: Understanding and Using Psychic Abilities spearheaded the investigation into CIA operative level operations within Universities and Labs all across America with support from organizations like SRI and others. Most of the studies can sound sensational at first but there is firm evidence that these types of activities have been proven successful. The only drawback is that the operations have outpaced some of the more traditional models within the scientific community and what has come about as a result is that the operatives are able to operate in a more clandestine environment where they are able to take advantage of social stigmas to gang rape operatives into the program and successfully keep them quiet by holding them accountable to military top secret liabilities where officials can easily humiliate and destroy an operative's reputation if they choose to go public with the methods of the program.
These programs are extremely top secret and extremely offensive to the psyche. The programs have lasted for several decades and have only been publicly disbanded to mitigate public awareness of how offensive these programs can be in order for them to operate in a more secretive environment. Thousands of prisoners and asylum patients have been experimented upon with unethical pharmacological experiments and operatives within the military could have even been led to believe that unknown and toxic concoctions have enabled them to control the mind more effectively in an effort to keep them quiet if they decide to go public.
I can understand that these claims can be sensational, but we need to make sure we can conduct a congressional investigation into the operation of intelligence programs like the Stargate Project. Freedom of information documents can be pulled directly from the CIA website, and it should be noted that there has not been much effort to discredit the reports as a continuation from the MKULTRA program over several decades of research.
Preview from the back cover:

"David Morehouse, a highly decorated, third-generation army officer, special-operations infantryman, and one of the army's elite airborne ranger company commanders, was labeled "destined to wear stars" by his superiors. But a mission in a remote desert valley in the Kingdom of Jordan changed his life forever. Wounded by a stray machine-gun bullet, he began to have inexplicable visions and haunting nightmares. His experiences redirected his brilliant future and led to a series of frightening glimpses into another world.When Morehouse disclosed these occurrences to military authorities, they earmarked him for recruitment into Stargate, a top-secret clan of psychic spies backed by the Central Intelligence Agency. Psychic Warrior is the true story, told for the first time, of one man's journey into the CIA's most top-secret and successful psychic warfare operation. Soon after being recruited into Stargate, Morehouse realized that the government's eventual purpose was to take "remote viewing" into the realm of weaponry. Determined to prevent his gift from becoming an instrument of war, Morehouse embarked a campaign to blow the lid off the top-secret government program. The consequences to his family included numerous attempts on his life and the lives of his wife and children, as well as phone taps and alarming calls in the night, culminating in a court-martial that resulted in his resignation under duress. Yet Morehouse persevered in his quest to reveal the chilling lengths to which certain factions of the U.S. government will go to hide the truth. Psychic Warrior is a fascinating examination of the untapped power of the human subconscious and a moving story of one man's crusade to ensure that it is used for peace.”

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The Church Committee

Content from Wikipedia -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee

The Church Committee (formally the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) was a US Senate select committee in 1975 that investigated abuses by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Chaired by Idaho Senator Frank Church (D-ID), the committee was part of a series of investigations into intelligence abuses in 1975, dubbed the "Year of Intelligence", including its House counterpart, the Pike Committee, and the presidential Rockefeller Commission. The committee's efforts led to the establishment of the permanent US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

The most shocking revelations of the committee include Operation MKULTRA, which involved the drugging and torture of unwitting US citizens as part of human experimentation on mind control;[1][2] COINTELPRO, which involved the surveillance and infiltration of American political and civil-rights organizations;[3] Family Jewels, a CIA program to covertly assassinate foreign leaders;[4][5][6][7] and Operation Mockingbird as a systematic propaganda campaign with domestic and foreign journalists operating as CIA assets and dozens of US news organizations providing cover for CIA activity,[8] confirming earlier stories that charged that the CIA had cultivated relationships with private institutions, including the press.[9] Without identifying individuals by name, the Church Committee stated that it found fifty journalists who had official, but secret, relationships with the CIA.[9]

It also unearthed Project SHAMROCK, a program in which the major telecommunications companies shared their traffic with the NSA, and officially confirmed the existence of this signals intelligence agency to the public for the first time.

Results of the investigation

On August 17, 1975 Senator Frank Church appeared on NBC's Meet the Press, and discussed the NSA, without mentioning it by name:

In the need to develop a capacity to know what potential enemies are doing, the United States government has perfected a technological capability that enables us to monitor the messages that go through the air. (...) Now, that is necessary and important to the United States as we look abroad at enemies or potential enemies. We must know, at the same time, that capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left: such is the capability to monitor everything—telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide.
If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology. (...)
I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.[26][27

Then and Now

80 Institutions used in CIA Mind Studies

An Article from 1977

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Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis

Published in 2017

Veiw Book Listing
PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS USED IN CIA EFFORT TO CONTROL BEHAVIOR

An article from 1977

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The U.S. Military Still Wants Psychic Marines and We’ve Got the Manual

An article from 2017
Review "Sensemaking"

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Government Research on Psychic Phenomena

As MKULTRA and similar programs have shown, the intersection of psychological manipulation and state autonomy raises deep concerns about the social status of spirituality and mystical states of mind. In an era where the government has historically sought to control or alter mental states for its own purposes, what happens to our collective understanding of the mind when these experiences are distorted or undermined by psychological torture and manipulation? The potential for state-driven efforts to suppress or co-opt spirituality—once seen as deeply personal and sacred—calls into question the future of individual autonomy in exploring and defining one's own consciousness, while also exposing the fragility of societal trust in the integrity of both psychological research and spiritual practice.

FOIA from the CIA:

PSYCHIC WARFARE: EXPLORING THE MIND FRONTIER

by Dolan M. McKelvy Lieutenant Colonel, USAF A RESEARCH REPORT SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY IN FULFILLMENT OF THE RESEARCH REQUIREMENT Research Advisor: Colonel Donald N. Panzenhagen MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, ALABAMA May 1988 Approved For Release 2001/04/02

A survey by the president of the American Society for Social Psychiatry revealed in 1981 that 58 percent of medical faculties polled felt that "understanding of psychic phenomena is important to future graduates of psychiatry programs", and that the American public accept the reality of psychic phenomena with 51 percent believing in ESP and 37 percent believing in precognition. The June 1983 Congressional Research Service report says, All polls of both the public and the scientific community in recent years have yielded evidence of a generally positive attitude toward the existence and relevance of psi phenomena as a class and research into them. The general public accepts the concept of psi, often based on personal experience. But given such great controversy within the scientific community, what should be the military attitude, what are the potential military uses, and how feasible are they? Thirteen of the fourteen best-known parapsychology laboratories in the United States responded to a questionnaire in 1979 giving us part of the answer. Four considered ''ESPionage" possible, five likely, and the remaining four certain. Similar proportions of the researchers believed psychic powers might be used to physically harm, sicken, or kill individuals, or to interfere with the operation of physical equipment such as computers (33:53). Ronald McRae, an investigative reporter for Jack Anderson, spent over a year sifting through a "sea of conjectures, rumors, and confusion", studying conflicting reports, competing interests groups and conjectures of psychic researchers to compile the most accurate record of facts he could find. His 1984 book, Mind Wars: The True Story at Government Research into the Military Potential of 2sychic Weapons, provides startling insights into numerous government projects involving psychic functioning. So much so that professor Marcello Truzzi, Director of the Center r for Scientific Anomalies Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan, said, He has given us enough pieces of the puzzle so that we can now at least see some of the areas filled in enough to make a preliminary assessment and recognize that government psi efforts have been grossly publicly underestimated (33:xii). Similarly, Russell Targ and Keith Harary authored a 1985 National Bestseller entitled Mind Race, where they discuss the unclassified portions of over ten years of government sponsored psi research at Stanford Research Institute. They note, In laboratories across this country, and in many other nations as well, forty-six experimental series have investigated remote viewing. Twenty-three of these investigations have reported successful results and produced statistically significant data, where three would be expected (41:5). Psi research is definitely alive in the United State and Internationally. In 1983 the Fifth International Conference on Psychotronic Research was held in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia. The founder and president of the 15 year old International Association for Psychotronic Research (IAPR) was Dr. Zdenek Rejdak, from Czechoslovakia. Russell Targ points out that several speakers at this conference expressed "a clear desire for openness and cooperation-- rather than for developing military uses of psi"(41:85). Targ agrees. But I contend that government and the military have a responsibility to determine what kinds of military uses/threats might exists. POTENTIAL MILITARY USES It should not be hard for anyone to envision potential military uses of the powerful psi capabilities discussed thus far. Telepathy, precognition, dowsing, remote viewing and psychokinesis offer an endless list of possibilities. In 1984 Charles Honarton, Director of the Psychophysical Research Laboratories in Princeton, said, "There is potential for military and other uses but ' h s not reached the application stage"(38:38). Let's look at some specific military uses before addressing the implementation issue. INTELLIGENCE Just like Croesus in 550 B.C., remote viewing and precognition can break through barriers of time and space to perhaps eliminate the word "secrecy" from vocabulary. In 1976 CIA director George Bush enthusiastically gave retired astronaut Edgar Mitchell "permission to organize high-level seminars at the CIA to discuss possible intelligence applications of parapsychology"(33:103). Although interest waned in 1977 when Admiral Stan.:afield. Turner replaced Bush, it shows there are others who see definite psi applications for the intelligence community. As mentioned earlier, four of the best-known U.S. parapsychology laboratories are certain that psi can be used for espionage. Those four labs must of known about Project Scanate! In a previous section of this paper I quoted Henry Gris and William Dick's 1978 book where two U.S. psychics described supersecret military installations and even the contents of confidential files at the installation. Ronald McRae's 1984 book gives more details on this actual test: Psychics versus the CIA, extrasensory perception against the most sophisticated codes known to the U.S. National Security Agency, remote viewing against satellite photography and top U.S. agents behind the iron curt he [sic] whole of the U.S. national security apparatus cooperating to make cheating impossible. The .test was dubbed "Project Scanate"--an impossible test with impossible results...

In addition to remote viewing, map dowsing could be used to pinpoint the locations of soviet submarines or find underground tunnels in the Korean demilitarized zone. Before discussing potential personnel applications of psi let me remind you that at least four of the U.S. best- known parapsychology research laboratories are certain psychic powers might be used to physically harm, sicken, or kill individuals." Their confidence is probably based on experiments like that done in 1975 at San Francisco medical research institute with psychic healer Dean Kraft. He was to try, psychically, to lower the blood pressure and heart rate of a laboratory rat in a Plexiglas cage... The observers, however, had an opportunity to watch for twenty minutes, and record the steady decrease of the rat's heart rate, all the way to zero (41:81). He mentally killed the rat without any contact. Similarly, Nina Kulagina of the Soviet Union is known for her,psychokinetic abilities. After just 40 seconds of focusing her mental influences she was able to completely stop an isolated frog heart from a distance of about a meter and a half..."When we [Soviet Professor Gennady Sergeyev] examined it, we found that it was torn apart, as if bombarded by lightning balls of microscopic size. The energy flow can reach incredible intensity!" (41:269). From these examples we see the lethality of this type of psi. Soviet interest in these capabilities is nothing new. Targ notes "Experiments that feature induced pain or behavioral manipulation at a distance have been the distinguishing characteristics of almost all official Soviet psi research since the early 1920s"(41:77). From the mid-sixties until the mid-seventies the KGB beamed mysterious microwave radiation at the U.S. embassy in Moscow. This bombardment did not exceed U.S. health standards but did exceed much more rigid Soviet standards. Why are Soviet standards more rigid than ours, and why were they putting U.S. embassy personnel at greater risk than they would allow their own personnel--for no apparent reason? (33:72) From a more positive view, psi could be used to monitor and even restore health from great distances. A doctor could diagnose and treat many patients via remote control. Or better yet, experiments in biofeedback have shown that our minds have the ability to control much of our own physiology. When discussing the interaction of mind and matter, Alexander said, "The functions of the autonomic nervous system, previously thought to operate r independently of the conscious mind, can be controlled." With training, we can develop this ability to control stress, fear and even bleeding (3:50). Another potential area for psi use is personnel training. In 1982 at Fort Hood, Texas, the Army tested a program where soldiers practiced visualizing their combat tasks to improve their human performance. An expanded contract was then initiated to train Green Berets meditation skills so they could adapt to long hours behind enemy lines (20:69). What about executive decision making and stress management? In todays analytical and statistical world we tend to underdevelop our "gut instincts". But good leaders and visionaries recognize the value of a highly sensitized intuition.

Despite extensive evidence of psi and its tremendous potential use as an instrument of power, we continue to impede our own progress. Our mind set, extreme secrecy, and disjoint research fuels skepticism and criticism rather than seeking truth. The history of psi in Western society is filled with distinguished scientist from diverse fields who became maligned and professionally ridiculed for their psychic research. People feared that science would undermine traditional religious beliefs. Even electricity was considered to be an occult and mystical force in the 1850s. Robert Hare, a major American chemist, Alfred Russel Wallace, the cofounder with Darwin of the theory of evolution by natural selection, and Sir William Crookes, the chemist and physicist who discovered thallium and invented the radiometer, were the first of a continual succession of eminent scientists who endorsed paranormal claims based on their own research (27:825). Even today, the 130 years of controversy over psychical research is impeding progress.

I began this research because I was concerned the military establishment was unaware of psi potential applications, or not taking Lt. Col. Alexander's message seriously. As my research indicates, the government, or at least some individuals, were well ahead of me. They have been involved, daring to try unorthodox techniques, and helping demonstrate the existence of psi by using it when all else failed. But the military and government is a reflection of its society, so the controversy exists there also. Congressman Rose thinks skeptics in the Pentagon and CIA are hindering U.S. research in remote viewing and wonders openly about their motives. Some of the intelligence people I've talked to know that remote viewing works, although they still block further research on it, since they claim it's not yet as accurate as satellite photography. But it seems to me that it would be a hell of a cheap radar system, and if the Russians have it and we don't, we are in serious trouble.

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Eminent Monsters

Eminent Monsters traces the origins of modern torture, examining early experiments with sensory deprivation, drugs, and "de-patterning". It describes the work of the eminent psychiatrist Ewen Cameron (1901-1967), whose notorious "Montreal experiments" received funding from the Canadian government and the CIA. The documentary also shows how the fate of the fourteen "Hooded Men" in Northern Ireland helped set the stage for "enhanced interrogation" at black sites in the War on Terror.

Examples of the continued ancestry on behaviorism tactics within campaigns of torture and psychic driving

Project MK-ULTRA

There are over 12,000,000 documents related to CIA involvement in psychical and pharmacological research. I provided the first couple of paragraphs of one of them here, but I leave off before a very long and intensive list of chemical requirements that give an indication of how hotly contested this area of research really was and still continues to be. Check out the contents to pick and follow from there.

PROJECT MK-ULTRA

FOIA from the CIA document (Full link Below):

Project MK-ULTRA, MK-ULTRA, or MKULTRA, was the code name for a covert CIA mind-control and chemical interrogation research program, run by the Office of Scientific Intelligence. This official U.S. government program began in the . early 1950s, continuing at least through the late 1960s, and it supposedly used United States citizens as unwitting test subjects.E11[21[311'he published evidence indicates that Project MK-ULTRA involved the surreptitious use of many types of drugs, as well as other methods, to manipulate individual mental states and to alter brain function. � Project MK-ULTRA was first brought to wide public attention in 1975 by the U.S. Congress, through investigations by the Church Committee, and by a presidential commission known as the Rockefeller Commission. Investigative efforts were hampered by the fact that CIA Director Richard Helms�ordered all MK-ULTRA files destroyed in 1973; the Church Committee and Rockefeller Commission investigations relied on the sworn testimony of direct participants and on the relatively small number of documents that survived Helms' destruction order.1-41 Although the CIA insists that MK-ULTRA-type experiments have been abandoned, 14-year CIA veteran Victor Marchetti has stated in various interviews that the CIA routinely conducts disinformation campaigns and that CIA mind control research continued. In a 1977 interview, Marchetti specifically called the CIA claim that MK-ULTRA was abandoned a "cover story.451161 � On the Senate floor in 1977, Senator Ted Kennedy said: The Deputy Director of the CIA revealed that over thirty universities and institutions were involved in an "extensive testing and experimentation" program which included covert drug tests on unwitting citizens "at all social levels, high and low, native Americans and foreign." Several of these tests involved the administration of LSD to "unwitting subjects in social situations." At least one death, that of Dr. Frank Olson, resulted from these activities. The Agency itself acknowledged that these tests made little scientific sense. The agents doing the monitoring were not qualified scientific observers

Project MKULTRA remains highly classified.E81 Contents � 1 Title and origins � 2 Goals � 3 Budget � 4 Experiments n 4.1 LSD � � 4.2 Other drugs � 4.3 Hypnosis and Magic � 4.4 Canadian experiments sr 5 Revelation � 6 U.S. General Accounting �trite Report ri 7 Legal issues involving informed consent � 8 Extent of participation � 9 Notable subjects � 10 Incidents � 10.1 Dr:Frank Olson Commits Suicide � 11 Sec also � 12 Web links � 13 References Title and origins The project's intentionally oblique CIA myPtonym is made tip of the digraph MK. Meaning that the project was sponsored by the agency's Technical Services'

Dr. Sidney Gottlieb approved of an MKULTRA subproject on LSD in this lone 9.1953 letter. Division, followed by the word ULTRA (which had previously been used to designate the most secret classification of World War II intelligence). Other related cryptonyrns include MK-NAOMI and MK-DELTA. A precursor of the MK-ULTRA program began in 1945 when the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency was established and given direct responsibility for Operation Paperclip. Operation Paperclip was a program to recruit former Nazi scientists. Some of these scientists studied torture and brainwashing, and several had just been identified and prosecuted as war criminals during the Nuremberg Trials.191"1 Several secret U.S. government projects grew out of Operation Paperclip. These projects included Project CIIATTER (established 1947), and Project BLUEBIRD (established 1950), which was later renamed to Project ARTICHOKE in 1951. Their purpose was to study mind-control, interrogation, behavior modification and related topics. Headed by Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, the MK-ULTRA project was started on the order of CIA director Allen Dulles on April 13, 1953,011 largely in response to Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean use of mind-control techniques on U.S. prisoners of war in Korea.1121 The CIA wanted to usc similar methods on their own captives. The CIA was also interested in being able to manipulate foreign leaders with such techniques,1131 and would later invent several schemes to drug Fidel Castro. Experiments were often conducted without the subjects' knowledge or consent") In some cases, academic researchers being funded through grants from CIA front organizations were unaware that their work was being used for these purposes.115) In 1964, the project was renamed MK-SEARCII. The project attempted to produce a perfect truth drug for use in interrogating suspected Soviet spies during the Cold War, and generally to explore any other possibilities of mind control. Sidney Gottlieb Another MK-ULTRA effort, Subproject 54, was the Navy's top secret "Perfect Concussion" program, which used sub-aural frequency blasts to erase mcmory.1161 Because most MK-ULTRA records were deliberately destroyed in 1973 by order of then CIA Director Richard Helms, it has been difficult, if not impossible, for investigators to gain a complete understanding of the more than 150 individually funded research sub-projects sponsored by MK-ULTRA and related CIA 171 programs.[ Goals The Agency poured millions of dollars into studies probing dozens of methods of influencing and controlling the mind. One 1955 MK-ULTRA document gives an indication of the size and range of the effort; this document refers to the study of an assortment of mind-altering substances described as follows:"

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