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CIA-Initiated Remote Viewing Program at Stanford Research Institute
Abstract and Figures
In July 1995 the CIA declassified, and approved for release, documents revealing its sponsorship in the 1970s of a program at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA, to determine whether such phenomena , as remote viewing "might have any utility for intelligence collection".' Thus began disclosure to the public of a two-decade-plus involvement of the intel- ligence community in the investigation of so-called parapsychological or psi phenomena. Presented here by the program's Founder and first Director (1972-1985) is the early history of the program, including discussion of some of the first, now declassified, results that drove early interest.
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... In 1995, U.S. President Clinton, by order number 1995-4-17 entitled "Classified National Security Information," declassified several research programs (among other contents) funded by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) of the United States (Puthoff, 1996). These covert programs were developed over more than 20 years at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI, now SRI International) and the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) (cf. ...
... Programs addressed remote viewing (RV), that is, determined whether certain individuals, under conditions of perceptual isolation, could access information about places, buildings, photographs, etc., from a distance using putative psi rather than conventional sensory channels (Targ, 2019). The specific objective was to explore whether RV phenomena had enough consistency and stability for use in military espionage (McMoneagle, 2015;Puthoff, 1996). Due to the Cold War and ensuing political-military tensions between the United States and the former Soviet Union, American Congress classified these programs in the interests of national security (Targ, 1996). ...
... Then, the participant must mentally and nonverbally represent the distant target or targets to be guessed (May et al., 2011;Scott, 1988). The target is often a specific place, person, or fact (May, 1996;Puthoff, 1996;Targ, 1996). The targets of RV experiments (published in Nature, see Targ & Puthoff, 1974) contained specific meanings of interest to U.S. national security (e.g., the location of a secret military base) (see Utts, 1995Utts, , 1996Utts, , 2018. ...
Objectives
Since 1972, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) commissioned several research programs on remote viewing (RV) that were progressively declassified from 1995 to 2003. The main objectives of this research were to statistically replicate the original findings and address the question: What are the underlying cognitive mechanisms involved in RV? The research focused on emotional intelligence (EI) theory and intuitive information processing as possible hypothetical mechanisms.
Methods
We used a quasi‐experimental design with new statistical control techniques based on structural equation modeling, analysis of invariance, and forced‐choice experiments to accurately objectify results. We measured emotional intelligence with the Mayer—Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test. A total of 347 participants who were nonbelievers in psychic experiences completed an RV experiment using targets based on location coordinates. A total of 287 participants reported beliefs in psychic experiences and completed another RV experiment using targets based on images of places. Moreover, we divided the total sample into further subsamples for the purpose of replicating the findings and also used different thresholds on standard deviations to test for variation in effect sizes. The hit rates on the psi‐RV task were contrasted with the estimated chance.
Results
The results of our first group analysis were nonsignificant, but the analysis applied to the second group produced significant RV‐related effects corresponding to the positive influence of EI (i.e., hits in the RV experiments were 19.5% predicted from EI) with small to moderate effect sizes (between 0. 457 and 0.853).
Conclusions
These findings have profound implications for a new hypothesis of anomalous cognitions relative to RV protocols. Emotions perceived during RV sessions may play an important role in the production of anomalous cognitions. We propose the Production‐Identification‐Comprehension (PIC) emotional model as a function of behavior that could enhance VR test success.
... This differentiation was crucial, as typically AUS or anomalous experiences are measured in the clinical setting as self-reported experiences and not as outcomes derived from formal cognitive tests that would assess anomalous experiences as elements of human "cognitions" (see May, 1996;Puthoff, 1996;Utts, 2018). Therefore, we wanted to test the that anomalous experiences, as measured by anomalous cognitions versus self-reported perceptions, would show the same pattern and responses as conventional perceptions or psychotic-like experiences between psychotic participants and healthy participants (as suggested by the continuum model of psychosis). ...
... However, we want to point out the difference between anomalous experiences and anomalous cognitions. Specifically, this research strived to innovate in the measurement of anomalous perceptions as possible cognitions, following the logic and original findings of Puthoff (1996), Targ (1996), andMay (1996) in their experiments on anomalous cognitions for the Central Intelligence Agency (USA). If anomalous cognitions are more prevalent in psychotic versus healthy individuals, it implies in a clinical sense that anomalous perceptions and anomalous cognitions are related and might even have a similar etiology. ...
In the study and treatment of psychosis, emotional intelligence (EI) and thinking styles are important patient characteristics for successful outcomes in clinical intervention. Anticipation of unpredictable stimuli (AUS) may be understood as an anomalous perception and anomalous cognition in which an individual supposedly senses and recognizes future stimuli in an unexpected way, also referred to as “hunches or premonitions.” This examined the roles of EI and thinking styles in AUSs in convenience samples of healthy participants (n = 237) versus patients diagnosed with psychosis (n = 118). We adjusted several quadratic and exponential regression models according to the obtained functions. Group means were also compared to examine differences in EI scores for participants with psychosis compared to healthy participants. In the healthy group, EI predicted AUSs with a weight between 42% and 58%. Thinking styles were not correlated with AUSs. However, EI was not correlated with AUSs in the clinical group. Patients with psychosis tended to score higher on AUSs and lower on EI and thinking styles compared to participants in the healthy group. We discuss EI as a variable that can contextualize some anomalous perceptions which are otherwise difficult to classify or measure within the classic psychosis continuum model.
... Remote viewing experiments have been used by the CIA to understand the nature of consciousness (Puthoff, 1996). Quantum mechanical descriptions of the nature and functioning of consciousness have been developed to understand phenomena like remote viewing (Rausche, Hurtak & Hurtak 2016). ...
We can learn more about how our reality is made and what non-ordinary states of consciousness are by studying the Quantum Hologram Theory of Physics and Consciousness (QHTC). The QHTC says that consciousness is not local and that altered states of consciousness can help us understand how our minds work in more than one way. That's what Schrödinger thought. He thought that the quantum mechanical wave function was a field of consciousness. QHTC is based on holographic theories for human consciousness. These theories say that the brain works like a hologram and that it processes images into interference patterns that are then turned into virtual images, just like a laser hologram. These quantum waves can store a lot of information, which our brains use to make our three-dimensional world. This article says that this last theory should be the main framework for research on altered states of consciousness, and it talks about how to get data for analysis and how to get into an altered state for possible experiments.
... Some of them include extrasensory perception (ESP -telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, remote viewing); mind-matter interactions (psychokinesis, distant healing); mystical states of consciousness, whether spontaneous, meditation-or drug-induced (trance, non-dual consciousness, out-of-body experiences); and other self-transforming events. The cumulative weight of research solidly demonstrates that ESP and ASC phenomena exist and operate under both naturalistic and experimental settings (Bem et al., 2015;Puthoff, 1996;Radin, 2006). However, the task remains elusive, hampered by the lack of a conceptual model to integrate them into the mainstream of known biological and physical phenomena (Meier, 2007). ...
... Participants were taken to the target locations to obtain feedback after the viewing sessions, but such feedback was at the time considered only to serve as an aid to "psi training" and to improve future results. Experiments later carried out within the CIA-sponsored STAR GATE program (e.g., Puthoff, 1996;Targ, 1966) produced outstanding results in field trials in which feedback was given. However, they were found to be less successful in intelligence gathering (May, 2014;Mumford, Rose, & Goslin, 1995), and this may have due to the impracticability of taking participants to the locations to receive feedback. ...
Intuition is often defined as the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning. Many psychologists believe that such an ability refers to information we already possess, but which lies below the threshold for awareness. The aim of this paper is to show that intuition actually requires contact with the future and is explained in terms of psi. Precognition is considered to be the fundamental phenomenon of psi, and consists literally of pre-cognition referring to the future cognition of an event. The model is based on the concept of the block universe, and therefore requires a compatible version of quantum mechanics. David Bohm's theory of the implicate order is based on the zero-point energy field that extends throughout space and time. The implicate order unfolds to create successive slices of space-time, which build up to form the block universe. Bohm proposed that similar structures created at different times resonate within the implicate order, and tend to unfold in a form in which they are more similar to one another. The resonance is attributed to non-local effects of de Broglie-Bohm pilot waves over the quantum mechanical processes involved.
... Alternate states by their very definition extend beyond symbolic ego boundaries, displaying essential subjectivity, limited accessibility to verbal descriptions, sporadic and often spontaneous nature with sensitivity to initial conditions, and Gestalt apprehension of experiential reality poorly amenable to linear analysis. Notwithstanding ongoing controversy about psi research, the cumulative weight of evidence strongly suggests that ASC and psi phenomena are commonplace and operate under both naturalistic and experimental conditions (Bem et al., 2015;Puthoff, 1996;Radin, 2006). Of the 488 societies studied worldwide, over 90% are found to have an institutionalized form of ASCs (Lewis-Williams & Pearce, 2004), and a recent cross-sectional study estimated the prevalence of psi-related experiences among the normal British population at 48% (Pechey & Halligan, 2012). ...
As the sphere of knowledge expands, we face an ever increasing frontier between what is known and what is “as yet unknown” or unknowable; the more answers we get – the more questions they entail. The outer boundary of knowledge that focuses on the world around us is complemented by the elusive inner boundary of understanding the conscious mind itself. What is consciousness as distinct from physiological processes in the brain? How does our sense of “self” come to be and what happens to it after we die? Do we possess “free will” that can impact the world around us or are our choices predetermined by our biology and physical laws? The inner boundary of knowledge brings to the forefront perhaps the most fundamental question in all of science: What is it that enables the process of knowledge itself?
... Stanford Research Institute concentrated on remote viewing throughout the 1970sa fact that was revealed by the CIA retrospectively (Langford 2001, Puthoff 1996. These experiments point to an academic obsession with remote viewing across a distance without the aid of technology. ...
Scientists have spent considerable time and effort studying and mapping the geography of the brain, with the expectation that this understanding will lead to insights related to the nature of the mind. This article discusses evidence that, while the mind utilizes sensory information processed by the brain, awareness is not limited to these structures. Research studies give evidence supporting the mind's ability to expand awareness to include perception of objects and events not available to the five senses. This awareness also extends to moments in the future, including the mind's ability to access information seconds or even days in advance of the occurrence. A major brain filter that limits this capacity for expanded awareness is the Default Mode Network (DMN). We summarize research showing that when the DMN activity is reduced, e.g., through meditation, ingestion of neuromodulatory drugs, or NDEs, filtering within the brain is reduced, there is a concomitant development of new connectivity, and these neural changes are correlated with access to expanded awareness.
This paper outlines a hypothetical six-dimension doctrine for military intelligence-gathering in the Akashic domain. The Akashic records are described by esotericists and mystics as a permanent record of all thoughts, feelings, and actions, stored in a kind of cosmic memory bank outside of space and time. Psychics, clairvoyants, and other intuitives purport to read the records, suggesting that development of an operational strategy for accessing such information may be possible. Command oversight, however, would present significant moral challenges, as “hacking” into this information would be a personally intrusive invasion of privacy with serious repercussions for the operators and state sponsors.
WE present results of experiments suggesting the existence of one or more perceptual modalities through which individuals obtain information about their environment, although this information is not presented to any known sense. The literature1-3 and our observations lead us to conclude that such abilities can be studied under laboratory conditions.
For more than 100 years, scientists have attempted to determine the truth or falsity of claims for the existence of a perceptual channel whereby certain individuals are able to perceive and describe remote data not presented to any known sense. This paper presents an outline of the history of scientific inquiry into such so-called paranormal perception and surveys the current state of the art in parapsychological research in the United States and abroad. The nature of this perceptual channel is examined in a series of experiments carried out in the Electronics and Bioengineering Laboratory of Stanford Research Institute. The perceptual modality most extensively investigated is the ability of both experienced subjects and inexperienced volunteers to view, by innate mental processes, remote geographical or technical targets including buildings, roads, and laboratory apparatus. The accumulated data indicate that the phenomenon is not a sensitive function of distance, and Faraday cage shielding does not in any apparent way degrade the quality and accuracy of perception. On the basis of this research, some areas of physics are suggested from which a description or explanation of the phenomenon could be forthcoming.
Executive Summary Studies of paranormal phenomena have nearly always been associated with controversy. Despite the controversy concerning their nature and existence, many individuals and organizations continue to be avidly interested in these phenomena. The intelligence community is no exception: beginning in the 1970s, it has conducted a program intended to investigate the application of one paranormal phenomenon—remote viewing, or the ability to describe locations one has not visited. Conceptually, remote viewing would seem to have tremendous potential utility for the intelligence community. Accordingly, a three-component program involving basic research, operations, and foreign assessment has been in place for some time. Prior to transferring this program to a new sponsoring organization within the intelligence community, a thorough program review was initiated. The part of the program review conducted by the American Institutes for Research (AIR), a nonprofit, private research organization, consisted of two main components. The first component was a review of the research program. The second component was a review of the operational application of the remote viewing phenomenon in intelligence gathering. Evaluation of the foreign assessment component of the program was not within the scope of the present effort.
Theoretical explication of a growing body of empirical data on consciousness-related anomalous phenomena is unlikely to be achieved in terms of known physical processes. Rather, it will first be necessary to formulate the basic role of consciousness in the definition of reality before such anomalous experience can adequately be represented. This paper takes the position that reality is constituted only in the interaction of consciousness with its environment, and therefore that any scheme of conceptual organization developed to represent that reality must reflect the processes of consciousness as well as those of its environment. In this spirit, the concepts and formalisms of elementary quantum mechanics, as originally proposed to explain anomalous atomic-scale physical phenomena, are appropriated via metaphor to represent the general characteristics of consciousness interacting with any environment. More specifically, if consciousness is represented by a quantum mechanical wave function, and its environment by an appropriate potential profile, Schrödinger wave mechanics defines eigenfunctions and eigenvalues that can be associated with the cognitive and emotional experiences of that consciousness in that environment. To articulate this metaphor it is necessary to associate certain aspects of the formalism, such as the coordinate system, the quantum numbers, and even the metric itself, with various impressionistic descriptors of consciousness, such as its intensity, perspective, approach/avoidance attitude, balance between cognitive and emotional activity, and receptive/assertive disposition. With these established, a number of the generic features of quantum mechanics, such as the wave/particle duality, and the uncertainty, indistinguishability, and exclusion principles, display metaphoric relevance to familiar individual and collective experiences. Similarly, such traditional quantum theoretic exercises as the central force field and atomic structure, covalent molecular bonds, barrier penetration, and quantum statistical collective behavior become useful analogies for representation of a variety of consciousness experiences, both normal and anomalous, and for the design of experiments to study these systematically.
Although a variety of so-called psychic phenomena have attracted man's attention throughout recorded history, organized scholarly effort to comprehend such effects is just one century old, and systematic academic research roughly half that age. Over recent years, a sizeable spectrum of evidence has been brought forth from reputable laboratories in several disciplines to suggest that at times human consciousness can acquire information inaccessible by any known physical mechanism (ESP), and can influence the behavior of physical systems or processes (PK), but even the most rigorous and sophisticated of these studies display a characteristic dilemma: The experimental results are rarely replicable in the strict scientific sense, but the anomalous yields are well beyond chance expectations and a number of common features thread through the broad range of reported effects. Various attempts at theoretical modeling have so far shown little functional value in explicating experimental results, but have served to stimulate fundamental re-examination of the role of consciousness in the determination of physical reality. Further careful study of this formidable field seems justified, but only within the context of very well conceived and technically impeccable experiments of large data-base capability, with disciplined attention to the pertinent aesthetic factors, and with more constructive involvement of the critical community.
Feasibility study on the vulnerability of the MPS system to RV detection techniques
- H E Puthoff
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techniques. SRI Intemal Report, 15 April 1979. Revised 2 May 1979.
Experimental psi research: Implications for physics
- H E Puthoff
- R Targ
Puthoff, H. E., R. Targ and E. C. May (1981). Experimental psi research: Implications for physics.
In The role of consciousness in the physical world, edited by R. G. Jahn (AAAS Selected Symposium 57, Westview Press, Boulder).
Sensing of remote EM sources (physiological correlates)
- R Targ
- E C May
- H E Puthoff
- D Galin
- R Ornstein
Targ, R., E. C. May, H. E. Puthoff, D. Galin and R. Ornstein (1978). Sensing of remote EM
sources (physiological correlates). SRI Intem'l Final Report on Naval Electronics Systems
Command Project N00039-76-C-0077, covering the period November 1975 -October 1976.
Toward a quantum theory of life process. unpubl. proposal
- H E Puthoff
Puthoff, H. E. (1972). Toward a quantum theory of life process. unpubl. proposal, Stanford Research Institute.