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Jacobsen is a serious defense historian, so a journey into the realm of parapsychology may seem out of field. She treats the topic with due seriousness, relying on FOIA'ed archives and interviews with participants to trace the history of the US military's relationship with remote viewing, with brief forays into telepathy and telekinetic weapons.
Jacobsen begins immediately after World War II with Dr. Henry Karel "Andrija" Puharich, a medical doctor and army officer. While investigating mystic experiences with the support of wealthy East Coast socialites, Dr. Puharich became entangled with the CIA's infamous MKULTRA program, and an effort to scientifically study Mexican psychedelic mushrooms, with an aim towards weaponizing their human effects. Puharich research projects eventually focused on a Brazilian faith healer, and his funding dried up in the latter 60s, but he identified some key figures, Ingo Swann and Uri Geller (yes, that Uri Geller), who would become the focus of the next round of major efforts.
Under the aegis of the Stanford Research Institute, and with funding from the CIA and DOD, scientists attempted without success to find the source of ESP, and to make it reliable, focusing on "anchored remote viewing", where a psychic at an SRI facility would attempt to locate collaborators who were at a randomly chosen external location.
SRI's research laid the groundwork for the final and most ambitious psychic project, a highly compartmentalized Army lead effort eventually code-named Project Star Gate to train ordinary soldiers in remote viewing techniques, rather than seeking psychics from the general population. The final project worked through 1980s and the Gulf War, before being disbanded in a flurry of media attention as one of the participants blamed the project for destroying his marriage and subjecting him to demonic messages.
In between the major thrusts, we're treated to Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell's ESP tests in space, Soviet microwave weapons targeted at the US Embassy in Moscow, Chinese rocket pioneer H. C. Tsien's interest in paranormal phenomena, and Uri Geller's celebrity.
Jacobsen holds the pose of a neutral observer. These projects happened, some of the participants claimed at times they could perceive the world through uncanny means, and while the predictions of Project Star Gate seemed accurate in retrospect, it's difficult to say an "actionable" intelligence came out of it. Even today, the military funds research into the paranormal, with transcendental meditation workshops for veterans with PTSD, and a 2014 Office of Naval Research study into combat danger sense, the subconscious intuition that helps some lucky soldiers avoid death on the battlefield. For her pose of neutrality, Jacobsen is ultimately a believer. Uri Geller has powers, unexplained though they may be. Paranormal phenomena are real, not just some fluke of pattern recognition. James Randi and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry are close-minded dogmatists who go beyond ethical standards to debunk the paranormal, rather than honest brokers of truth. Jacobsen lacks the mocking edge of Jon Ronson's The Men Who Stare At Goats, and her book is better for it. Though the paranormal is a rounding error in defense R&D budgets, we deserve to have a clear look at why people hope for some impossible military edge.
And disclosure, I got a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a review. I received no other compensation.
Jacobsen begins immediately after World War II with Dr. Henry Karel "Andrija" Puharich, a medical doctor and army officer. While investigating mystic experiences with the support of wealthy East Coast socialites, Dr. Puharich became entangled with the CIA's infamous MKULTRA program, and an effort to scientifically study Mexican psychedelic mushrooms, with an aim towards weaponizing their human effects. Puharich research projects eventually focused on a Brazilian faith healer, and his funding dried up in the latter 60s, but he identified some key figures, Ingo Swann and Uri Geller (yes, that Uri Geller), who would become the focus of the next round of major efforts.
Under the aegis of the Stanford Research Institute, and with funding from the CIA and DOD, scientists attempted without success to find the source of ESP, and to make it reliable, focusing on "anchored remote viewing", where a psychic at an SRI facility would attempt to locate collaborators who were at a randomly chosen external location.
SRI's research laid the groundwork for the final and most ambitious psychic project, a highly compartmentalized Army lead effort eventually code-named Project Star Gate to train ordinary soldiers in remote viewing techniques, rather than seeking psychics from the general population. The final project worked through 1980s and the Gulf War, before being disbanded in a flurry of media attention as one of the participants blamed the project for destroying his marriage and subjecting him to demonic messages.
In between the major thrusts, we're treated to Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell's ESP tests in space, Soviet microwave weapons targeted at the US Embassy in Moscow, Chinese rocket pioneer H. C. Tsien's interest in paranormal phenomena, and Uri Geller's celebrity.
Jacobsen holds the pose of a neutral observer. These projects happened, some of the participants claimed at times they could perceive the world through uncanny means, and while the predictions of Project Star Gate seemed accurate in retrospect, it's difficult to say an "actionable" intelligence came out of it. Even today, the military funds research into the paranormal, with transcendental meditation workshops for veterans with PTSD, and a 2014 Office of Naval Research study into combat danger sense, the subconscious intuition that helps some lucky soldiers avoid death on the battlefield. For her pose of neutrality, Jacobsen is ultimately a believer. Uri Geller has powers, unexplained though they may be. Paranormal phenomena are real, not just some fluke of pattern recognition. James Randi and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry are close-minded dogmatists who go beyond ethical standards to debunk the paranormal, rather than honest brokers of truth. Jacobsen lacks the mocking edge of Jon Ronson's The Men Who Stare At Goats, and her book is better for it. Though the paranormal is a rounding error in defense R&D budgets, we deserve to have a clear look at why people hope for some impossible military edge.
And disclosure, I got a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a review. I received no other compensation.