Chapter 39
REALIGNING SOME GARBLED HISTORY
There are three major purposes in creating this memoir. The first is to
show what remote viewing consists of -- and what and why what happened because
of it.
The second is to pay homage to all those many extraordinary
people somehow involved, and will otherwise be forgotten -- as they already
are except in my memory of them. But there were not just people -- they
became my support system, and later my espionage system when it became clear
I desperately need one.
Additionally, in the United States many are somewhat under the impression
that things just come about, or that they themselves can make things happen.
In my opinion, this is rarely if at all true. I’ll never know why I deserved
the interest and support of so many people. But their support was not only
just friendly, but crucial -- as will unfold ahead.
The third purpose takes a little bit of explaining.
In general, most of us tend to accept and trust what we find in books, and
I am no different in this regard. The reason for this is that we take for
granted the idea that authors are competent, especially when it comes to
some kind of historical topic.
In this sense, we believe that they could at least get the timelines correct
and which would seem a rather simple matter.
Well, remote viewing began in December, 1971, and
from that date thence proceeded to become something of an historical phenomenon.
I have lived through the whole of it until today -- and can bear witness
to the fact that EVERYTHING ever written about it is not only garbled, but
often "imaginative," and sometimes erroneous, motive-laden, misdirecting
and even deceitful. And this includes media, popular articles, books and
videos, commentary from government agencies and from the CIA.
I have watched this happen -- with the result that
one wonders how much of REAL historical activity ever appears in books recounting
the history. As a child, I heard that what gets into print may consist of
a few facts, thence distorted this way or that, the rest beyond the few
facts being Mierda del Toro.
But I truly never realized the extent of all this. And I dare say few will
-- unless they witness this discombobulating garbage as it occurs.
In the case of my grousing in this present chapter,
many who became associated with the project at SRI have ascribed the origins
of remote viewing to a number of different sources and causes. This actually
began quite early, and emanated from personnel who knew better. Since then,
the actual origins of the concept of remote viewing have disappeared altogether
from ALL reports purporting to immaculately investigate it. Some, whom I
know knew better, even have said that nothing was known at SRI about the
origins of RV.
The implication here is that Puthoff invited me
to SRI in the complete absence of ANY reason to do so, and that when I arrived
at SRI I was more or less like a completely unknown person snared on the
street outside -- thence to be tested as a subject. Surely this is heaping
idiocy on Puthoff’s head.
The fact of this particular matter was that I was
terrified by the prospect of flying out to a recognized and credentialed
PHYSICIST in, of all places, the nation’s second largest think tank -- and
anyone thinking that I did so empty-handed is casting a fair amount of idiocy
in my direction.
Indeed, the experiments I had been involved in, and which had attracted
Puthoff’s attention, were not parapsychology done in someone’s garage.
I was so nervous about this I made every effort to consult with those I
worked with as to what to take with me to SRI in the form of documents and
evidence.
In this regard, I have in my archives the foolscap
piece of paper upon which I listed what I should take with me, and which
I made up as a checklist so as to ensure that I wouldn’t forget anything.
I also intended to show (and did so) the same materials
to Dr. William Tiller, professor at Stanford University’s Department of
Materials Science and Engineering whom I had met in New York just a few
days before departing for California.
Bill Tiller was in New York to attend and give a lecture at the First Western
Hemisphere Conference on Kirlian Photography, Acupuncture, and the Human
Aura.
The Conference was held on 25 May 1972, in the hall of the United Engineering
Center. It was organized by Dr. Stanley Krippner, then in professional residence
at the Maimonides Dream Laboratory in Brooklyn, and was sponsored by the
Center for the Study of Social Change and the Foundation for ParaSensory
Investigation.
I attended the Conference, since I was very interested,
and Dr. Krippner mentioned various artists who intuitively had painted the
aura, Little Moi being one of them.
I later gave Krippner one such painting, which I understand he still displays
in his offices in San Francisco. Krippner also asked me to provide a short
statement, and which is included as Appendix C in the book entitled Galaxies
of Life (1973) authored by Krippner and Daniel Rubin. The book, more
or less, constitutes the Proceedings of the Conference.
Although today interest in Kirilian photography
has almost disappeared, explained away as electrostatic discharge (an "explanation"
that remains entirely inappropriate). But back then it was hot stuff, and
so the Conference was packed. The moderator of the first session was my
dear friend, the beautiful and ultra-dignified, Mrs. Lucille Kahn, whom
I have already mentioned. Tiller’s talk was entitled "Some Energy Field
Observations of Man and Nature."
But Lucille had had a small group up to her apartment to talk with Tiller,
and I had been invited.
At Lucille’s apartment, various aspects of the
work I had been part of were discussed. Those aspects included specific
reference to the out-of-body experiments designed by Osis, Mitchell, and
others. But also included as a specifically different kind of experiment
were those identified as the long-distance REMOTE VIEWING experiments.
The list of evidences I presented to Puthoff includes one signal and very
important item -- one which just about everyone has avoided or forgotten
about. But it is this one item (itemized as No. 8 below) which contributed
just about everything to discovering the structure of remote viewing and
ultimately made possible what came to be called "controlled remote
viewing (CRV)."
And it was to be the prospects of CRV which ultimately brought to the project
at SRI the larger amount of its funding.
Thus, in June, 1972, I brought with me to SRI the following items and evidences:
Xerox copies of five strip chart recordings achieved in Cleve Backster’s lab of events suggesting some kind of perturbation correlating with my attempts to probe a target substance.
Three similar photocopied examples of charts obtained as a result of the thermistor experiments with Gertrude Schmeidler.
A copy of Schmeidler’s first version of the paper reporting on these experiments. The final version was not published until later, as already noted earlier herein. However, I believe Schmeidler had already sent a copy to Hal.
Duplicates of seventeen photographic slides referring to the out-of-body targets and picture-drawing responses.
A draft copy of the Osis/Mitchell paper regarding these experiments, and which was finally rejected by the publishing committee of the American Society for Psychical Research.
Photocopies of all the initial remote viewing experiments, all of which were clearly identified, in Janet Mitchell’s handwriting, as "preliminary RV experiments."
Copies of the two outbound "beacon" experimenter remote viewing experiments conducted at the ASPR, clearly labeled as such.
A photocopy of my initial notes and preliminary paper regarding the discovery of the picture-drawing potentials, including speculation why such drawings were more efficient than verbalizing into tape recorders.
I also carried with me the folio of experiments with Dr. Carole Silfen regarding attempts to isolate perceptual qualities of ESP perception. These were originals since I did not have time to get them photocopied, and I brought them back with me to New York since they were a sort of mishmash, anyway.
With the exception of item 9 above, I left all
of these behind when I departed SRI on 10 June 1972. Although upon my return
to New York I told no one else I was back, and only Zelda knew that I had
gone in the first place, I telephoned Schmeidler to report to her. I then
met with her the next afternoon (Sunday, 11 June) at her office at City
College to discuss what Puthoff had thought of the evidences.
I’m sure he thought and said something, and I am sure I conveyed most of his comments to Schmeidler. But I do not today remember what they were. I do know that Puthoff was later in touch by telephone with both Schemidler and Osis to discuss the work in which I had taken part.