PARAPSYCHOLOGY IN PERSPECTIVE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230015-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 7, 1998
• Sequence Number: 15
• Content Type: REPORT

Approved For Release 2003/09/10 :CIA-RDP96-007888001200230015-9
PARAPSYCHOLOGY IN PERSPECTIVE
The- subject of parapsychological research and experiments, especially
in the context of potential intelligence or military applications, consists of two
dominant subdivisions of the psychic phenomena -- extrasensory perception
(ESP) and psychokinesis (PK).
Extrasensory perception includes topics such as telepathy, precognition,
retrocognition and clairvoyance. The- primary subject of this report deals
with a category of psychoenergetics generally under the umbrella of
clairvoyance, but specifically known as remote viewing (RV).
Remote viewing has been defined as an alleged ability by a person to
sense information about a site, location, or person removed from any
known sensory link. It has also been described as the acquisition of
information not presented to any obvious sense; a perceptual process that
acts as information input to the human subject.
Psychokinesis, on the other hand, does not refer to perception, but
rather to a palpable disturbance of, or interaction with, a psychological
or biological system -- spontaneous or deliberate, Thus, it is the
production of physical effects not mediated by any obvious mechanism.
These are, therefore, perturbation processes that appear as an action
out ut from a human subject.
It is helpful to dividel the field of psychokinesis according to the magnitude
of the energy transferred. For example, there are the so-called macroscopic
PK effects, such as the spoon bending exercises of Uri Gellert' 3, the salt-
shaker levitations of the Russian woman, Kalagina4, and the self-levitations
of the Frenchman, Girard.5 These have been very highly publicized, but
to the best of our knowledge have evaded well-controlled, systematic
experimentation.
Then there are PK experiments which involve much smaller amounts
of energy transfer, where the effects are made evident by an inherently
high gain in the experimental design itself, For example, magnetometers
normally used for the detection of weak magnetic fields are very sensitive
to slight displacement of their spoolst, certain types of torsional pendula
can transcribe infitesimal forces into measurable deflection of a light
beam6, electronic strain gauges routinely used for measuring propagation
of elastic and plastic waves in solids can be used to detect very small
disturbances of solid objects. 3
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Next, there is the so-called microscopic PK domain, where one is
attempting to intervene at the atomic or nuclear scale of a physical
system: to influence a radioactive decay process, for example, or the
emission of an optical photon, or the atomic collision processes in a
gas discharge. 7 These are the sorts of processes involved in most of
the random generator devices, one version of which is now in the process
of design at SR,I.
In the course of reviewing and discussing research and related activities
in the parapsychological field, one most often merges both the RV and PK
areas into one topic without specific distinction as to phenomena, scientific
curiosity or potential application, The facts are that the functional definitions
of RV and PK (as described above) are substantially different and that to
date there exists no theory or even plausible concept which claims to
associate one phenomena with the other; this also applies to the transfer
of claimed skills in either areas. There exists no conceptual hint or
scientific hunch as to how the knowledge or talent in RV, for instance,
might be related to that of PK or how the various fields of PK are related
to each other.
We suspect that the overriding criteria for interest in PK research beyond
curiosity) are due to the fact that physical systems are involved in the
interactions, and we understand how to deal with them more precisely than
when dealing with psychological phenomena. These are basically hands-off
experiments, frequently involving a number of disciplines of several basic
sciences to which we have grown accustomed in more conventional engineering
tasks.
In summary, the uniform treatment of all parapsychological activities,
PK & RV, on the assumption that they could eventually fit into one scientific
or technical discipline can serve only to detract from gaining further insight
into the phenomena and dilute our understanding of the observed effects.
Specifically, there is no evidence or conceptual notion which provides a basis
for assuming that any further understanding of PK will help explain the RV
process (or vice versa), or make remote viewing more reliable and repeatable.
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References
1. Robert G. Jahn, "Psychic Process, Energy Transfer, and Things
that Go Bump in the Night, " A PAW Special Report, Princeton
Alumni Weekly, (December 4, 1978),
2, Puthoff, H. and Targ, R. , "Mind Reach", New York: Delacorte, 1977.
3. Halted, J. B. , "Physical Aspects of Paranormal Metal Bending;' Journal
of the Society for Psychical Research, 1977, 49, 583-607.
4. Ostrander, S. and Schroeder, L. , "Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron
Curtain, " New York: Prentice Hall, 1970.
5. Private communication.
6, Puthoff, H. and Targ, R, , "Physics, entropy, and psychokinesis'.', Chapter
in Quantum Physics and Parapsychology, L. Oteri, ed. New York:
Parapsychological Foundation, 1975.
7. Schmidt, H. A.,'~'PK test with electronic equipment", Journal of Parapsychology,
1970, 34, (3), 175-181.
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