LETTER FROM DR. H.E. PUTHOFF AND R. TARG. SUBJECT: ORNSTEIN BOOK REVIEW

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00787R000500240022-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 29, 2000
• Sequence Number: 22
• Publication Date: March 15, 1977
• Content Type: LETTER

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STANFORD RESEARCH INSTITUTE
MENLO PARK, CALIFORNIA 94025
[phone]
MEMO
SG1 I TO:
FROM:
March 15, 1977
1. 1 wish to bring to your attention an unfavorable review of our
book Mind-Reach written by Ornstein for the New York Times Book
Review (Enc. 1), and, equally important, the conditions surrounding
that review that place it in perspective. (Ornstein is best known
as a popularizer of the hemispheric specialization and split-brain
research pioneered by the laboratory work of Sperry, Gazzaniga,
Bogen, Kimura, and others.)
2. His main point is that we oversell the ease with which remote
viewing can be accomplished, when, according to him, no one else
has replicated our work. To the embarrassment of Ornstein at this
point, the facts clearly show that he had not done his homework,
since six laboratories had replicated our experiments, four published
well in advance of his review.1-4 We score Ornstein heavily for
this inexcusable faux pas in our Letter to the Editor, N.Y. Times
Book Review, to be published March 27 (Enc. 2). As far as the
accusation that we had "done more harm perhaps`' to our position and
the field, I only need cite a letter written to us by Prof. Schmeidler
of the Psychology Department, CCNY, a leader in the field and pre-
eminent among American parapsychologists and well known to be one
of the most conservative with respect to our work (Enc. 3).
3. Since we were ourselves shocked at the tone of the review (all
previous reviews had been positive: See Enc. 4 which includes
Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, Publisher's Weekly, and a statement
from Charles Panati, Science Editor at Newsweek), we began checking
with Ornstein's associates to ascertain what was going on. We
found that in the last six months there have been dramatic changes
in Ornstein's life: He has abruptly disconnected with his long-term
research colleague at Langley-Porter, Dr. David Galen; he left
California and moved to New York; and is now completely separated
from the research laboratory, devoting his full efforts to starting
a popular psychology magazine on the basis of a three-million
dollar investment by the publisher Harcourt Brace, all following a
ridiculing review in the New York Times Book Review of his latest
book (Enc. 5).
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 Approved For Release 2003/09/1?,igCIgrRDP96-00787R00O508R400~2 77
4. Of more concern to us--indeed a very serious concern from an
ethical and scientific viewpoint--(although it is a minor point
in the review) is Ornstein's statement concerning his inability
to replicate one of our experiments (an EEG strobelight experiment)
in which the tenor of his remarks would lead one to believe that
perhaps we had exaggerated the significance of this experiment. In
truth, Ornstein, who carried out the experiment under a subcontract
from us, reported a positive result to us and to our Navy contractor
(Enc. 6). We at SRI, reanalyzing his data using our own FFT
facilities, took exception to his claim of a positive result, and
in our own paper summarizing his data (Enc. 7) we were the ones who
took a more conservative position, labeling the result as lacking
definitiveness, a position we informed Ornstein of before his review.
5. A true measure of the response to our work, our protocols, and our
contributions to the field by established scientists of repute is
summed up best by what Dr. Margaret Mead had to say in her intro-
duction to our book (Enc. 8).
6. Since publication of our book we are deluged with individual successes,
as in Enc. 9. References
1. Arthur Hastings and David Hurt, "A confirmatory remote viewing in a
group setting," Proc. IEEE, Vol. 64, October 1976.
2. Thomas Whitson, David Bogart, John Palmer, and Charles Tart, "Pre-
liminary experiments in group remote viewing," Proc. IEEE, Vol. 64,
October 1976.
3. Jacques Vallee, Arthur Hastings, and Gerold Askevold, "Remote viewing
experiments through computer conferencing," Proc. IEEE, Vol. 64,
October 1976.
4. John Bisaha and B.J. Dunne, "Precognitive remote viewing in the
Chicago area, a replication of the Stanford experiment," Research
in Parapscyhology 1976. Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press Inc. (in
press). Presented at the annual Parapsychological Association conference,
Utrecht, August 1976.
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