It should come as no surprise to students of the paranormal that the governments of the world have an interest in utilizing psychic powers for their own ends. This first seemed to take precedence during the Cold War. While there was a space race and a nuclear arms race going on between the United States and the Soviet Union, there was also a kind of psychic arms race. The story goes that a French hoax about the US using telepathy to communicate with submarines sparked the Soviets to delve into parapsychology in order to keep up. The rise of Soviet psi research meant that the US had to do the same thing in order to keep up with Soviet advances.
There was an increase of interest in researching parapsychology by both countries going as far back as (at least) the 1970s. The Soviets seemed to be just as advanced as the Americans when it came to the psi war, if not more so. The telekinetic Nina Kulagina comes to mind when I think of Soviet psi research. When I think of American psi research I think of Ingo Swann and the work done at Stanford Research Institute. The work done at SRI led to the creation of a group of psychic spies that worked for the US military and intelligence services.
The story of how the US military developed remote viewing as an espionage tool is one that has been told over and over so I won't recount it here. An Internet search of "remote viewing" or related terms is sure to yield a wealth of information and there are a lot of books on the market that detail the story. For our purposes I am more interested in what the present state of psi is in connection with world governments. This piece from the American Chronicle suggests that after the CIA remote viewing program was canceled in 1995 there was another post-9/11 NSA psychic program. This leads one to wonder what else the government might be doing in the realm of the paranormal since publicly outing and discrediting the remote viewing program just 15 years ago.
For years I've heard rumors of the government using psychics for everything from security to assassinations as well as rumors of gifted individuals being picked up by the government and never heard from again. To this day I still consider all of this to be rumor as I have never seen any corroborating evidence. However, I can't help but to think that there could be something to it. If there are individuals that are particularly gifted then I can see why the government might want to "recruit" them. I can see how it would be useful to use psychic operatives to accomplish missions or acquire information because there is always the element of deniability. Most people don't believe that these things are even possible and simply scoff at the notion. What better weapon could there be than one that no one believes even exists?
If the reports out of China of individuals that can teleport objects with their minds are true (as mentioned in my previous blog post) and the US continues to use remote viewers then one can only imagine what abilities might have been developed after decades of research. Until there is more disclosure it seems that all we can do is imagine. What are our minds really capable of? Should we be concerned about literal thought police? Where can I sign up for the Psi Corps?
If you would like to read more about the remote viewing program of the United States Military then please see this paper by Commander L. R. Bremseth. It really is a fascinating read and a good primer for someone new to the subject. I hope that it tides you over until next time. Take care until then.
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