Psi-conducive States
Like other complex psychological processes, psi interactions appear to be modulated by individual differences (Palmer, 1977), emotional and motivational factors (Williams and Duke, 1979), the quality of interpersonal interaction between experimental participants (Honorton, Ramsey and Cabibbo, 1975), and particularly by the internal state of the subject.
Reports of naturally-occurring, spontaneous

Anecdotal accounts of apparent psi phenome recur frequently in the early literature ~f hyp sis and medita.tion. Psi phenomena were widely garded as the "higher phenomena of hy~notism" u til late in the nineteenth century (Dingwall, i967) . Similarly, in traditional meditation te psi effects or siddhis were claimed to be natur by-products of a sta.te of abstractio:i in which there is a diminution of ego-boundaries and sel object differentiation (Mishra, 1971).
controlled laboratory experiments support claim that dreaming, hypnosis, and medit~_~ion c psi-conducive states. Experiments in which sul jects have been tested for ESP in these states show stronger and more reliable ESP.effects the those obtained in studies where subJects perfo1 ESP tasks in tn~ir ordinary "waking" stat7. A_ cent survey of a\11 experiments performed in the area through 1976 shows significant overall ESI effects in 49 of the 87 experiments reported (Honorton, 1977). This is a 56% success rate, compared to the chance expectation of 5%. ConJ atory findings hav7 be~n report~d by 17 of the laboratories contributing to this data base.


---

r . Approved For Release 2000/08/11 C IA-RDP96-00792R00040024000·34'iii,tj·;i.j44i;illi.._
I

Vol. 5, No. 2 December 1987

02460. Luttenberger, Franz. Friedrich Zollner, s_P.iritualism, and four-dimensional space. Zeitschrift fur Parapsychologie und Grenzgebiete der Psycho/ogie, 1977, 19(4), 195-214. 19 refs
In 1877-1878, the astrophysicist Friedrich ZOiiner undertook a scientifically motivated investigation of spiritualistic phenomena with the American medium Henry Slade. At a visit in Great Britain in 1875 he had met Crookes and other spiritualists and had become acquainted with such manifestations. With his experiments he intended to prove a rather speculative theory of a fourdimensional space which had developed out of his considerations about the impossibility of bringing to congruity symmetric bodies in our concrete space, an idea which can be traced back to Kant. Zollner made efforts to design experiments with enduring results which were caused unequivocally paranormally-in his terms four-dimensional-efforts; among others we find the famous knot-test His reports contain descriptions of about fifty manifestations. In his opinion the proper cause of the phenomena were invisible intelligent four-dimensional entities. Zollner's theory of space and his interpretations indicate his rather mechanical view of life, and show--against his intcntions--a strong influence from scientific naturalism. Eventually an effort is made to outline some pre-conditions for such investigations at these times by a comparison between Germany and Great Britain. - DA/G.H.


"--· a lightproof box during the subject's concentration: Wave analysis. Part Ill Journal of the PS Institute of Japan, 1981, 5(3), 41-43. 3 illus; 6 refs
A series of experiments consisting of 13 sessions were conducted with Masuaki Kiyota, a 16-year old boy as subject in a laboratory of the University of ElcctroCommunications, Chofu-shi, Tokyo, from May 1976 to January 1979. The authors asked the subject to try to influence, as he might do during a thoughtography experiment, a silicon-photo-diode (SPD) placed along with a light-emitting-diode (LED) in a tin can shielded from both light and electromagnetism. [For further details, sec 03099 and 03102.] The main purpose of these experiments was to observe an interrelationship of physical light (LED) as continuous and intermittent lighting with Nen-Ba (thought field), and to compare the degree of difficulty in the appearance of "psi light" under conditions with and without
the physical light The results revealed: (1) The existence of the physical light did not prevent the occurrence of the thought field. (2) The thought field appeared as an extra light with no effect on the functions of the SPD or LED. (3) Psi light (as a thought field), therefore, behaves like a normal, visible ray. And (4) the psi light has a tendency to occur more frequently in a group-pulsating manner, whereas there exists a continuous physical light in the box. Furthermore, this series of experiments also examined the relationship between the group pulsing of the thought field developed in the light-proof box and the leakage from the power source (50 Hz) in order to detect leakage current, if any, as a normal explanation of these phenomena. - T.K.


As we showed last year, the hypothesis can be formulated which says that a condition can be produced during the linguistic interpretation that is particularly conducive in order to produce some PK effects by which a "nonintentional" modification of acoustic patterns could result in better equating the acoustic event to a linguistic model produced by the subject's mind. This hypothesis also fits with Stanford's "conformance behavior" model. In our set-up, the physical target of the PK is the electronic device by which the acoustic events are processed.
In other words, our present investigation involves the possibility of detecting some modifications in the electronic "processing" of the acoustic signals previously recorded. In our pilot attempts the subject was requested to listen (using headphones) to suitable signals, and his emotional involvement was monitored via an electronic device called the "oracle," wherein the subject asks the "oracle" to speak about some personal questions. In other words, the acoustic signals can be used as targets for a short projective test in which the subject is particularly involved. In order to improve the psychological connection between the electronic device and the subjects, we introduced some modifications into the circuits with respect to the previous instrumentation, and we also introduced feedback by means of a small light that flashes when the "oracle" speaks. With these modifications we have conducted an extensive investigation with quite a large number of subjects. No PK effect was detected. Nevertheless, experimentation is still going on in order to obtain a very large amount of data. - DAIR.AW.


03619. Martelli, Aldo. Experiences of collaboration with certain prestidigitators in the investigation of some presumably paranormal cases. Quaderni di Parapsico/ogia, 1986, 17(1), 61-68.
On several occasions, during our investigations and experimental researches on some supposed paranormal phenomena, we availed ourselves of the collaboration of two conjurors: Vanni Bossi and Alexander. In our opinion, such collaboration is useful and advisable. Obviously, one should consider certain difficulties, deriving, for instance, from the conjurors' engagements.
We agree with Vanni Bossi that it is not enough to have at our disposal a "tout-court" good conjuror. It is also necessary that the conjurer is practiced, not only in conjuring tricks in general, but also with those tricks that "paranormal" subjects could perform.
Thanks to Alexander's collaboration, we investigated a supposed phenomenon of water creation. The subject was a 15-year-old girl. This case proved to be a trick as the girl, thanks to her extraordinary skill, was able to put out the salivary secretion through her imperceptibly half-open lips. We also investigated a case of an 11-year-old boy who had been described as the protagonist of many extraordinary ESP and PK phenomena. In our presence, the boy was able only to make a thermometer mercury rise, by means of a "trick," unconscious perhaps, but soon revealed. Moreover, in 1978, in Milan, Alexander caught Geller bending a key by hand, simulating PK. He was able to reproduce the success in the same way.


tal course after entry (p < .01). Multivariant

Vol. 9, No. I June 1991
analysis separated the groups on the basis of the outcome variables (p < .0001). The control patients required ventilatory assistance, antibiotics, and diuretics more frequently than patients in the IP group. These data suggest that intercessory prayer to the Judeo-Christian God has a beneficial therapeutic effect in patients admitted to a CCU. -
DA
04570. Quinn, Janet F. An Investigation of the Effects of Therapeutic Touch Done Without Physical Contact on State Anxiety of Hospitalized Cardiovascular Patients. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, New York Umversity, 1982. 164,P.
The focus of this study was the explication of the means by which the nursing intervention of Therapeutic Touch is effective. Specifically, this research was designed to test the theorem that Therapeutic Touch without physical contact would have the same effect as Therapeutic Touch with physical contact. This theorem was derived from the broader conceptual system developed by Rogers (1970), whicti suggests that the effects oi Therapeutic Touch are outcomes of an energy exchange between two human energy fields. Since the effect of Therapeutic Touch with physical contact on state anxiety is known, state anxiety was utilized as a measure of the efficacy of Therapeutic Touch without physical contact.


A sample of 60 male and female subjects, between the ages of 36 and 81, hospitalized on a cardiovascular unit of a metropolitan medical center, were randomly assigned to the Experimental group, receiving Non-Contact Thcrapeut_ic Touch, or the Control group, receiving Nori-Contact. Each subject completed the A-State Self Evaluation Questionnaire (Spielberger, Gorsuch & Lushene), 1970) before and after the assigned intervention. It was hypothesized that subjects receiving Non-Contact Therapeutic Touch would have a greater decrease in posttest state anxiety scores than subjects receiving the Control Intervention of Non-Contact. This hypothesis was supported at the .0005 level of significance. In addition to the main hypothesis, two ancillary research questions were explored. There were no differences among the effects on subjects' state anxiety obtained by four different nurses administering Non-Contact Therapeutic Touch. Further, there were no significant relationships between subjects' sex, ethnicity, religion, medical diagnosis, presence or abs~nce of s_u:gery, ~umber of previous hospitalizat10ns, pos1t1on during treatment, number of days after surgery and subjects' response to treatment by Non-Contact Therapeutic Touch. Implications for nursing practice and research were identified. D.A.I. [Abstract published here with the permission of UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS INTERNAT~ONAL and may not be reproduced elsewhere without their prior permission.]


04571. Sncl, F.W.J.J., and Van der Sijde, P.C. Handling and gentling as functions of paranormal healing with normal and sick animals by non-healers. European Journal of Parapsychology, 1988/89, 7(2-4), 215236. 24 refs; 12 ta bles
T)1e effects of handling and gentling, as described in the literature, was studied in normal and sick animals. Weight-gain was the dependent

Approved For Release 2000/08/11 1~6clA-RDP96-00792R000400240003-5

Approved For Release 2000/08/11

Parapsychology Abstracts International
that the strict application of the double-blind method offers the researcher the guarantee of absolute objectivity in estimating results. - DA/R.A.W.
03616. Rigato, Mario. The possibility of suggestive influences in certain analgesic effects of magnetotherapy: A boundary problem between para-
psychology and unquestioned sciences. Quaderni di Parapsicologia, 1986, 17(1), 46-48.
The clinical effects of pulsed magnetic fields are easily controllable by means of radiography and other objective data. On the other hand, the purely analgesic effects declared by the patient are not controllable. Some authors suggest that a placebo effect is present. On this problem an experimental research program is presented to be carried out in collaboration with the Parapsychology Laboratory of The University of Utrecht. The aim is to point out some aspects which could involve academic orthodoxy as well as parapsychology. - DA/R.A.W.


03619. Martelli, Aldo. Experiences of collaboration with certain prestidigitators in the investigation of some
presumably paranormal cases. Quaderni di Parapsicologia, 1986, 17(1), 61-68.
On several occasions, during our investigations and experimental researches on some supposed paranormal phenomena, we availed ourselves of the collaboration of two conjurors: Vanni Bossi and Alexander. In our opinion, such collaboration is useful and advisable. Obviously, one should consider certain difficulties, deriving, for instance, from the conjurors' engagements.
We agree with Vanni Bossi that it is not enough to have at our disposal a "tout-court" good conjuror. lt is also nece~ary that the conjurer is practiced, not only in conjuring 'tricks in general, but also with those tricks that "paranormal" subjects could perform.
Thanks to Alexander's collaboration, we investigated a supposed phenomenon of water creation. The subject was a 15-year-old girl. This case proved to be a trick as the girl, thanks to her extraordinary skill, was able to put out the salivary secretion through her imperceptibly half-open lips. We also investigated a case of an 11-year-old boy who had been described as the protagonist of many extraordinary ESP and PK phenomena. In our presence, the boy was able only to make a thermometer mercury rise, by means of a "'trick," unconscious perhaps, but soon revealed. Moreover, in 1978, in Milan, Alexander caught Geller bending a key by hand, simulating PK. He was able to reproduce the success in the same way.


69-89. 43 refs; I table The author, a physician, discusses problems concerning
'"healers." For many years he has been investigating only

12
Approved For Release 2000/08/11 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000400240003-5

0IJ96-0140 I
Approved For Release 2000/08/11 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000400240063-5

chologie wul Grenzgebiete der Psychologie, 1972, /4(4), 244-251. 33 n;fs
In a survey of the literature concerning parapsychic phenomena and drugs, the author concludes that obviously only the use of so-called hallucinogens (such as LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, and, with reservations, hashish and marijuana) is associated with para psychic abilities, whereas the use of opiates (such as opium, heroin, and morphine) does not seem to touch this field. It is hypothesized that because of the different pharmaco-psychological functioning of hallucinogens, intoxication by these substances might be rather suitable for stimulating the aggressive and instinctive parts of man. They seem to be a characteristic feature of psi abilities also. Opiates, on the other hand, do not seem to affect this sphere because these substances are mainly narcotizing. The effects of cocaine, amphetamines, tranquilizers, and soporifics cannot be judged on the basis of the surveyed literature. It is shown that the possible relevance of drug use to parapsychology is completely ignored by most textbooks dealing with drugs, the authors of which are mainly medical men, psychiatrists, or pharmacologists. - G.H.


01396. Schmidbauer, Wolfgang. On the psychology of the oracle. Zeitschnft jUr Parapsychologie und Grenzgebiete der Psychologie, l972, 14(4), 222-234. [Originally published in Psychologische Rundschau, 1970, 21, 88-98.) 30 refs
The author describes various practices of oracles with reference to ethnographic reports and attempts to sketch a model that optimally includes psychological aspects in these reports. The function of trance within the oracle and its sociopsychological moorings (shamans) are pointed out. An analysis of oracular practices with principles derived from projective tests shows certain structural similarities with the situation in which a person seeking advice finds himself. - DA/R.A.W.
ITALIAN LANGUAGE
LUCE EOMBRA (Editor: Paola Giovetti)
01397. Di Simone, Giorgio. The "Entita A." case. Luce e Ombra, 1985 (Jan/ Mar), 85(1), 22-29. 8 refs
After a long preamble mostly dedicated to the historical and technical aspects of the seances of "Mister X" (a trance medium whose name he is not allowed to mention), the author underlines the great importance of the revolutionary contents of these seances, which took place in Naples more than 30 years ago (about 1950-1980). These contents are extremely logical, rational, and coherent, and the author collected them in several books, first ofall Rapporto dalla dimensione X, (Roma 1973/84). The author mentions also the experiments he organized (1971 and 1974) in order to check the independence of the supposed communicating "entity" (Entita A) from the medium (comparative analysis of the voices with the "voice-print" method and an EEG of the medium, awake and during his speaking-trance). - DA


METAPS!CHICA RIV/STA ITALJANA DI PARAPS/COLOG/A
01401. Crosa, G. Report of the First International Congress on Parapsychology ofthe Italian-Swiss Center for Advanced Studies. Metapsichica Rivista /taliana di Parapsicologla, 1969 (Jul Dec), 24(3/4), 109-116.
Thanks to the hospitality of the Italian-Swiss Center for Advanced Studies (Campione d'ltalia), the First International · Congress on Parapsychology of Campione d'ltalia was held on March 29, 1969. The general topic was Mysterious Psychic Phenomena. Introductory speeches were made by Mr. F. De Baggis, Mayor of the host town; Dr. Naegeli-Osjord, President of the Schweizer Parapsychologische Gesellschaft; and Mr. E. Mengoli, President of the Associazione ltaliana Scientifica di Metapsichica. In this report we have the main features of the papers presented by four M.D.s and psychiatrists (Crosa, Granone, Naegeli-Osjord, Cassoli) and the theologian Resch are summarized. During the evening session some slides about hypnosis (with commentary by Granone) and one about Ted Serios were projected, followed by a discussion masterly directed by Prof. Beonio Brocchieri. In addition to the previously mentioned speakers, presentations were made by two medical doctors, lnardi and Buscaino; a newspaperman, Altavilla; and a theologian, Pisoni, who cleverly aroused the participation of the public. The Proceedings have been published by Silva of Rome. - DT / R./\.W.


works published just in the 3 years 1969-1971 by S.A. EGOROV, P.V.
ZAGRYADSKI, F.D. MORDVINOV and N.B. YAKOVETS and their co-authors from the Kirov Military-Medical Academy in Leningrad, fall especially into the area of psychophysiological research in connection with ergonometric questions, and only peripherally have something to do with parapsychology (see also Appendix 3, Author list).
III. It was reported again and again in the rainbow press that the military and the secret police were behind the russian efforts to get a scientific grip on parapsychology.
The contents of these statements could never be substantiated and the soviet open-source literature on parapsychology also gives no reliable evidence. Certain revelations in the past years in the USSR have made assumptions that research has been done here - but these and the research results were and will be held in secret.
Signs of the efforts of soviet parapsychologists to use telepathy as a world-wide telecommunications system for cosmonauts between one another and between earth and the cosmonauts in space were already visible in the 50's. In 1967, the russian trade paper "Marine Report" wrote that cosmonauts in space can "get together (mentally) with each other easier than with people on earth. Psi-training was said to have been taken up on the cosmonauts training program. Supposedly, phenomenal psi experiments between soviet cosmonauts and scientists on the earth were said to have been conducted. The dates and results of these experiments, however, were not published in open-source literature, so a firm evaluation of these efforts is not possible.


In a purely news-report fashion, the subject-complexity of parapsychology in the USSR and its application by the military and the KGB is contradictory, based on, in part, conflicting rumors:
In 1977 a specialist in Psychiatry from the Serbski Institute in Moscow, with a good possibility of insight into the situation declared in an article named "CONTROLLED BY THE KGB" which appeared in "Der SPIEGEL" (4 JUL 771, that Psi in the USSR was an unrealistic sensationalism of half-truths and the fantasies of
4

Approved For Release 2000/08/15 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000500210001-9

Approved For Release 2000/08/15 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000500210001-9
journalists. Parapsychology was not a recognized science in the USSR. The arrest of the American journalist TOTH at that time didn't reveal that parapsychology in the USSR could have been seen as a state secret. It could have dealt with a completely normal paper of the KGB which a western journalist took from a soviet citizen.
SG1B
In the USSR, "Psi capabilities of biological systems" is the theme of exhaustive studies. The buzz-words for it are "Bioenergy" and "Hypersensitivity". In the area of the so-called EMV-/EMC research a newly named scientific trend, under the buzz-word "Psychotronic", shall be researched Ito see) if it is actually a latent human possibility to be able to activate one's bioelectric field to join with distant objects and subjects.


The principal of "Laying on of the hands" as a diagnostic tool for the sick will be conducted in the Poly-clinic of the State Planning Committee of the USSR in Moscow, which is situated directly under the Health Ministry.
To the list of institutes which are occupied with the problem of "the nature of the biological energyfield" belong, among others: The Institute for Psychology, Moscow, 37a Vavilova St. (Director, B.F. Lomov>, fields of study: research of the material basis of the Psyche; psychological problems in its relationship to the driving of modern technology; Psychophysiology of the brain. These take place in cooperation with work in "the laboratory for cell physiology and synaptic control" of the "Institute for Higher Nerve Activity and Neurophysiology", Moscow, and with the "Department of Kinetics Chemical and Biological Processes" of the Institute of Chemical Physics (N.N. Semenov)", Moscow.
This project also addresses research into the "KIRLIAN-effect", the physical proof of "finger radiation", which, for example, might allow lay practitioners to make diagnoses, to achieve healings with this particular process, triggered on the skin of the human body or on the surface of various plants. Equipment necessary for the proof of the "KIRLIAN-effect" was developed and built in the "Special Construction Bureau" for the "biological apparatus building" in Puschtschino. Connections with the application of psychoparmacopia


There appear to be the reports of telepathy and telepathic hypnosis, like hypnosis per se, which the most basic research and the widest development of reports of soviet parapsychology.
In 1962 L.L. VASILIEV, in his book on experimental studies of "mental suggestion'', showed the advanced position of (such> pertinent research in the USSR. Efforts toward the aimed telepathic manipulation of human consciousness seem to have played a large role in telepathic hypnosis. Research and application of hypnosis is wide spread in the USSR. It is used in medicine, psychotherapy, physiology, psychology, psychiatry, and in experimental education. Also the possibility of the development and application of drugs for the augmentation of hypnosis was reseat-ched.
Soviet scientists such as LL. VASILIEV, I.M. KOGAN, V. MUTSCHALL, V.F. BASSIN, M.V. AVAKUMOV, I.D. DUBROVSKI, V.L. RAIKOV and P.A. SLOBODYANIK, with their co-authors have made names for themselves in the above named reports for the timespan of 1968 on. The exceptional works published just in the 3 years 1969-1971 by S.A. EGOROV, P.V. ZAGRYADSKI, F.D. MORDVINOV and N.B. YAKOVETS and their co-authors from the Kirov Military-Medical Academy in Leningrad, fall especially into the area of psychophysiological research in connection with ergonometric questions, and only peripherally have something to do with parapsychology <see also Appendix 3, Author list>.


In November 1986 a western scientist with the opportunity of good insight into the research and application of medical ~onosis in the USSR transmitted the fallowing details:

Medical hypnosis is used intensively in the.kl fiel4'in the USSR. The primary work "Chemical and Experimental 4Jpnosis'' by WILLIAM S.
KROGER serves as the groundwork for the basis of corresponding intended research. The basic research for the subject area of
"medical hypnosis" is carded out in the USSR at the8f!4!}1ov /
';!it~~=n~g~siklf~ J~f~i~i!·~·181t.t·~;~f;t!h1 ~t~b~;~~i =~i ;~; ~'ea:i !~in
"psychosomatic medical word", and this hypnosis will be inserted

6

Approved For Release 2000/08/15 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000500210002-8

Approved For Release 2000/08/15 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000500210002-8
into several areas of operative medicine, but also therapy for the alleviation and elimination of pain, as it deals with neurologically conditioned pain. Beyond that, various groups have been schooled in the basis of the so-called "~goo_ttc _lnflueqc~"', such as a scientist to whom important assignments have been given, or those appointed to special interest organizations in western countries, and also c:g<jjmona11ts taking a 3-mdrith hypnosis tt-aipipg couqffi.._ That means that if the person tries to gain a "photographic memory", it enables him to faithfully recapture visuals, audials, and even after a longer time, pictures and letters. Insofar as the above contents of these "service reports" which refer to the tangle of miuM=ior K~B interests, are whole_, but also only


his targets was a cireµJar restaurant on a bridge tower high above
methe Danube River in Bratislava, the 1983 conference city. It was
thrilling for to visit this exotic target, the Cafe Bystrica, and observe for myself that the distance separating the viewer and the target didn't interfere with the accuracy of her perception. 'The · viewer in this experiment was six thousand miles away in Wisconsin. As you will recall, she described the target's location as "... near ... a very large expanse of water ... boats ... vertical lines like poles .. ·. a circular shape like a merry-go-round or gazebo.... it seems to have height."
At the conference, two Soviet researchers, Dr. Andre Berezin, a biochemist, and Dr. Konstantine Goubarev, a theoretical physicist, told me about a variety of interesting projects. The one I found most striking was an experiment in apparent rat telepathy, in which two groups of caged rats were housed a mile apart. Each group had been conditioned to move to the left side of their cage when a red light was turned on, to avoid an electric shock to their / feet. After both groups were reliably conditioned to this response, 1 a computer-controlled experiment was carried out using individual rats from each group. The researchers found that when one rat was randomly signaled and shocked, his brother rat (litter mate) in the distant cage would also move to the left side of his cage. The timing signals and selection of which rats were to be shocked


The Soviet Union bas many people who are well respected as psychic healers. We hope that the new Soviet acceptance of this
important field will give their psi research in it a tum toward more humanitarian directions and away from stopping frogs' hearts,
starving mice; raising burns on visitors' skin, and the other seem-
ingly aggressive applications described in the epilogue. Before he left, Gulyaev wanted to take picttires of the SRI psi
researchers in front of the laboratoty building, especially including our very attractive secretary.
At the end of this chapter we present an update on this material based on our recent trip to the Soviet Union, ·

.[ (
i::!
·1

PSYCHOTRONIC CONFERENCE IN BRATISLAVA
In June 1983, I (R.T.) attended the Fifth International Conference on Psychotronic Research, in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, which gave me another opportunity to talk with Eastern researchers about their latest ideas and experiments.
The International Association for Psychotronic Research (IAPR) has broad interests, covering many borderline areas of science. These include, principally, psycbotronic interactions with physics (the physics of consciousness and mechanisms of psychic functioning), medicine (psychic healing and dermo-optic perception or "skin" vision), and geology (dowsing for water, natural resources, and favorable places to build houses or barns).


Toward the end of our visit we were taken to the city of Yer-

evan, in Soviet Armenia, where remote-viewing experiments had

been carried out in the Industrial Psychology Laboratory at_ the

state university..Yerevan, southeast of Istanbul and north of Bagh-

dad, was warm and sunny, in contrast with the snow we left in

Moscow. It was also a much more relaxed environment, with

people strolling around a large illuminated fountain in the city

square in the evening to listen to music.

··

On our first full day in Yerevan we visited the university and

spoke with some members of the Armenian Academy of Sciences.

Then, in a laboratory full of arcade-type video games used to study

hand-eye coordination, we met with Professor Rubin Aguzumt-

sian, who had carried out a careful series of remote-viewing trials.

The ~et sites for this study were chosen by an architect-a

good idea in this city of remarkable structures dating from almost

with many researchers who expressed the hope that there could be continued open communication in this field. They all expressed the feeling that psi's importance lies in the development of human potential, rather than in its possible military applications. But everyone we talked with also made some oblique reference to what we were not being shown. For example, we khew that the Popov Society laboratory nm by Professor Spirikin had been closed down several years ago. On this trip we learned that it has now been re-opened under the direction of Dr. Alexander Chemetzky. We were even told that the laboratory is now called the Founnany Street Lab. We were not, however, told what sOrt of work this lab is currently engaged in.·


72
5. (U) Where the Soviets are going to go with Raikov's work is open to conjecture. There is some indication that the Soviets believe that Raikov's work and the CCAP device may lllllock many of the mysteries behind ESP and other psi phenomena. If any of the above is true, this work may be a new way of looking inside and catching the subtle interplay between thought and body, psyche and soma. The CCAP device may have a much wider use than charting the mental states of reincamated artists.
PAR!' D - Telepathic Hypnosis
1. (U) According to Ostrander and Schroeder (75), the ability to put people to sleep and wake them up telepathically fr.Q.!!1..i!_ drstance of a few yards to over a thousand miles became the most tnorougfily tested and perfecteu contribution of the Soviets t~~ international parapsychology. It is reported that the ability to control a person's consciousness with telepathy is being further studied and tested in laboratories in Leningrad and Moscow. The work was started in the early 1920s but was not publicized until the early 1960s. The work was begun by K.O. Kotkov, a psychologist from Kharkov University, in 1924. Kotkov could telepathically obliterate an experimental subject's consciousness from short distances or from the opposite side of town. The work was documented by Vasilev (62) who conducted research of his own but could not reveal :lt undei: Stalin's regime. The reality of telepathic sleepwltke, backed by columns of data, might be the most astonishing part of Vasilev's experiments in mental suggestion. See reference 62, pages 75 through 88.


..

ll~Jtl a~~IEIITL

,:(

•. Approved For Release 2000/0810'9' :c1~-'R'DP96-007~2R000600320003-4

ST-CS-01-169- 72 July 19"/2

of consciousness by ESP is another question. During telepathic

sleep is an individual simply dreaming his own private dreams

or does someone else hold sway? The current Soviets have not

d1aivtiumlg~edo

f

the psychological consciousness.

details Vasilev

about their telepathic describes some revelatio

ma ns

nipuin

his book (62) but little else has been reported. Doctor Stefan

Manczarski of Poland predicts that this new field of telepathy

will opEm up new avenues for spreading propaganda. He feels.

that the electromagnetic theory is valid and believes, therefore,

that telepathy can be amplified like radio waves. Telepathy would

then become a subtle new modus for the "influencers" of the world

(139). Doctor Manczerski's wave ideas are still very debatable,

but what about telepathy someday becoming a tool for ·influencing people?

~·. (U) Hypnotizing someone telepathically probably comes over as a more eerie, mystifying, almost diabolical act in the US than it does in the Soviet Union. The US is really just becoming adjusted to some of the aspects of hypnotism. Since the turn of the century, the Soviets have been exploring and perfecting the various advantages that hypnotism provides. In the Soviet Union,


SECTION II - CONDITIONING THROUGH SUGGESTION
PART A - Hypnopedia
1. (U} The subject of hypnopedia or sleep-learning has been openly discussed in the Soviet literature for the past decade (142-161}. One of the most thorough Soviet reports has been prepared by Bliznichenko (162) in 1966. Dodge and Lamont (163) have published a report that covers the field of hypnopedia in the Soviet Union through 1968. Further elucidation of this subject in this report, with the exception of a discussion of possible trends in this area since 1969, is believed to be redundant and unnecessary.
2. (U) The last decade of Soviet hypnopedia research has led ·them into new concepts of memory improvement. It is believed that areas such as subliminal perception and subconscious learning with hypnosis were borne from the basic research involved in hypnopedia training. The most recent indication of new Soviet interest in utilizing the subconscious as a reserve for the retention of facts .is a booklet written by L. I. Kuproyanovich (164). This book describe·s the equipment and technical means used for improving roomory as well as the prospective uses of cybernetics for memory retention. One of the more interesting features of this book is a discussion on subliminal acquisition of facts. This is an area of concern when one is speaking of conditioned behavior or mental alteration. It is also an area seldom discussed in open Soviet literature. PART B of this section will briefly discuss some Soviet work in subliminal perception and possible uses for this technique.


196 The Journal of ParapS'J. logy

.

Parapsychology in the Ibero-American World

197

Mexico
Mexico has been known for a long time as the land of the sacred mushroom or peyotl, a plant used by the Indian shaman to induce an altered state of consciousness, which allegedly facilitates the manifestation of psychic powers. This country. has also been a major source· for many parapsychological researchers interested in unorthodox psychic healing practices. Famous curanderas (healers) such as Marfa Sabina and Dona Pachita have been extensively investigated by Stanley Krippner and other famous parapsychologists {Krippner & Villoldo, 1986).
Although Mexico has been a major source of study for many parapsychologists from foreign countries, psychical research has not flourished there as it has in other countries such as Argentina and Spain. Moreover, even though the country is located on the southern border of the United States and has been subject to very strong American cultural influence in almost every aspect of life, the dominance of the United States has not been a factor in the development of parapsychology. Even though in the United States there are more parapsychological research centers than anywhere else in the world, very little is known in Mexico of their research. Most of what is known about serious parapsychology comes from Latin American countries such as Brazil. For example, the writings of Quevedo are well known in Mexico, and also most of what is known generally comes from popular magazines.


Early efforts to study psychical research within a scientific framework in Mexico began in 1919 with the isolated efforts of such researchers as the German-born medical doctor Gustav Pagenstecher, the first researcher to conduct serious psychical research in Mexico. Pagenstecher was a very well-known and respected physician in the

Mexican medical community as well as in political circles. In the course of his career he delivered speeches before two presidents of Mexico, Diaz and Obreg6n (Allison, 1943).u
A respected member of the medical profession, Pagenstecher said he had been a materialist for forty years when he had his first encounter with the paranormal. It was during a hypnosis treatment of one of his patients who had insomnia that he discovered the remarkable psychical gifts of Maria Reyes de Zierold. Pagenstecher began a series of psychometric experiments with her in 1919. The results were so striking that he brought them to the attention of the Mexican medical society, which appointed a commission to verify them. Pagenstecher also decided to write to the ASPR and send some of.the results he had obtained. The results induced Walter Franklin Prince, Research Officer of the ASPR, to go to Mexico to investigate the case. After a series of experimental sittings with Zierold, Prince was so impressed with the results that he decided to publish them in the Journal of the ASPR in 1920 (Pagenstecher, 1920). Prince later. published another paper in which he discussed the experiments in which he participated (Prince, 192lb). Moreover, the ASPR published a monograph by Pagenstecher entitled Past Events Seership: A Study of Psychometry (Pagenstecher, 1922).


It is unfortunate that one can find no serious parapsychological publications in Mexico at the present time. There are only some popular magazines on the topic, such as Duda [Doubt]. is
Conclusion
So far, I have surveyed the past and present positions of parapsychology in several Ibero-American countries. But what does this conglomeration of names, societies, and research centers mean? First of all, as I have pointed out, my purpose was to familiarize the English-speaking parapsychologists with the work of their colleagues from other countries, especially those researchers who have been in

the field of parapsychology for many years but whose work and publications have been neglected in the major English-language journals. Second, I have reviewed a variety of parapsychological activities so as to provide the reader with insight into the different approaches to psychical research in different countries as well as into the cultural, geographical, and historical factors that have colored parapsychology in those countries. Some of the information provided is new and, may I say, very interesting. The ~iff~rent research methodologies pursued by the parapsychologists m these countries range from the empirical quantitative approach of the Argentinian group, who follow the Rhinean S~hool, to the ~heore~cal and Spiritualistic approach shaped by the mfiuence of ideological and cultural constructs of the Brazilian Spiritists and Catholic re-


there are very few Ibero-American members in the PA, an ortilini-
zation that claims to be international.'
It is my hope that this brief summary will bridge the gap created
by the language barrier and will remedy the previous lack of for-
mation, thus fostering communication between Ibero-America8 re-
searchers and their English-speaking colleagues. The increaE of
communication with parapsychologists in the Ibero-American un-
'(st<
lbero-American members account at the present time for less than 8% of the
Parapsychological Association members (Parapsychological Association, 1991).

Producer: Adobe Acrobat Pro 11.0.16 Paper Capture Plug-in
Subject: PARAPSYCHOLOGY IN THE IBERO-AMERICAN WORLD - MEXICO
Title: PARAPSYCHOLOGY IN THE IBERO-AMERICAN WORLD - MEXICO
---

. 196

Release 2000/08/11 : CIA-RD'.96-00792R0007000900cf1t!;aPsychology in the Ibero-American World

197

most extensive ever to be ele psychologic ~sociation.
Mexico
Mexico has been known for a long time as the land of the sacred mushroom or peyotl, a plant used by the Indian shaman to induce an altered state of consciousness, which allegedly facilitates the manifestation of psychic powers. This country has also been a major source for many parapsychological researchers· interested in unorthodox psychic healing practices. Famous curanderas (healers) such as Maria Sabina and Dona Pachita have been extensively investigated by Stanley Krippner and other famous parapsychologists (Krippner & Villoldo, 1986).


Mexican medical community as well as in political circles. In the course of his career he delivered speeches before two presidents of Mexico, Diaz and Obreg6n (Allison, 1943).u
A respected member of the medical profession, Pagenstecher said he had been a materialist for forty years when he had his first encounter with the paranormal. It was during a hypnosis treatment of one of his patients who had insomnia that he discovered the remarkable psychical gifts of Maria Reyes de Zierold. Pagenstecher began a series of psychometric experiments with her in 1919. The results were so striking that he brought them to the attention of the Mexican medical society, which appointed a commission to verify them. Pagenstecher also decided to write to the ASPR and send some of...the results he had obtained. The results induced Walter Franklin Prince, Research Officer of the ASPR, to go to Mexico to investigate the case. After a series of experimental sittings with Zierold, Prince was so impressed with the results that he decided to publish them in the journal of the ASPR in 1920 (Pagenstecher, 1920). Prince later published another paper in which he discussed the experiments in which he participated (Prince, 192lb). Moreover, the ASPR published a monograph by Pagenstecher entitled Past Events Seership: A Study of Psychometry (Pagenstecher, 1922).


elarly since they are deeply rooted in their tradition and cultural~er-

itage (Gomezharper de Along with courses

Trevino, 1990). for the general

public,

the

Mexican

S~ety

is the only organization that offers an officially required cours~ for

candidates to the priesthood studying at the Instituto de la Arque-

di6cesis de Mexico. Members of the Society have also conducted ex-

~

200 The Journal of Parapsychology
perimental research with Kirlian photography (Trevino, 1975) and field investigations of haunting cases and poltergeists.
Some parapsychological conferences have been organized in Mexico-for instance, the Congreso Internacional de Parapsicologia held in 1984 in Mexico City. The Society also organized the Primer Simposio de Parapsicologia Cientifica held in 1984. At this meeting a number of PA members presented papers, among them Marilyn ~hlitz and Stanley Krippner (Gomezharper de Trevino, 1990).
0 Another conference worth noting is the one organized by the
gewly created Sociedad Mexicana para la Investigaci6n Esceptica. g'he first Latin American skeptics' conference was cosponsored by gsICOP and convened in Mexico City in 1989. The conference in~uded speakers such as Ray Hyman and James Alcock, as well as ~veral psychologists from the University of Mexico. The new Mex~an society of skeptics headed by Mario Mendez has launched a $>urnal called El lnvestigador Esceptico, which will be made available ~roughout Latin America for Spanish-speaking readers.


Mexican medical community as well as in political circles. In the course of his career he delivered speeches before two presidents of Mexico, Diaz and Obreg6n (Allison, 1943). 11
A respected member of the medical profession, Pagenstecher said he had been a materialist for forty years when he had his first encounter with the paranormal. It was during a hypnosis treatment of one of his patients who had insomnia that he discovered the remarkable psychical gifts of Maria Reyes de Zierold. Pagenstecher began a series of psychometric experiments with her in 1919. The results were so striking that he brought them to the attention of the Mexican medical society, which appointed a commission to verify them. Pagenstecher also decided to write to the ASPR and send some of..,the results he had obtained. The results induced Walter Franklin Prince, Research Officer of the ASPR, to go to Mexico to investigate the case. After a series of experimental sittings with Zierold, Prince was so impressed with the results that he decided to publish them in the Journal of the ASPR in 1920 (Pagenstecher, 1920). Prince later published another paper in which he discussed the experiments in which he participated (Prince, 192lb). Moreover, the ASPR pub-lished a monograph by Pagenst~cher entitled Past Events Seership: A Study of Psychometry (Pagenstecher, 1922).


Approved For Release 2003/09/10 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000700100001-9

198 The journal of Parapsychology
Another development in parapsychological activities in Mexico occurred in 1937. A team of medical doctors, headed by Dr. Enrique Arag6n, formed a special commission to investigate an alleged case of poltergeist activity surrounding a thirteen-year-old Mexican boy named Joaquin Velazquez Villavicencio. As part of the investi'*ation, the team tried to measure the level of RSPK energy, using ,..!a special apparatus called a sthenometer designed by the French 2Psychical researcher Paul Joire to detect PK forces (Gomezharper de gTrevifto, 1990). Arag6n's contributions were important to parapsyd:hology in Mexico because of his prestigious position and his aca$emic attainments. Arag6n was at one time president of the Uni8'ersity of Mexico and was also founder and Director of the Instituto ~e Psiquiatria y Psicologia there. He conducted field research on ~aunting cases, precognitive dreams, and fraud in Spiritism. ~ In 1939, Arag6n founded the Circulo de Investigaciones Metac;ipsiquicas de Mexico.12 The aim of the Institute was to conduct a ~cientific investigation of a case of alleged materialization produced gpy the most famous medium in the history of Mexico, Luis Marti01lez. The medium started his activity when he was six years old and ~legedly could produce incredible phenomena, such as lights, apUports, direct writing, direct voices, levitations of objects, and so d"orth. The attention drawn by the case led to the participation of ~edical and political men in the sessions. Two ex-presidents of


~exico were said to have participated in the seances (Garofano,
gi.988). Other work worth mentioning is that conducied by the Jesuit ~riest and psychical researcher Carlos Maria Heredia. He recorded a5everal observations and experiments in which odors (or other stim-
~li)-associated with forgotten experiences were presented to the sub-
-meet, theoretically causing an imbalance in the subject's subconscious D;nemories associated with the odor which, in turn, induced a tele~athic transmission of the forgotten experience to a nearby perci-
~ient (Heredia, 1931/1945).
~ For Heredia, telepathy and spontaneous case occurrences were S"airly acceptable; however, phenomena of the seance· room were to &i-im anathema. Having developed some skills as an illusionist, he ~sed to tour the country demonstrating mediumistic manifestations,
12 This research group later changed its name to Instituto Mexicano de Investigaciones Slquicas, which also published a detailed account of the seances with the medium Luis Martinez which lasted for over ten years. The publication was called Una Ventana al Mundo Invisible [A Window to an Invisible World] (lnstituto Mexicano de Investigaciones Sfquicas, 1960). Another interesting dimension of this case is the participation in the seances of two well-known Mexican psychical researchers, Gustav Pagenstecher and Carlos Marfa Heredia.


A physicist oi the Institut Universitaire de Technologie in Mulhouse (France), Dr. Serge Jacquey, in 1980 reported unusual phenomena that had been a constant source of disturbance and

alarm to Carmen S., to her husband, Jean, and to their little son Michel. Dr. Jacquey hoped that collaboration with the Freiburg Institute might be of help to those concerned. Obviously, this was a rare case of poltergeist disturbances which subsequently were investigated by the author in several interviews, lengthy tape recordings, filmed reconstructions, and the provocation of RSPK phenomena under hypnosis. The focus person was the Spanish-born wife of a technical designer; even in her youth, she seemed to have triggered RSPK phenomena. She produced drawings automatically, and apparently she was the leading force in automatic spelling with the ouija-board method. The poltergeist manifested itself over the years in well-known uniform patterns: beds were moved about, pillows and covers were pulled off, locked doors were inexplicably opened, the contents of cupboards were found to be in disorder, objects disappeared and reappeared, sounds were mimicked, penetration phenomena occurred, and so on. Conspicuously, many of the incidents were aggressively aimed at the focus person. The psychological motivation for this could only be speculated about. Thorough psycho-diagnostic and depth-psychological examinations were planned but could not be carried out because the family was about to leave for Guadelope in order to escape the poltergeist. In their new surroundings they found peace, although even there they experienced strange phenomena such as rosaries fallrng from the sky. The latter events will be reported in detail elsewhere. - DA/G.H.


the types and limitations of medical verification attempts,

and the effect of transitory cures on the healers'

movements and support are emphasized in an evaluation

of the two healers. Journalistic hyperbole regarding the

number of "cures" and the nature of those "cures" is

compared with the results of the author's own follow-up survey of clients of Arigo. Of a sample of 836 clients, only three claimed they were fully cured, 15.5% improved, SS.5% had no change, and 3.9% felt they were prejudiced by the treatments (self-reports). The effects of the healing for 25.1% could not be analyzed. The author concludes
that the successes of these healers relied heavily on propaganda adorned with hyperbole, on the cures of hysterics
who propagated the successes, and on other "cures" of a psychosomatic type brought about by some form of context
hypnosis. - P.V.G.

01943. Anicvas, Joaquim. Notes and notices. Revista de Parapsicologia, 1973, 1(4), 14-17. 6 illus
Eight brief notes and notices on (1) a parapsychology course in El Salvador; (2) an inheritance left to the A.S.P.R. by James Kidd; (3) a request for spontaneous cases by Rex Stanford; (4) a humorous anecdote on British spiritualist, Maurice Barbanell; (5) a biofeedback course at Esalen Institute; (6) the new presidency of the Argentine Society for Parapsychological Studies (La Sociedad de Estudios Parapsicologicos); (7) a satirical account of mediumistic messages from H.G. Wells; and (8) synopsis of a Russian scientist's article claiming evidence debunking


scious s0urces an'd mofivations, and· this interpretation is

contrasted with the !Jrazilian Spiritist (a form of spiri-

tualism) perspective.-~ ~.V.G.

·

29

oa csiis, they g, who
these iis prin:asc and erefore, ~he cornomcna cd into directly, ;ion obe event
• T.K.
-vc pro- l'ara-
P works SP opea or il•hen the
which, is which :.I to be of ESP eative aneously image is the creamcs true illuminaand the union of II as the and the
•RSC and ~e Japa-
20-24. 5
r 44 days author as was con·.ions: the
and the .d of the score of s, one of ated with elow the associated
is called ;on. Five ;ording to frequently F group). -11er group rence was_ : and LF called less 1 the two
between Proceedogy, 1968,
le subjects dationship i the ESP

J!fpprevettff'rc~l!'Je!r!le82000/08/11 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000700340002-2

score. They were asked to conduct 4 runs of a clairvoyance test with standard ESP cards by themselves and report to the author their ESP scores and their physiological conditions. One of them, M.K., took her basal body temperature (BBT) every morning just before leaving the bed; the other subject, Y.O., reported to him the date of the beginning and end of her menstruation. The results revealed that ESP scores in the low temperature phase were higher than those in the high phase, and that the former scores were above chance except for one case, whereas all of the latter were below mean chance expectation. These results suggest a relationship between ESP and BBT, although the difference in the score between the two conditions was not significant. The ESP score of Y.O. was the highest (p = .0000036) at the beginning of her menstruation and gradually declined toward the end of it. Furthermore, the differences in the score between the day before and the first day of the menstruation and between the first and the last (fifth) day of it were statistically significant. - T.K.


Hon. Secretary Ralph Noyes B.Sc. Hon. Treasurer A. D. Cornell, M.A. Secretary Eleanor O'Keeffe
Honorary Computer Research Coordinator Betty Markwick, B.Sc.
Honorary Spontaneous Cases Liaison OfficerJohn W. Stiles
Honorary Education Officer Bernard Carr PhD.
Local Centres and Research Coordinator Jane Henry, B.A.

vVhile recently some vVestern authors\[rom foreign countries seem to be more and more interested in 'Brazilian Psi' 1 w\1ether from a clinical, anthropological or research perspective, some local investigators are also active in the field. For 50 years H. G. Andrade, director of the Brazilian Institute of Psychobiophysical Research (IBPP), and his collaborators have dealt primarily with spontaneous cases like poltergeists. In 1984 he published an extensive review ofa case, taking place in the Greater Sao Paulo, in a monograph entitled 'O Poltergeist de Guarulhos'. Andrade and his collaborators did not witness the RSPK events themselves but visited the family 7 times (between 1973 and 1984) and collected about 6 hours of tapes from various witnesses, some ofwhom were members of the family and some not. They also took numerous photographs of damag<::d objects and people who had been physically attacked. The aim of this paper is to present this RSPK case, apparently rich in macro-PK events, to the larger parapsychological community and also to present alternative interpretations of the reported events. As we shall see, Andrade opts for a 'spiritist' account; yet the living agent hypothesis, which he considers 'a reductionist hypothesis' (p. 69), may be more parsimonious.


with half-root red (sic)! p NOMENA AND ALTERNATIVE
ANDRADE'S INTERPRETATION OF THE HE

HYPOTHESES Andrade interprets

the

differ~nt

type~

ofJ~~arnrdenacet rsa pd ri teisoenn.t Ti nh ethUismbcaas~e daas

supportive of a spiritist world view m t e . Uy in the bigger cities. It combmes
rAreeflliragitciioavnne,lhyCasaretshceeovn1e.itcra,elIxmntrdia"li-laeinoc,nclaaendsd.hiaessrtp:i.mc~tuc~oseuntstspeholeoelcimr1dsaaet(niGtosrneaenondffipmeoladpy,u1lba9er8c7Ch; aaBrtharcootrneiscro1·isznme, d1w?a~~i6tah;

aMnocinetnatgnAof,ro1-9B8r5a)zihliaavn?serecctse.nStloy.meembaphtahs1.wzeitdhitnheanimd poourttsaidnecehoosfpt1.htias1s.Br-a',_z.1..h',a.,,I.}.-

was found some days later at the roadside near the house, with all her documents but without the money (pp. 42-43). Marcos noted that the money didn't disappear ifhe kept it with him in his pocket or at his mother's home (p. 36). In Stage 2 branches of rosemary also appeared (May 1974) in Marcos's jacket pockets and on the window sill (pp. 12-13). Some months after (August 1974) when they moved into their second house, Marcos found under the bed some plates which had disappeared in the first house; then the poltergeist activity began again (p. 20). In Stage 3 when they first moved into their third house (September 1975) they found crossed knives and rosemary (the plant) under their bed and the mattress (pp. 46-49). These occurrences ceased after the Church minister's intervention but recommenced two months later. They also


Some of the most important developments, however, took place during the last two centuries. At the educational level, it is important to note the work of Celinda Madera who, during the 1970s, offered a series of courses and lectures at different campuses of the University of Puerto Rico. Madera's courses focused on the humanistic and transpersonal aspects of psi. She herself had received training at Duke University's Parapsychology Laboratory (Alvarado, l 979a).
In 1974, Nestor A. Rodriguez Escudero, a lawyer, published a series of essays about parapsychology and Spiritualism in his book Los Caminos de Dios. He discussed a great variety of paranormal phenomena. His main objective was to show that parapsychology demonstrates the spiritual aspect of man (Rodriguez Escudero, 1974).
Another development in 1977 was the creation of the Instituto de lnvestigaciones Psicofisicas at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagiiez campus. Founded to conduct investigations in parapsychology and related areas, the Institute carried out studies of various parameters of Kirlian photography and of the effects of hypnosis on ESP. However, these research investigations were never made available for publication. During this period Alfonso Martinez Taboas began to publish a newsletter Explorando lo Paranormal, a semipopular magazine later edited by Carlos Alvarado starting in 1976.


manifestations of apparent telekinesis and materializations (Alva-

rado, 1987; Ponte, 1914).

Later Ponte returned to Puerto Rico and tried to reproduce the

same phenomena with local mediums. He reported some of his find-

ings on materializations of body parts during seances to Walter

Franklin Prince, then Research Officer of the ASPR. Ponte's work

was important because of the critical and empirical approach he

brought to his research on seance phenomena (Alvarado, 1979a).

10 This section on Puerto Rican parapsychology partly summarizes information contained in an article by Alvarado (1979a).

The theoretical ideas of Ralph U. Sierra are also interesting. Sierra, who was interested in the psychology of ESP, believed that to develop telepathy it was necessary to develop first an internal state of tranquility so that the electrical activity of the brain did not interfere with the telepathic process (Sierra, 1966).
Some of the most important developments, however, took place during the last two centuries. At the educational level, it is important to note the work of Celinda Madera who, during the 1970s, offered a series of courses and lectures at different campuses of the University of Puerto Rico. Madera's courses focused on the humanistic and transpersonal aspects of psi. She herself had received training at Duke University's Parapsychology Laboratory (Alvarado, 1979a).


In 1974, Nestor A. Rodriguez Escudero, a lawyer, published a series of essays about parapsychology and Spiritualism in his book Los Caminos de Dios. He discussed a great variety of paranormal phenomena. His main objective was to show that parapsychology demonstrates the spiritual aspect of man (Rodriguez Escudero, 1974).
Another development in 1977 was the creation of the Instituto de Investigaciones Psicofisicas at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagiiez campus. Founded to conduct investigations in parapsychology and related areas, the Institute carried out studies of various parameters of Kirlian photography and of the effects of hypnosis on ESP. However, these research investigations were never made available for publication. During this period Alfonso Martinez Taboas began to publish a newsletter Explorando lo Paranormal, a semipopular magazine later edited by Carlos Alvarado starting in 1976.
Martinez Taboas and Carlos Alvarado wrote articles on parapsychology in Spanish for the Spanish journal Psi Comunicaci6n; they also published in other journals. Their articles covered a wide range of topics. Among these, Alvarado wrote on experimental studies of OBEs (1976), historical precedents of the so-called psychic discoveries behind the Iron Curtain (1978), the use of historical knowledge (1979b), and on]. B. Rhine (1980). Martinez Taboas published a review of the problem of repeatability in parapsychology (1979), critiques of psychological and physiological concepts of poltergeist research (1977, 1980, 1984; Martinez Taboas & Alvarado, 198i), and a discussion of the concept of parsimony applied to parapsy-


Producer: Adobe Acrobat Pro 11.0.16 Paper Capture Plug-in
Subject: PARAPSYCHOLOGY IN THE IBERO-AMERICAN WORLD, PUERTO RICO
Title: PARAPSYCHOLOGY IN THE IBERO-AMERICAN WORLD, PUERTO RICO
---

194.

The journal of Parap~J1Wgy.ted For Release 2003/09/10: p1A-RDP96-00792R000700i1~'t~ in the Ibero-American World

195

minished by increasing communication and, collaboration with foreign parapsychologists.
Puerto Rico 10
Early psychical research in Puerto Rico was strongly influenced by the nineteenth-century Spiritualist movement that had also spread to other countries. Mediumistic seances in which raps and communication with the spirits were common drew attention mostly from people with a religious interest.
It was perhaps this influence that led Agapito Morales to publish in 1904 a more critical examination of these phenomena. In his booklet Breve Tratado de Hipnotismo, Magnetismo, Espiritismo y Sugestoterapia, Morales contended that all those occurrences could take place without assuming the action of spirit agencies. He interpreted possession as being autosuggestion and attributed paranormal phenomena to our own psychic faculties. He considered that all of the experiments made until today demonstrate that there is an invisible force in our being that is capable, for instance, of playing a guitar, lifting a table, or tiffing our own bodies. According to him this force is under our control. He also believed that mediumistic communication could be explained by means of telepathy between the medium and the sitter.


Some of the most important developments, however, took place during the last two centuries. At the educational level, it is important to note the work of Celinda Madera who, during the 1970s, offered a series of courses and lectures at different campuses of the University of Puerto Rico. Madera's courses focused on the humanistic and transpersonal aspects of psi. She herself had received training at Duke University's Parapsychology Laboratory (Alvarado, 1979a).
In 1974, Nestor A. Rodriguez Escudero, a lawyer, published a series of essays about parapsychology and Spiritualism in his book Los Caminos de Dios. He discussed a great variety of paranormal phenomena. His main objective was to show that parapsychology demonstrates the spiritual aspect of man (Rodriguez 'Escudero, 1974).
Another development in 1977 was the creation of the Instituto de Investigaciones Psicofiskas at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagiiez campus. Founded to conduct investigations in parapsychology and related areas, the Institute carried out studies of various parameters of Kirlian photography and of the effects of hypnosis on ESP. However, these research investigations were never made available for publication. During this period Alfonso Martinez Taboas began to publish a newsletter Explorando lo Paranormal, a semipopular magazine later edited by Carlos Alvarado starting in 1976.


1216. Warcollier, Rene. A new test for studying the psi-missing problem in ESP. In Proceedings of the First International Conference of Parapsychological Studies. New York: Parapsychology Foundation, 1955, 112-113. - Psi-missing appears not to

be an exclusively parapsychological phenomenon, but seems also

to be psychological, physiological, and even physical. Low scores

IV. ARTICLES ON PARAPSYCHOLOGY IN

reached with Zener cards may often result from preferences or

GENERAL INTEREST MAGAZINES

aversions felt by the subjects towards one or more of the figures. To

1211. A conversation with Keith Harary:"Almost everyone has psychic abilities." U.S. News and World Report, 1984 (May 7), 96( 18), 73. 3 illus. - Harary gives his views of the nature of psychic functioning, and describes the basic procedure involved in remote viewing. He also touches briefly on U.S. and Soviet government interest, research at SRI International, and military implications of psi. - R.A.W.

eliminate emotional content from images, we have created a test constituted of a series of similar but slightly varying figures. All are visible to the subject constantly, in heterogeneous sequence. He does not realize exactly which of them he crosses out, so that the process remains unconscious. One stimulus is used, as compared with five in the Zener cards. This test is intended to determine whether ESP is an accumulative process, whether repetition of the same stimulus in eight lines manifests itself by an accumulation of


an indispensable condition. And the ease and speed with which group trials can be made fails to demonstrate "polypsychism."
Consciousness can undoubtedly prevent the working of subconscious activities, including the supernormal. Gardner Murphy has rightly observed that it is in dreams, hypnosis, and automatism that the paranormal appears because normal inhibitive functions have disappeared. In certain intermediate states, however, the subconscious opposes conscious activities, and may oppose the supernormal. Yet in certain passive moods the separation between the conscious and unconscious states is not clear-cut. This may lead to a mingling of introspective effort and imaginative projection. Subtle fluctuations in states of consciousness between waking and waking-sleep are sufficient to influence ESP favorably or un-
favorably. - DT/R.A.W.

1214. Truzzi, Marcello. China's psychic savants. Omni, 1985 (Jan), 63-64, 66, 78-79. l illus. - Quite detailed account of exceptional human functions in China, such as seeing with the ear or the armpit, beginning with the story of the I I-year-old Tang Yu, the first of the many so-called psychic children of China to receive public attention. Truzzi describes the reception of these children, officially and by Chinese researchers. A first-hand account is provided of his visit with a group of parapsychologists who went to China to study the children. They were not able to do so under good conditions. Those they did observe were unable to demonstrate the phenomena. Although the Chinese research is sanctioned ;)y the government, more recently the Communist Party has ordered that the research be done quietly. - R.A. W.


 our query it can be seen that in both conditions words like fantasy
 stimulating, mentally relaxing, and quiet making received approxi-
 mately equal scores.  Quite a number of subjects (almost ten) ex-
 perienced the Ganzfeld stimulation as rather negative.  Added to
 this is the fact that the Ganzfeld stimulation may specifically in-
 fluence the experiences of the subject.  For example, some subjects
 reported having thought of running water or of sitting in an air-
 plane, experiences which they related to the white noise.  Some of
 them reported that they found this very confusing in the rating
 procedure.
 Approved For Release 2000/08/15 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000700960003-3

Producer: Adobe Acrobat Pro 11.0.16 Paper Capture Plug-in
Subject: A PROTOTYPICAL GANZFELD PSI EXPERIMENT WITH A CONTROL CONDITION
Title: A PROTOTYPICAL GANZFELD PSI EXPERIMENT WITH A CONTROL CONDITION
---

Approved For Release 2000/0R/15: CIA-RDP96-0079?ROOn7nngsooo3-3

40

P"apers

GanzI'eid 'Sfud1es

41

The low-absorption subjects simply increased their rate of speech quite slowly throughout the session. These findings indicate a characteristic, discriminative "signature" of high-absorption persons as individuals who rapidly develop a strong involvement with Ganzfeld mentation (as reflected in speech rate) and who sustain it through at least the third quadrant of the session.


Subjects who, as evidenced by this temporal "signature," quickly become involved with Ganzfeld mentation and sustain that involvement for a considerable period should, as a consequence, experience the session as shorter in subjective duration than those who do not. This was confirmed when quadratic trend for words per minute was correlated with subjective time estimates; rs = .197,
110 df, p = .019, one-tailed.
Transcript-based verbal indicators can elucidate both the cognitive consequences of arousal and the development of internal attention states. This methodology is objective, unobtrusive, nonreactive, and free from the potential biases of self-report methods.
A PROTOTYPICAL GANZFELD PSI EXPERIMENT WITH A CONTROL CONDITION
A.G. van Dalen, L.R.B. Dias, J.M.J. Murre, and S .A. Schoutent (Parapsychology Laboratory, University of Utrecht, Sorbonnelaan 16, 3584CA Utrecht, The Netherlands)
The present experiment is an attempt to bring some further evidence into the Ganzfeld debate. One of the claims made for Ganzfeld studies is that they are supposed to be more successful in detecting ESP compared to non-Ganzfeld conditions. Therefore, it seems strange that so few experiments include a control condition in which Ganzfeld stimulation is compared directly with a nonGanzfeld condition, because such a comparison is directly relevant to the question whether Ganzfeld stimulation is psi conducive. Schouten (Research Letter, Parapsychology Laboratory, Univ. of Utrecht, [No. 11], 1981, 67-96) gives an overview of Ganzfeld studies which included 34 reports.


A TEST OF HEYMANS' THEORY ON PARANORMAL PHENOMENA
Sybo A. Schouten (Parapsychology Laboratory, University of Utrecht, Sorbonnelaan 16, 3584CA Utrecht, The Netherlands)
Professor G. Heymans (1857-1930) can be considered the founder of the scientific and experimental approach in parapsy- , chology in the Netherlands. Internationally he is best known for the telepathy experiment with the subject van Dam, carried out in his Psychological Laboratory at the University of Groningen together with his assistants Brugmans and Weinberg. Less well known are his theoretical views on paranormal phenomena and the rather unique way by which he became involved in parapsychology.
Heymans was a philosopher and based his philosophical position on the work of Fechner. In Fechner's ideas, which were further developed by Heymans, the hypothesis of psychic monism or "pan-psychism" takes a central position. Psychic monism is an offspring of an idealistic world view that supposes that there is only one fundamental reality and that all physical phenomena are reducible to the mental or psychic. According to the psychic monistic theory, paranormal phenomena such as telepathy are to be expected. In addition, the theory provides a number of predictions about various properties of paranormal phenomena. Therefore, Heymans became interested in the work of the British SPR and turned to the parapsychological literature of his day to study whether the properties of paranormal phenomena were in agreement with the theoretical predictions he had arrived at beforehand.


The content of the individual consciousness changes regularly. Which images enter the individual consciousness is governed by the laws of association and depends on the nature and intensity of an image, its emotional character, and its association with other images. Especially strong are the perceptions, and accordingly they have a high probability of becoming the object of awareness. Perceptions evoke the mental structures of which they are part. Also likely to reach consciousness are recent events , images strongly associated with the present content of the consciousness, and strong emotions. On the other hand, weak images of the peripheral consciousness will only become conscious to the individual under favorable conditions; for instance, in the absence of sensory stimulation. There is constant competition among perceptions and mental structures of the peripheral consciousness to occupy awareness.
Because nature is considered as basically mental it can be assumed that the processes involved in the individual's consciousness also apply to the world-mind. There is no fundamental difference between the two. An individual is made up of various mental structures which become more and more a structural unit when the individual develops. Such structural units, the individuals, are in themselves again elements of a larger whole, the world-mind. That individuals are not aware of their association with other elements of the world-mind is because in general only perceptions with its assofiated mental structures and elements of one's own peripheral consciousness will reach the individual consciousness. Since these mental structures are familiar, because they are based on the individual's experiences of the past, a sensation of individualism is created. But individuals share experiences and therefore associative connections are formed in the world-mind between mental structures of different individuals. Hence, a mental image in one individual might give rise to an associated mental structure of another


From the theory a number of predictions can be derived as regards telepathy. Telepathic experiences will be rare but must occur occasionally. They can be expected to occur when sensory stimulation is absent or has little influence; for instance, in the case of Ganzfeld conditions. Associations are the vehicle by which telepathic impressions become possible. The more associations two individuals have in common the higher the likelihood that sometimes via these associations elements from another person's peripheral consciousness will reach the other's consciousness. Thus, telepathic experi€nces will be more common between people who are related and who share many experiences. The importance of the experience to an. indivi<;J.ual will increase the possibility that it becomes associated with a mental structure of the percipient; therefore, telepathic experiences will relatively often be related to important and serious events. The telepathic experience will have no characteristic of its own because the mental structures of which they are part have in principle the character of vague memories or thoughts. It is as if the percipient suddenly remembers something. Because the weak mental images to which the telepathic elements are associated are most often memories, the telepathic "message" should often start as a memory or be embedded within memories.


A free-response study was carried out to test whether the importance of this concept in ESP could be falsified. Two different type of targets were employed with 21 pairs of related subjects. One set of targets consisted of important experiences the target person shared with the percipient while the other set of targets consisted of important events in the life of the target person not shared with the percipient. According to Heymans' theory, ESP scoring should be higher in the condition in which shared experiences are employed as targets. No ESP was observed in the data; hence, no conclusion could be drawn as regards the importance o.f the concept of associations for ESP.
EXPLORATION 0 QUASI-THERAPEUTIC PROCESS AS A VEHICLE FOR FAC ITATING ESP

Heymans' theory also leads to some interesting predictions as regards the survival issue and ghost experiences. If a person is aware of a sensory stimulus, that awareness will disappear once the stimulus is removed. However, a memory trace weaker than the original perception remains, which, however, gradually weakens. The same applies to the mental structure that represents an individual. As loni; as the individual lives on, the development of his mental structur; continues. Once this person dies the development halts and the mental structure of that individual becomes gradually weaker. Hence a living person, for instance a medium, might again by association get access to the mental structure of the deceased, if that individual has died not too long before, and provide details about that individual's life. This might create the impression of life after death and communication from beyond.


1
Approved For Release 2000/08/15 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000701000001-9

Approved Fo~ Release 2000/08/15 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000701000001-Q .

The Relentless Questton

lntroductzon

My Family Background

they were still young and, as she never remarried, she h~d to bear the burde1 of bringing them up on her own. A woman of e~cept~onal energy, ~he h:i

My parents were Russian Jews who settled in London shortly before the

never truly retired and now runs her own school m Milton Keynes m Bed

First World War. It was a time whenJews were leaving Russia in large numbers to escape discrimination and conscription into the Tsarist army. Most of them settled in the United States. As readers of the stories by Bashevis Singer will know, there was a rich vein of supernatural and mystical beliefs among the small Jewish communities of Eastern Europe. My parents, however, could be described as assimilated Jews. Their links with traditional Judaism were of a sentimental rather than pious nature. Indeed they prided themselves on their modern emancipated outlook-this was especially so with my mother, the more educated of the two. We children were given a mildly conventional Jewish upbringing but it never went very deep with any of us. I went through a typical phase of adolescent piety but before I was out of my teens I had lost completely my faith in a deity and nothing that has happened to me since has caused me to change my mind. Hence I was cut off thereafter from one traditional avenue to the supernatural, one that has meant a great deal to many of my friends and contemporaries.


In 1962 James Drever II offered me a jobt in the Department of Psychology of the University of Edinburgh although he made no secret of the fact that he was an avowed skeptic with regard to parapsychology. We moved there in the winter of 1963 and Edinburgh has been my home ever since. At Edinburgh I was required to teach psychology on a broad front but no objection was ever raised, either by my superiors or by my colleagues, to my making parapsychology my primacy research area, a fact which, I think, speaks well for British tolerance. Moreover, Drever's successor, the late David Vowles, though himself a neuropsychologist, took a benign attitude towards the paranormal. I was lucky in obtaining some private funding that enabled me to hire a research assistant.
Our first systematic research program was an attempt to replicate the work of Milan Ryzl of Prague who was then claiming to be able to train ESP using hypnosis. What gave substance to these claims was the presence of his star subject, Pavel Stepanek, who, after having undergone this training, was scoring consistently in a nonrandom way on a test of clairvoyance to the satisfaction of parapsychologists from several different countries who went to Prague for the sake of testing him. Stepanek, I may say, performed in the waking state, not under hypnosis. In 1964, with help from the British Council, I went to Prague myself to test Stepanek and make contact with Ryzl. Although the results I obtained with Stepanek were disappointing (Ryzl and Beloff 1965), I was favorably impressed with Ryzl himself and we duly went ahead with our program at Edinburgh. It eventually became clear, however, that, for whatever reason, we were getting no learning effect (Beloff & Mandleberg 1966). A few years iater Ryzi defected from Czechoslovakia and went to live in the United States, at first to work for J.B. Rhine, then later settling in California. He has never subsequently furnished convincing proof that he has found a method of


training ESP which remains one of the supreme unfulfilled goals of the parapsychologist. Later we tried other training techniques such as the "waiting" technique, as described by Rhea White (1964) but with no better success
(Beloff & Mandleberg 1967). At Edinburgh I made the acquaintance of John Smythies, then of the
Department of Psychiatry, now at the University of Alabama. Smythies already had a long-standing interest in parapsychology and and we even collaborated on an experiment he wanted to try using his brain-damaged patients (Smythies & Beloff 1965) but we had no luck here either. Smythies had been commissioned to edit two books for Routledge, Brain and Mind (1965) and Science and ESP (1967), and I was invited to contribute to both volumes. It was, once again, Smythies who proposed me for the Council of the Society for Psychical Research, to which I was elected in 1964 and to which I have been reelected continuously ever since. Much later, after Smythies had migrated to the United States, he invited me to coedit with him a volume of solicited articles defending the dualist position on the mind-body problem, a position to which bod of us in our different ways adhered. By then, however, times were harder fo; the publishing trade and Routledge turned us down. Eventually, however, the University Press of Virginia came to our rescue (thanks to the good office of Ian Stevenson) and our book, The Case for Dualism, has now at las


*Both have. show_n goouJwtt·1.1 towards me. E.ysenck wrote a fiavorab;1e revi.ew of my

eluding my siste.r Nor.a, that I realized this just in time to prevent m·y mdakir

Psyc_holog1cal Sciences andKoestler citedit in the Observer, that Christmas, as among his

a fool of myself m prmt (Stevens?n & Belo~ 1980~- J:Iowever, I ~~rv1ve the

2 1choice ofbooks ofthe yeaApproved For Release 2000108115 : CIA-RDPgs.oo"f~o RSoc87'o~00~0~ ~~1d my basic conv1ct10n that ps1 IS real.

Approved For Release 2000/08/15 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000701000001-9

12 The Relentless Question

Introduction

13

answer may be, it is by no means simple or straightforward. In our common desire to unravel the truth, I find the skeptics much less ready to see things from our point of view than we are from theirs.
I retired in October 1985. Never having occupied a chair, I could not then become "emeritus" but thanks to the good offices of our new head of department, Robert Grieve, I have been made an "honorary fellow" of the department and am allowed to retain a room there and use the university facilities. Hence, though I no longer teach, I am not cut off from my natural community of scholars. I still keep a fatherly eye on what goes on in the department anc help, where required, with the supervision of graduate students. I am stir editor of thejournal of the S.P .R. but, more than anything else, I have an urg{ to write. Always conscious of the inordinately long time it took me to find m: feet in life, I am anxious to have my say before it is too late. Meanwhile I alsc like to keep up with my large international correspondence.


Section B: Subjects had to rate a list of phenomena, which fell into the following groups: "real"--ball lightning, acupuncture, dreams, meteorites, hypnosis; "psi"- -ESP, psychic healing, telepathy, mind over matter, clairvoyance, poltergeists; "anomalous"- Bigfoot, Atlantis, UFOs, spontaneous combustion, Abominable Snowman, Loch Ness monster; "false"--alchemy, phrenology, flat earth, astrology. The phenomena were rated on a seven-point scale, 1 (not real) to 7 (real).
Section C: Subjects chose a passage which was either for or

Approved For Release 2000/08/15 CIA-RDP96-00792R000701020004-4

l
d

I
I

86

Approved For Release 2000108/15 :j1CIA-~l?00792R000701020004-4

87

against parapsychology, and said how much they agreed with it on a three-point scale, 1 (strong agreement) to 3 (mild agreement).
Section D: Subjects had to rate the importance of religion and science on a four-point scale, 1 (major influence) to 4 (no influence).
The subjects were asked to fill out the questionnaire and return it the following week. Those subjects who were participating in the Differential Psychology course (88 students) were approached a few weeks later and handed a questionnaire (Rotter's Locus of Control, labeled "l-E Scale"). At a later stage permission was granted for other personality data (from an Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, or EPQ test) to be made available to the author for the purpose of this study. Seventy-six subjects returned the original "Attitude Survey" questionnaire, 35 of whom also returned the Locus of Control scale. EPQ data were available for 37 subjects.


Subjects who had a higher psi rating (i.e., rated psi as valid) were more inclined to believe in the validity of anomalous phenomena (p < 0. 01). These subjects also had higher ratings for the real group of phenomena (p < 0. 0005). Males were also more likely to rate the real and anomalous groups higher than did females (p < 0.05). Subjects with a high psi rating reported more experiences than subjects with a low psi rating, although there were no significant differei:ices in their evaluations of these experiences. There were no personality differences between these two groups, or groups with more extreme psi ratings.

, there were no personality differences between those subjects who I expressed strong agreement and those who didn't. Subjects who
chose Passage A had a higher rating for the psi group (p < 0.0005), the anomalous group (p < 0. 001), and also the real group (p < 0. 05).
The mean reported ratings were 2. 4 (important /minor influence) for science and 3.0 (minor influence) for religion. Those subjects who reported science or religion as being very important in their lives did not differ in personality from those subjects who did not report such an importance. There were no differences in the passage chosen or the group ratings for those subjects who reported a strong importance for science or religion compared with the rest of the subjects.


From the first part of the study we can see that a belief in psi is not the result of a specific personality pattern or the consequence of some illogical cognitive process. The idea was therefore put forward that the previous studies were actually measuring factors relevant to strength rather than content of belief. Consequently, the second part of this study was an attempt to measure differences due to extreme attitudes. However, the results achieved were inconclusive with regard to this specific question, but this may have been because of the size of the study rather than for any other reason. It therefore seems that the idea that subjects displaying strong attitudes have a characteristic personality /cognitive profile is worthy of further investigation. Such a study would have to take into account the biases that could affect the results, while at the same time have a large enough number of subjects to be able to measure extremes. Since, in this case, the content of the belief may be largely irrelevant, it should be possible to test this notion using different contents. We would then be able to determine if the personality /cognitive results do actually relate to one's holding an extreme attitude or if they are dependent on the particular content of that attitude. Either way, the results would shed more light onto the debate about the validity of a belief in psi.


www.defconlevel.com /european-command-news.php
European Command News | EUCOM Or USEUCOM Alerts Europe
584-743 minutes
| de știri ale Comandamentului European Alerte EUCOM sau USEUCOM în Europa
Defcon 2 - Ritm rapid
Comandamentul European

Privacy Is Important! Defcon Level Warning System currently highly recommends Express VPN to browse privately & securely. Use This Link to get 30 free days.

Contribute To The Cause! Keeping alerts, intel and news as informative and timely as possible takes a lot of research, effort and financial investment. There are many ways you can Contribute. No contribution is too small. Thank you! Looking for a cheap and reliable web host? Contribute by trying our Preferred hosting.

February 28, 2022 - The US embassy in Moscow has put out an announcement telling all US nationals to leave Russia 'immediately'. Read more

February 28, 2022 - After assessing the situation with Russia and their forces being set to a higher nuclear deterrence level, we have set our overall alert level back to three for the time being. We don't believe the current situation warrants a two quite yet. Read more

February 28, 2022 - Russia's war on Ukraine has failed to provide Russia a quick and decisive victory after four days of fighting, so Russia has reportedly pulled their ally Belarus in on the conflict according to Ukrainian news. Read more

February 27, 2022 - A former U.S. defense intelligence analyst says that Putin is "is escalating the conflict into the nuclear domain in order to de-escalate – that is topple Kiev’s regime quickly" due to the fact that his forces aren't getting the job done. Read more

February 27, 2022 - Russian President Vladimir Putin has now ordered Russia's nuclear deterrent forces on alert in response to Western sanctions and rising tensions over Putin's invasion on Ukraine. Read more

February 26, 2022 - French President Emmanuel Macron has asked Lukashenko, the President of Belarus to demand that Russian troops leave the country, claiming that Russia has been given the green light to deploy nuclear weapons in the country. Belarus borders Ukraine, giving Russia a strategic reason to deploy nuclear warheads in the country if they so choose to do so. Read more

February 26, 2022 - Russian forces have reportedly fired at a radioactive waste disposal site in Kyiv, Ukraine according to The Kyiv Independent. Read more

February 26, 2022 - YouTube has blocked Russian state news RT, as well as other Russian channels from receiving money from advertisements. This includes videos that run videos from these state run news and media channels. Read more

February 26, 2022 - Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba has responded to apparent propaganda that Ukraine has plans to launch a 'dirty bomb' into Russian territory. Read more

February 26, 2022 - Ukrainian President Zelensky seemed to hint that Turkey had closed its straits leading to many reports that they have done done, but reports by Reuters say that Turkey has not yet decided to close the straits. Read more


February 26, 2022 - Ukraine's Ministry of Interior has asked all people in the country to turn off the geolocation on their cell phones, as Russia is beginning to track gatherings of people. As locations may possibly be tracked even with geolocation (GPS and data) turned off, it's best to completely remove the battery on your cellphone if possible to ensure your location cannot be tracked. Read more

February 26, 2022 - Britain's Ministry of Defense has put out a new intelligence update on the Russia/Ukraine war. They say Russian forces have continued their advance on Kyiv with the bulk of their forces and are now 30km away from the city. Read more

February 26, 2022 - Russian state news RT has announced that Russia is deploying 12,000 Chechens to Ukraine. We had been hearing about Russia having plans to do that earlier today but it has now been posted out by Russian state news. Read more

February 26, 2022 - NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says that the alliance sending thousands of commanders to nations in Eastern Europe near Ukraine, and will be beefing up arms support and continuing to send weapons and air defenses to Ukraine and reinforcing defenses on allied territory (territory of NATO members in Eastern Europe). Read more

February 26, 2022 - Russian President Vladimir Putin has told both nations that if they join NATO there will be 'military military-political repercussions'. Read more

February 26, 2022 - The Biden administration has said that they believe that Russia plans to threaten to kill the families of Ukrainian soldiers if they don't surrender to Russia Read more

February 26, 2022 - There has been a major disruption in Ukraine's internet provider GigaTrans that feeds internet connectivity to many of Ukraine's networks amidst heavy fighting in Vasylkiv and Kyiv, Ukraine according to Netblocks Internet Observatory. Read more

February 26, 2022 - The North Atlantic Treaty Agreement (NATO) has now activates parts of its multinational response force. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated "We are deploying elements of the NATO Response Force. On land, at sea, and in the air. We will do what it takes to protect and defend every Ally, and every inch of NATO territory". Read more

February 26, 2022 - Russia reportedly shelled a Moldovan chemical tanker and Panamanian cargo ship headed for the load grain near Odessa port in the Black Sea and a Japanese Bulk carrier MV Namura Queen also reportedly hit by a rocket at anchor off Yuzhne. Read more

February 25, 2022 - Actions that are being described by some as war crimes are allegedly being carried out in Ukraine by Russian forces. One video was posted on showing what looks to be a Russian tank rolling over a person's car in Kyiv. The driver of the car was allegedly still inside according to Ukrainian UNIAN news. Read more

February 25, 2022 - Ukraine forces claim they have reportedly re-taken Kyiv airport from the control of Russian special forces. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has ordered a full mobilization of troops. Read more


February 25, 2022 - Kyiv, Ukraine has been bombarded by Russian rockets. Photos from Kyiv's local news show an entire skyrise apartment complex nearly demolished by rocket fire (join us on social media or telegram to see photos and videos). Some rockets fired by Russia at Kyiv were reportedly intercepted, but many hit their marks (or missed their intended targets). Read more

February 25, 2022 - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says 137 Ukrainian military and civilians have been killed in the fighting with Russia thus far. 10 officers and 316 injuries have also been reported elsewhere. Read more

February 25, 2022 - Ukrainian Defense Minister Ukrainian Defense Minister Hanna Maliar put out a report claiming alleged Russian military losses (as of 03:00 24.02.2022): 7 planes, 6 helicopters, over 30 tanks, 130 BBM. The Ukrainian Defense Minister says that about 800 Russians have been killed in the fighting so far. Read more

February 25, 2022 - A Turkish ship off Odessa is reported to have been hit by a Russian missile (some reports say bomb) which was 'misfired'. There weren't any reported casualties, but the incident according to Samuel Ramani (@SamRamani2 on Twitter), could put pressure on Turkey to block Russian vessels from entering its straits Read more

February 25, 2022 - It appears 'the whole Russian Navy in the Mediterranean Sea (that we know of) sailed to Syria this morning while the invasion of Ukraine was unfolding'. Information provided by well known Defense analyst H I Sutton, writer for Naval News. Read more

February 24, 2022 - A Russian artillery shell has reportedly hit the Uman city center and killed one person, injuring five others according to the Head of the Cherkasy Regional State Administration Oleksandr Skichko. Read more

February 24, 2022 - The United States is set to deploy 7,000 more troops to Europe, including an armored Brigade combat team with enablers. Read more

February 24, 2022 - NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that allies condemned Russia's attack on Ukraine in the 'strongest possible terms'. Read more

February 24, 2022 - Russia attacked Ukraine by air, land and sea on Thursday, in what Reuters calls 'the biggest attack by one state against another in Europe since World War Two'. Read more

February 24, 2022 - The Ukrainian government has now imposed martial law according to local Ukrainian news reports. Read more

February 24, 2022 - Russian President Vladimir Putin is launching full-scale attacks on the entire country of Ukraine, not just the separatist locations. Read more

February 24, 2022 - Pray for the people of Ukraine under those explosions. There are around 500,000 people in that city that those bombs are raining down on, and they are most certainly living in a great deal of fear for their lives right now. Read more

February 24, 2022 - During the live broadcast by Russian President Vladimir Putin he both officially declared war on Ukraine, and added a warning to anyone who might get involved saying that they will have 'consequences that you never have had before in your history'. Read more