Government Research into ESP & Mind Control

by Tom Porter

Government Research into ESP & Mind Control

By Tom Porter

Mar. 1996

HISTORY OF MK-ULTRA: CIA PROGRAM ON MIND CONTROL.

Started during WWII with research on hypnosis for interrogation, secure courier duties, and reducing fatigue. Also research into effects of primitive drugs like barbiturates and cannabis as far as drug-assisted interrogation goes. George Estabrooks was the leading proponent of hypnosis as the be-all and end-all of manipulating peoples minds. His book, 'Hypnotism', published in the early forties, has been decried as too fantastic and improbable in terms of describing the capabilities of hypnosis with certain very suggestible subjects, but his arguments and examples remain valid to this day. Start of Cold War and Korean War in particular gave a big boost to mind control research with the emergence of 'Brain Washing' as a common term. Supposedly a development of the dastardly Chi-Coms, the term was actually coined by a magazine writer later found to be on the CIA payroll as an agent of influence. Postulating a 'brainwashing gap' The CIA got the go-ahead for research into countering communist mind control efforts and developing their own to aid in the espionage wars. Hypnosis, drugs, and psycho-surgery; separately and combined, were the tools of this quest for the ultimate truth serum on the one hand, and the capability to create an agent who could not have his or her mission tortured out of them, or even be aware that they were carrying secret information given to them in an altered state of consciousness. More and more sophisticated drugs were experimented with, such as LSD, Ketamine, and Psilocybine. Lobotomy and the implantation of electrodes were considered as methods for creating a compliant agent. Electro-Convulsive Shock, combined with LSD, sedation for days at a time, and constantly replaying the patient's own voice through helmet-mounted headphones was a notorious Canadian researcher's recipe for mind control. One of the most remarkable cases of mind control involves a famous model of the late 40's and 50's named Candy Jones. In the book, "The Control of Candy Jones" the author reviewed hours of tapes made by Candy Jones and her husband which revealed a systematic program to create and manipulate alter personalities as the foundation for programmed couriers resistant to torture, where the primary personality would not even be aware of the secret information being carried. The information could be summoned forth via a post-hypnotic command or response to a pre-programmed cue. Research continued into early 70's by CIA's own admission during the Church hearings. John Marks, author of the best study of CIA mind control experiments, makes the subtle differentiation that the CIA congressional witnesses might truthfully say that all research done by the TSS Directorate had ended, since the programs were moved into other areas once operational techniques had been developed. Many of the names mentioned in reference to mind control research turn up in the few references to supposed dead-end research in ESP. There have been persistent rumors of Navy research involving attempts at telepathy from submarines under water, the Nautilus being the most famous of these. Detection of enemy submarines, and communicating with our own, has continued to be an important area of conventional research for the Navy, so it is no surprise that researching the use of ESP for these purposes would be of interest. Communicating with a submerged submarine is the only kind of communications where the very act of receiving puts the receiver in danger, since submarines must normally stick an antenna out of the water for high speed radio traffic, or rely on trailing a long wire antenna under water relatively near the surface to receive very slow speed traffic using ELF radio waves. Newer techniques may involve the use of blue-green wavelength lasers, but evidently penetration to any depth is still a problem. If you look at telepathy as a problem in the transfer of information in a very noisy environment, then certain existing solutions suggest themselves: There have already been experiments in the transmission of five distinct symbols via telepathy, namely Zener card symbols. I suggest that there is already a way of transmitting information using two symbols only, namely Morse Code. Current ELF or VLF radio transmission methods for communicating with fleet ballistic missile submarines to issue them their launch orders involve very low data transfer rates, on the order of 3 to 30 bits per minute, if I am not mistaken. Messages are very short, consisting of pre-formulated action or targeting codes. I suggest that telepathic 'Zener Morse' is an operational technique for information transfer under severe signal to noise conditions. In fact the use of five Zener symbols would increase data transfer rates, but at the expense of a higher error rate due to the problems in discriminating between five and just two symbols.

CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS AND REPORTS.

Reports of Project SCANNATE in 70's, most likely done by Swann, since his method for RV is very similar to that reportedly used in this project; namely providing lat. & long. coords and telling what is there. Later changed to assigning random number for unique session number and Swann picked up location anyway. "The New Age Army:" Over the past 10 - 15 years a number of military personnel, most in significant positions in Military Intelligence, have expressed interest in and directed programs or projects that have explored paranormal activities and capabilities. Several government studies on Enhancing Human Performance took place during this time. Most, if not all of them, were savaged in the NRC study on Enhancing Human Performance, but recent critiques and rebuttals of this study have indicated severe irregularities in the evaluation procedures for papers submitted to the NRC study, suppression of favorable results, and a definitely one-sided evaluation panel. Much modern research in parapsychology tends to support the idea that Enhanced Perception is a survival-related trait from our distant past, not the tip of the iceberg as far as new emerging human powers go. This is supported by the observation that many psychic episodes center around catastrophic or traumatic events. Studies of Siberian and Eskimo shamans also show the development of ESP or similar shamanic powers due to injury, exposure to cold, and isolation. Dissociation with tendencies towards Multiple Personality Disorder also occurs in these Shamans due to their ordeals. This is in contrast to the experiences of most tropical shamans who tend to find their powers through exposure to mind-altering drugs. The Vietnam war, with its exceedingly stressful combat environment of no clear-cut enemies combined with ambush being the normal way of making contact, produced a large body of individual reports stressing enhanced perception and awareness. This showed up as detecting ambushes and booby-traps before they were sprung; detecting the presence of enemy soldiers without any conscious sign of them; time dilation when bullets could be seen slowly traveling around the battlefield, and even reports of soldiers avoiding those bullets by jumping out of their paths as they were shot at. Dr. Ian Wickramasekera of Eastern Virginia Medical School has studied the expansion of sensory input during trauma which would lead to time dilation, etc. This gentleman has also studied the effects of sensory deprivation on hypnotic susceptibility in young women. In a recent article in U.S. News & World Report, John Gittinger, a CIA psychologist associated with a CIA front organization, the Human Ecology Society admitted to knowledge of experiments in developing ESP by giving electric shocks to subjects when they gave wrong answers. Recently, a Russian researcher in psychotronics, Dr. Igor Smirnov, has helped to start up a new Virginia company, called Psycho-Technologies, I believe. It is supposed to conduct research on various kinds of LTL technology, with a concentration on Soviet-developed psychotronic warfare capabilities involving the use of electromagnetic and sonic waves to influence and disable individuals or crowds. Supposedly this ranges from simply falling to influencing peoples thoughts via audio or visual subliminal messages.

SOME OF THE PLAYERS:

The Monroe Institute, located near Charlottesville, Virginia. Bob Monroe, author of many books on Out of Body experiences, has long and close ties with the C.I.A. James Monroe, Bob's father, if I'm not mistaken, was involved with the Human Ecology Society, a C.I.A. front organization of the late 50's and 60's. The Monroe Institute has done research on accelerated learning and foreign language learning through the use of altered states of consciousness for the C.I.A. and other government organizations. Government interest in the more radical research going on at the institute remains only tantalizing speculation. Official classified document storage boxes have been seen at their mail-order outlet located in Lovingston, VA. Albert Stubblebine and John Alexander. Both retired Army officers, a General and Colonel respectively. Both worked at U.S. Army Intelligence & Security Command, or INSCOM, Stubblebine as its head at one time. Stubblebine has publicly stated that an enlisted man under his command inadvertently 'mentally fried' an intelligence gathering computer located in Augsberg Germany. This was Lynn Buchanan, discussed later. Alexander wrote the rebuttal to the NRC paper on Enhancing Human Performance. He used this rebuttal as the basis for a book he co-authored called "The Warrior's Edge" which describes various techniques for enhancing performance and perception utilizing the power of the mind. Alexander currently heads up research on Less Than Lethal weapons at Los Alamos Nation Laboratories. Jack Houk, Aerospace Engineer, and his Spoon bending parties, done for last 12 - 15 years. Stubblebine, Alexander, and others have attended and hosted these parties. While even Houk admits that much of the bending activity that occurs is due to hysterical strength, people getting excited, etc. there are always a few really perplexing feats of bending at each party. Curled and twisted hacksaw blades comes to mind, since these normally snap if they are bent. Ed Dames and PSI-TECH, Military Intelligence alumni as contract RV'ers. Promises to provide RV services to corporate and government clients for $5,000 - $8,000 per week. Has supposedly spotted Iraqi chemical weapons depots, among others. S.A.I.C. involvement in 1993 American Parapsychological Association meeting arrangements, via their 'Cognitive Sciences Laboratory'. Science Applications International Corporation is a big time defense contractor, has held the largest number of research contracts of any defense contractor. Bobby Ray Inman is on its board of directors, among others. Startup of TREAT, Center for Treatment and Research into Experienced Anomalous Trauma, by Rima Leibow. Leibow is a psychiatrist who started studying trauma associated with alien abductions, noting its similarities to PTSD. She has hosted open and closed meetings for the past six years. Leibow is a close friend of/ or married to Stubblebine, which certainly raises some interesting questions. Another abduction researcher and friend is Victoria Lacas, who happens to be married to Alexander. One other TREAT hanger-on, and friend of Stubblebine's, is Lynn Buchanan. Buchanan offers services similar to PSI-TECH and has worked with Ed Dames on a contract basis. He taught a Remote Viewing workshop at the latest TREAT conference. Also offers continued training in RV skills to those whom he decides to work with. Veteran of INSCOM, and the famous 'computer frier' mentioned by Stubblebine. A real mystery man in all of this is C.B. Scott Jones: Ex-Navy Intelligence officer, one time aide to Senator Claiborne Pell, founder of the Human Potential Foundation; Jones appears to have his fingers in every 'weird' pie around. He has been involved with several UFO research organizations, dolphin-human communications research, served on the boards of several scholarly parapsychological research organizations. Jones strikes many people as a 'Cardinal Richelieu' figure, manipulating events behind the scenes, but rarely emerging into the spotlight. There is literally no conference on parapsychology that he does not attend. He has traveled and done research with Alexander and Rima Leibow. He works at keeping very well informed about the 'pulse' of the New Age community and about UFO and parapsychological research in particular. He rarely writes anything for print, but keeps in contact with many of the players in the fields. He has presented papers to many conferences, most of the examples I have seen are complex, lengthy, and elaborate pieces of dis-information which leave the listeners more confused than when he started. This is an individual who bears watching.

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