Russian Fear Western Psychic Attack

[Axxman300]

Did the program seek to train soldiers in the use of psychic techniques? Or did it seek to examine the question of whether such techniques existed and were worth further exploration?

Both.

The latter was detailed in the book, The Men Who Stare At Goats.

As far as the research into PSI itself, the CIA, DIA, and US Army ran programs from 1972 through the late 1990s:

The short version:

https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/ask-molly-did-cia-really-study-psychic-powers/

According to our historians, from very early in CIA’s history we had been interested in investigating whether “extra sensory perception” (ESP) or other paranormal phenomena (generally called “parapsychology”) exist and, if so, whether they had operational uses for intelligence.

The earliest record our historians have found on this topic is a 1948 memorandum speculating on whether hypnotized people could be used for long-distance communication.

We didn’t, however, conduct our own research into psychic phenomena until the summer of 1972. We worked with scientists and researchers to investigate whether certain people could “see” locations and objects around the world, without actually being there. This ability is known as “remote viewing.”

CIA ended this research five years later in 1977, and we turned the program over to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). The project became known as STARGATE, which was actually DIA’s initial name for this program. Later, it was renamed GRILL FLAME.

A great summation:

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00791R000200030040-0.pdf

This was a CIA paper written by Dr. Kenneth Kress. Probably the most concise write-up of the CIA, DIA, and military interest and research into this subject matter. Some folks won't like his conclusions.

 

[theprestige]

Both.

The latter was detailed in the book, The Men Who Stare At Goats.

As far as the research into PSI itself, the CIA, DIA, and US Army ran programs from 1972 through the late 1990s:

The short version:

https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/ask-molly-did-cia-really-study-psychic-powers/



A great summation:

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00791R000200030040-0.pdf

This was a CIA paper written by Dr. Kenneth Kress. Probably the most concise write-up of the CIA, DIA, and military interest and research into this subject matter. Some folks won't like his conclusions.

That doesn't really sound like both to me. Oh well.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

The Russian people are, by long conditioning and their largely willing compliance, too apathetic for this to work. Also, if it did work it would amount to mass murder, and possibly war crimes.

I suppose. If you took the suggestion seriously.

I think the acme of this art would be to somehow infiltrate or co-opt a credible fortune-teller already in the Kremlin's employ, and have them feed counter-productive prognostications to the Russian leadership. Everything from delaying a major operation to a more auspicious date (giving Ukraine more time to prepare) to encouraging rivals to betray each other sooner rather than later.

Maybe Ronnie Reagan's astrologer is still alive and available for this purpose? (Or even if she is dead.)

 

[Sherlock]

Astrologers and psychics mixed up with counter intelligence

Thanks for noting the President Reagan paranormal connections. President Ronald Reagan (and First Lady Nancy Reagan) used astrologer Joan Quigley who died in 2014.

However, psychic actress actress (and claimed medium) Noreen Renier made claims about sensing beforehand President Reagan's March 30, 1981 assassination attempt. And later appears to be claiming involvement with finding a Russian spy. During my original lawsuit with Renier in 1985 my attorney (also my sister Roxie Cuellar) asked Renier while on stand about her Reagan assassination foresight claims stand about this claim. As Gary Posner notes on his website https://www.gpposner.com/Renier_chap.html "Robert K. Ressler, a Supervisory Special Agent assigned to the Behavioral Science Unit of the Quantico center was questioned about it during his 1986 deposition in the Renier v. Merrell case. Ressler testified that "she said she felt that [Reagan] was having a heart attack in the future . . . some sort of chest pains . . . and then she clarified it by saying no, it's a sharper pain and it is a gunshot. . . . I believe she said in the left chest because she was patting her left side, and that he would not die. . . ."

But, says Ressler, Renier's vision went further, as "she went on to say that . . . later in the fall, October, November, he would be killed in a machine gun assault on a parade stand by many in foreign uniforms. . ." The following exchange then ensued:

Question: Do you recall if she specifically said the second shooting would be President Reagan?
Ressler: She thought it was President Reagan.

Question: She was wrong on which President it was, then?

Ressler: Yeah . . . circumstances were uncanny in their accuracy [but] it turned out that it was not Reagan, it was Sadat." [Gary Posner notes] "Yes, Noreen Renier is also known for having successfully predicted the assassination of Egypt's President Anwar Sadat. However, in her version of the story, the U.S. Secret Service seems responsible for her apparent ambiguity. In a 1988 New York Post article included in her promotional packet, Renier says that following the Reagan shooting, and after hearing that she had predicted it, agents from the Secret Service paid her a visit. 'They thought I might actually know John Hinckley. I didn't. Then they came back again and asked what I saw in the future for the President. I said I saw a parade, a reviewing stand, foreign uniforms, and gunfire. After Sadat was shot, I realized they never asked me which President' (emphasis in original)."

So though Noreen Renier is still living (though in declining health) and turns 86 years old on 1-16-2023, I don't believe the U.S. or Russia would do well with using Noreen Renier and her acting skills. As an example Noreen Renier also testified in a U.S. federal court in 2006 (after I brought a lawsuit against her where I won court rulings in 2006, 2007 and in follow-up litigation in 2011 and 2012) as follows:

Ms. Renier: There’s one I can’t talk about. I looked for a spy. They had to find a spy. It was a government official. They won’t let me talk about that one.

But per the Global Net Research (GNR) site https://www.globalnetresearch.com/findings.html under their finding #25 about Noreen Renier, in 2010 Noreen Renier provided the following text for a French paranormal meeting examining her latest book: “The London office of a secret agency called me to help find some double-agents. They put wires around my head that looked like Christmas tree tinsel. I could feel them tingling. Then they showed me pictures of places I didn’t recognize. But when I saw some I got excited and the tinsel wires turned blue. They said my sensing powers were the greatest they had ever seen. I helped catch a spy ring that was hiding in the United States. One of them was a beautiful Russian agent. But I can’t tell you anything more.”

However the GNR investigators "conclude Noreen Renier markets many claims mixing rumors, news, and delusions to create attention around herself. There is nothing to connect her or her claims to such events and there is nothing released in public communications from the Government Communications Headquarters to show her involvement with any of the United Kingdom’s counter-intelligence and security agencies including the Security Service (MI5) or the SIS (MI6)."

So maybe mixing psychic actresses and counter-intelligence cases is a really, really, really bad idea.

 

[theprestige]

This seems to be entirely about your interest in Noreen Reiner, and not at all about the Russian leadership's interest in psychic counsel, nor the (admittedly arguable) merits of exploiting that interest to infiltrate an intelligence asset.

 

[bruto]

I'm not going to wade through all that, but it sounds as if sending Renier away to any place would be a win no matter what she does, so why not Moscow?

 

[dudalb]

But the West has Professor Xavier...

 

[The Atheist]

I'm doing it right now. When Putin drops dead, I'll let you know where to send the check.

Nope, I'm claiming it. I have three Putin dolls with needles through the eyes, testicles and stomach. I would have put one through his heart or brain, but he has neither.

I'm also about to unleash a Crowley square on him.

 

[Sherlock]

In response to my bringing up Noreen Renier. Hhhhhmmmmmm. Can anybody else cite a psychic or medium which has actually testified under oath in a U.S. federal court of finding a government spy? Or claimed to investigators of catching a Russian spy ring? Or testified before multiple federal courts of working and being hired and paid by the FBI (and apparently the CIA) of working cases? Or can you cite any another psychic videotaped before more than a hundred people during a 45-minute presentation at the invite of the Bill Clinton School of Public Service? Indeed, on February 9, 2012 she lectured at Sturgis Hall at the University of Arkansas that U.S. researchers "invited me up and that became a lifetime of my association with scientists and research. . . . They put neurons on my head.”

I mean if you're looking for a direct source for actual documentation --- not old second hand rumors and claims --- I'm just tossing out the most documented candidate for discovery. I suggest if our side has this much of a psychic wonder then surely Putin and his friends wouldn't overlook her.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

In response to my bringing up Noreen Renier. Hhhhhmmmmmm. Can anybody else cite a psychic or medium which has actually testified under oath in a U.S. federal court of finding a government spy? Or claimed to investigators of catching a Russian spy ring? Or testified before multiple federal courts of working and being hired and paid by the FBI (and apparently the CIA) of working cases? Or can you cite any another psychic videotaped before more than a hundred people during a 45-minute presentation at the invite of the Bill Clinton School of Public Service? Indeed, on February 9, 2012 she lectured at Sturgis Hall at the University of Arkansas that U.S. researchers "invited me up and that became a lifetime of my association with scientists and research. . . . They put neurons on my head.”

I mean if you're looking for a direct source for actual documentation --- not old second hand rumors and claims --- I'm just tossing out the most documented candidate for discovery. I suggest if our side has this much of a psychic wonder then surely Putin and his friends wouldn't overlook her.

I think that since Ingo Swann passed to the Great Beyond, US intelligent services have been severely lacking in psychic resources. Come to think of it . . . while he was still alive too.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

the US hired secret psychics have been extremely successful at the task they were hired for: giving an excuse for raising the military and intelligence budget.
Maybe Russian psychics are trying to cash out in a similar fashion.

 

[Scorpion]

Don't try.

We should use it to advantage - if they believe nonsense, give them some.

I'll see if I can start a group directing negative energy at Putin and Russia in general.

I already tried to kill Putin using telepathy. I concentrated on a photo of him and pictured him getting a brain hemorrhage. I know its bad karma to do that, but I am prepared to pay any price to see him dead before he starts a nuclear war.

 

[Bikewer]

Back shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union and that brief period of openness, Randi did a tour of Russia exploring the incidence of “woo”… And found plenty.

This was done as a PBS special, as I recall. He felt that years of authoritarian rule had predisposed the citizens against skepticism.

 

[Myriad]

I already tried to kill Putin using telepathy. I concentrated on a photo of him and pictured him getting a brain hemorrhage. I know its bad karma to do that, but I am prepared to pay any price to see him dead before he starts a nuclear war.

Don't do that.

If you want to get involved in spiritual warfare, read Dion Fortune's The Magical Battle of Britain to get a better idea of what works, what doesn't, and what blows up in your face. To very crudely summarize, your workings should be designed to strengthen what you want to protect and preserve.

Imagine Putin being completely aware whenever you were concentrating on a photo of him and picturing him getting a brain hemorrhage. Do you think that knowledge would have upset him, or pleased him? Now imagine him actually receiving harmful energy you were sending him. Do you think he would be damaged by it, or able to turn it to his own uses?

So far, you've probably been well protected from any bad consequences by the fact that your methods have been too crude even to backfire, like trying to make homemade bombs out of non-explosive materials. But you have the knowledge and imagination to find your way into much more dangerous alleys. You need better advice from within your own spiritualist roots before you get there.

 

[Checkmite]

Did the program seek to train soldiers in the use of psychic techniques? Or did it seek to examine the question of whether such techniques existed and were worth further exploration?

The point of the program and the experiments it undertook was to see specifically if people with alleged psychic powers could "remotely view" buildings and locations of strategic interest and learn and pass along militarily useful details about them.

The actual runners of the project - the ones who directed it and ran the experiments - weren't investigating to see if these abilities existed; they already completely believed in the reality of psychic powers and remote viewing and were undertaking to see if procedures could be developed to better intentionally control and direct such supposed "powers".

Of course, if you ask them (i.e., read their defenses of their work) their experiments were successful and compelling. The Army, obviously, decided otherwise and stopped funding it.

 

[Axxman300]

The point of the program and the experiments it undertook was to see specifically if people with alleged psychic powers could "remotely view" buildings and locations of strategic interest and learn and pass along militarily useful details about them.

The actual runners of the project - the ones who directed it and ran the experiments - weren't investigating to see if these abilities existed; they already completely believed in the reality of psychic powers and remote viewing and were undertaking to see if procedures could be developed to better intentionally control and direct such supposed "powers".

Of course, if you ask them (i.e., read their defenses of their work) their experiments were successful and compelling. The Army, obviously, decided otherwise and stopped funding it.

And to underline your point, the CIA said the exact same thing:

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00792r000600220001-7

In summary, this group is not a group standing by to do operational remote viewing and SRI is not set up to ac- quire intelligence information. This is all thrown together using whatever resources are available whenever a problem arises. This is certainly admirable on the part of both SRI and the various remote viewers but it is not the best way to acquire accurate data through application of remote viewing. The second operational group is the unit at Ft. Meade. It consists of Army person- nel who were selected and trained to do remote viewing. Their problems are that no selection criteria were available and they were submitted to an unevaluated training program which was completed by only one member who has now left the unit. Whereas the SRI group is managed by scientists with extensive experience in understanding and researching psi phenomena, the Army group has no one associated with it who has any understanding of psi phenomena or experience in researching or utilizing remote viewing. Since they are unaware of what can or cannot be done they over sell their capability and attempt any problem presented to them by customers. They also have no method by which to evaluate what they have done and therefore are not in a position to direct ap- plications research. While they have mounds of data it has not been synthesized in a -2- Approved For Release 2000/08/09 : CIA-RDP96-00792 0 00WO! KI -+G PAPERS  Approved For Release 2000/08/09 : CIA-RDP96-00792R0006 T 220001- WORKING PAPERS manner that can depict their success or failure in the mission they are charter to per- form. Essentially what you have is a group of amateurs, led by another amateur and being trained by yet another amateur.

While the CIA took the process seriously as far as conducting the familiar ESP tests and so on, the US Army (stop me if you've heard this before) sold itself on a bad concept, and ran with it while blinding itself with confirmation bias.

You have to remember that "psychic powers" meant different things to different agencies. The CIA, DIA, and US Army obviously felt it was worthwhile to pursue for intelligence gathering, and maybe mind control. Others researched telekinesis in the hopes of destroying incoming missiles, or throwing them off course, and wrecking other enemy technologies. The Army's psychic warrior concept was run under a lone colonel, and was to be a combination of psychic and psy-op specialists who could walk through walls, and kill with a single touch.

The thing they had in common was they never stopped to consider if the phenomenon was real, or if real, how it worked, and if it worked, would it work reliably. Sounds like the DIA went around in circles with remote viewing for a decade before dumping on the CIA, so they could kill it.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

One really cannot talk about this stuff without referring back to the researches of J. B. Rhine.

Once upon a time when the World was New, I was a True Believer in parapsychology as I had bought and read a copy of J. B Rhine's New Frontiers Of The Mind (1937). It made a very powerful case for the existence of extrasensory perception. He had made thousands of well controlled tests and the results meticulously recorded and evaluated. The results proved that that there was slight effect. Not by much, but better than chance! ESP was REAL.

Duke University established the Rhine Research Center (it still exists though no longer part of the university). And, although never really supported by mainstream science, the reality of ESP was firmly established in popular culture. Belief continued for decades

However, the experiments could not be replicated (except by a credulous few).

More detailed analysis resulted in a complete and utter debunking. One of the revaluations (and actually supported by a comment in Rhine's book) was that sometimes, when his subjects were having a particularly bad run of "luck", he became convinced that they were joshing with him and threw the results out. With these "wrong" points removed from the total data set -- eureka a slight positive effect.

A more complete story here: Joseph Banks Rhine^WP

 

[Checkmite]

And to underline your point, the CIA said the exact same thing:

I would take this with a large grain of sand, though. It seems to make valid criticisms of the Army's program, but keep in mind that the author appears to be someone at a civilian agency who considers themselves some kind of genuine authority on psychic powers and how to do remote viewing "right", and is making a case that the Army unit's assignments and responsibilities (and, presumably, funding) should be given to the author's group instead. The "SRI" the author refers to is the Stanford Research Institute, which at the time was connected with the actual Stanford University and had a department of people who researched "psychic abilities".

 

[rjh01]

If the West are going to get the Russians convinced that they are victims of psychic attacks then it should be something that cannot be disproven. Say the Russians suffered heavy casualties in a battle then let them know this was due to a psychic attack rather than the real reason. So the Russians do not learn the current lessons from the battle.
Then threaten to use the same tactic at a future battle and the soldiers may refuse to fight.

 

[Axxman300]

I would take this with a large grain of sand, though. It seems to make valid criticisms of the Army's program, but keep in mind that the author appears to be someone at a civilian agency who considers themselves some kind of genuine authority on psychic powers and how to do remote viewing "right", and is making a case that the Army unit's assignments and responsibilities (and, presumably, funding) should be given to the author's group instead. The "SRI" the author refers to is the Stanford Research Institute, which at the time was connected with the actual Stanford University and had a department of people who researched "psychic abilities".

Welcome to my world.

"They don't know what they're doing. Only we are the keepers of the true knowledge."

Remember in the early 1980s when the news was abuzz with reports of a Libyan hit team somewhere in the US, tasked with killing Reagan? Few years later, the late Jack Anderson reported this intel, excuse me, "Intel" came from an eleven year-old psychic. Hard to say which agency was forwarding this information. The FBI has no imagination. An off-the-books CIA research cell, maybe. Or DIA.

The quality parapsychology department "Exceptional Sensory Perception". They weren't psychic, just really good at reading body language, voice stress, body odor, and other super subtle indicators. This is why they stank at reading cards in another room, or failed. And we all know people like this, people who are quick observers. They're not psychic, just super perceptive.