PARAPSYCHOLOGY IN PERSPECTIVE

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Body:  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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