Before Star Wars, the CIA Used “The Force”

In the Star Wars saga, Jedi warriors use their mental abilities to wield “The Force” in battle. A recent book, Reading the Enemy's Mind, details how for almost 25 years American intelligence agencies used very similar mental powers to combat enemies both foreign and domestic.

AUSTIN, TX (PRWEB) May 10, 2005 -- A new book details the United States government's use of “The Force” in defense of national security. "Reading the Enemy's Mind: Inside Star Gate – America's Psychic Espionage Program," by retired military intelligence Major Paul H. Smith (Tor/Forge, 2005) tells us that, unbeknownst to most Star Wars movie fans, the U.S. government began tapping the power of The Force as early as 1972.

In that year, the Central Intelligence Agency first contracted with a physicist and his associates at a government think-tank to research and apply remote viewing, a real variety of ESP, to ferret out the secrets of our Cold-War adversaries. The effort continued in secret for nearly a quarter of a century.Part memoir, part how-to, part expose and part spiritual odyssey, "Reading the Enemy's Mind" recounts true tales of intrigue, drama and seemingly miraculous feats.

In one documented case, a missile attack on an American warship was described 50 hours before the attack took place. In another case, remote viewers gave accurate details about a renegade CIA agent working for the KGB.

Maj. Smith eschews a “true-believer” attitude about the mental phenomena he observed, then experienced for himself. “I was mildly skeptical at first,” he says, “but soon came to realize that 'The Force' is real – in this form, at least.” He adds, “It seems to be available to anyone who puts out the effort and develops the necessary insights.” But there are pitfalls and cautionary lessons to be learned, and Smith documents these as well.

Understandably, there are those who are dubious of the military's leap into the practical application of psychic phenomena. But the recent release by the CIA of nearly 100,000 pages of previously-top secret information about the Star Gate psychic espionage program now make it much harder to dismiss. “The release of these documents is a turning point,” Smith notes. “Now there is validation to back up what I wrote about in my book.”

Thanks to his first-hand experience in the Star Gate Program, Smith was able to include much of what is contained in these documents in "Reading the Enemy's Mind." That material, along with hundreds of interviews with scores of remote viewers, scientists and military leaders who were directly involved, helps to make the book not just authoritative, but also exciting reading.

Others share Smith's enthusiasm. Well-known talk-show host George Noory, of Premiere Radio's "Coast to Coast" program declared "Reading the Enemy's Mind" to be “one of the most important books about human potential you'll ever read.”

And E. Elias Merhige, director of "Suspect Zero," the first major film to feature remote viewing, has this to say: “The implications of this book are revolutionary in our understanding of the human mind."

Paul H. Smith grew up in southern Nevada, graduated from Brigham Young University and, during his 20-year Army career, earned a Masters degree in Strategic Intelligence from the military's Defense Intelligence College. He is presently a graduate student in the philosophy PhD program at the University of Texas at Austin, and runs a remote viewing training company.For more information, visit www.rviewer.com.


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Depression linked to brain-circuitry gene

A GENE that leaves its carriers prone to depression works by weakening a critical circuit in the brain, according to new research that offers important clues to the commonest form of mental illness.
Changes in the way that the brain handles stress and negative emotion may explain why inheriting a particular version of a gene called 5-HTT doubles the risk of depression after traumatic events such as bereavement or divorce, scientists have discovered.


The link between 5-HTT and depression, which strikes one in five people at some point in their lives, was established two years ago by a team at King’s College London, but the biological mechanisms behind it were not previously understood.

The findings, by researchers at the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda, Maryland, published today in the journal Nature Neuroscience, could have implications for the treatment of an illness recognised by the World Health Organisation as the fourth-largest cause of long-term disability. It may suggest new antidepressant drugs.

The 5-HTT gene controls how the brain uses serotonin, a critical signalling chemical that is strongly linked to mood. The gene comes in two types, one long and one short, and each person inherits two copies, one from each parent.

A team led by Daniel Weinberger at NIMH scanned the brains of 94 people while they watched images showing fearful faces. This is known to activate the amygdala, a brain region that processes fear, and the cingulate, which handles emotion.

These two circuits, the researchers found, were “playing a duet under the baton of the depression-linked gene”. In people with two short versions of 5-HTT, the circuits were less active and were structured differently: they contained less grey matter — the type of brain tissue specialised for performing complex tasks — and had weaker connections between neurons.

By Mark Henderson, Science Correspondent

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1604187,00.html

Eureka Factor: A Corporate Secret Weapon?

Precognitive dream intuitions have produced numerous documented fortunes

By: RANDALL FITZGERALD

Intuition produces an inner experience variously described as vibes, hunches, gut feelings, a sense of certainty, mental voices, sensations of attraction, affinity, repulsion, or foreboding. We feel it through symptoms in our bodies, typically as an accelerated heart beat, warmth or tingling in the hands, goose bumps on the skin, a sudden inexplicable anxiety.
Paying attention to these physical effects and to our inner voice “is what successful people always do, whether they are conscious of it or not,” says psychologist Marcia Emery. “An intuition is not a whim, a good guess, or even blind luck. Intuition is a real force in every human psyche.”


Business intuition has been labeled ‘the golden gut,’ or the ‘Eureka factor.’ According to managerial experts it is the one quality that elevates highly successful executives into a league beyond their less successful counterparts. As The American Banker magazine put it in an article about CEOs and intuition, “those who understand intuition--and are courageous enough to use it--are combining it with brain power and moving to the head of the pack.” A similar point was made by Richard DeVos, founder of the Amway Corporation: “The guys that finally rise to the top are a limited group who run on their intuition.”

Roy Rowan published a book in 1986, The Intuitive Manager, that helped to revolutionize the perspective of business executives about the value of intuition. A member of the Board of Editors for Fortune magazine, Rowan described his interviews with a legion of American entrepreneurs as representative of those “who have taken enormous pride in their enormously profitable hunches.” These include the likes of such historical barons of industry as J.P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and H.L. Hunt.

Link: http://www.phenomenamagazine.com/0/editorial.asp?aff_id=0&this_cat=Altered+States&action=page&obj_id=3142&type_id=7&cat_id=118&sub_id=0

Tag: business intuition