"Phenomena"

[jbseth]

Hi All,

I just discovered and purchased an interesting book at the bookstore this afternoon and I thought I'd pass this information along.

The book is called "Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis". Its written by Annie Jacobsen and apparently was published in 2017.

It's all about the US Governments involvement into things like the "Remote Viewing" experiments and other such things.

In briefly reading through this book I've come across the following people, Harold "Hal" Putoff, Russell Targ, Uri Geller, the astronaut Edgar Mitchell, "Skip" Atwater and Joe McMoneagle to name a few.

Jane Roberts has a real brief mention and there's a section on Robert Monroe as well.

Here's a link to the Amazon about this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Phenomena-Governments-Investigations-Extrasensory-Psychokinesis/dp/031639680X/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=phenomena&qid=1565481317&s=gateway&sr=8-2#customerReviews

Interestingly enough, Russell Targ was the first person to comment about this book in the "customer reviews" section of the Amazon site.


-jbseth

[LarryH]

Similarly, I am currently reading a 1998 book co-authored by Russell Targ and Jane Katra, PhD, called Miracles of Mind - Exploring Nonlocal Consciousness and Spiritual Healing. It is so far focused on remote viewing and mentions all the same people you mentioned. And while he does not mention Seth or Jane Roberts, he does reference books by Norman Friedman, which are largely based on Sethian concepts.

[Deb]

Wow, sounds interesting, please update us with your impressions and what you learn. I used to have Tim Rifat's Remote Viewing book. I was curious what the US had discovered about remote viewing when they found out the USSR was studying it back in the early 70s. The book was mostly a bunch of graphs and statistics, was difficult to read, and the stats weren't impressive to this layperson. I eventually gave it away.

The Phenomena book is highly rated, I did see frank Targ's review.

I think Edgar Mitchell's EPS experiments were mentioned in McTaggert's The Field. I was tickled that someone so well respected would do that, but I think his results weren't that great.

The cross-over of what you are both reading us really interesting! I finally picked up Susan Watkins's What a Coincidence yesterday. It's a quick read and I'm enjoying the examples of synchronicity she shares. It reminded me of our Synchronicity topic here on the forum, and now this one because you're both reading about remote viewing.

BTW I have Friedman's Bridging Science and Spirit, Common Elements in David Bohm's Physics, The Perennial Philosophy and Seth (which is what really attracted me to the book). Another dry read, I made it through 75 pages and set it aside.

[jbseth]

Hi Deb, Hi LarryH, Hi All,


Here's 3 interesting items that I've come across in this book so far.


1)
At the very beginning of the book the author posted 2 quotes. The second one, by Soren Kierkegaard, is this:

"There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true."

What a great quote.



2)
On the last few pages of Chapter 24 of this book, the author mentions that in 2011, James Randi, was exposed as being involved in a decades-long double deception and criminal fraud. Apparently this had to do with Randi's, Carlos-the-channeler hoax.

I didn't know anything about this. Here's an interesting article I found on the internet about this Carlos-the-channeler hoax. It sounds to me like Mr. Randi has some real issues with ethics, in my opinion.

http://zthoughtcriminal.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-tragedy-of-deyvi-pena-and-real.html


3)
In the "Acknowledgements" section, in the back of the book, the author talks about an interview that she had heard from her car radio, in 2014. This interview / story, which involved the following amazing set of synchronistic event, is what set her on the path of researching and writing this book.

In 1972, Anthony Hopkins, the actor, was in London looking for a copy of the book, "The Girl from Petrovka", which was written by author George Feifer. Apparently, Mr. Hopkins was getting ready to shoot an American film that was to be based upon this novel, and he wanted to read the book beforehand. Unfortunately, none of the bookstores that he visited had a copy, and so he went home empty handed.

While waiting for a train at an underground station, he happened to see a discarded book lying on a bench. When he picked it up, he discovered that it was a copy of the book, "The Girl from Petrovka". Not only that, but as he flipped through the pages, he noted that in the margins, someone had written how to change the spellings of certain British words into their American counterpart spellings.

Several months later, Hopkins met Feifer and told him about how he had found a very unique copy of the book, "The Girl from Petrovka". Upon hearing this story, Feifer asked if he could see the book.  It turns out that this specific book had once belonged to Feifer himself. The notes in the margins were Feifer's. Feifer then told Hopkins that several years ago, he loaned this book to a friend, who had then lost it somewhere in central London.

That's a pretty awesome sync story, if you ask me.


https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071554/


jbseth

[jbseth]

BTW I have Friedman's Bridging Science and Spirit, Common Elements in David Bohm's Physics, The Perennial Philosophy and Seth (which is what really attracted me to the book). Another dry read, I made it through 75 pages and set it aside.

Hi Deb,

I have a copy of this same book "Bridging the Spirit" and had a very similar experience. When I bought it, I was really interested in the topic but after I started reading it, I just never go around to finishing it.

This new book, "Phenomena" is just the opposite. I'm on page 96 so far and I just don't want to put it down, to go do important things like eat dinner. In addition to this, while its about 420 pages long, the text is somewhat larger than that used for many books and there's also a larger spacing between the lines which makes it more like maybe a 300 page regular book.

As I said, I just don't want o put it down.

- jbseth

[Deb]

As I said, I just don't want to put it down.

That, to me, is worth it's weight in gold.

[jbseth]

Hi All,

Here's a summary of what I've read so far, in the book, "Phenomena" 

First off, in this book, the author, Annie Jacobsen, does a great job of remaining neutral in telling this story. She presents information on both sides, people who performed some amazing feats and those that had reasons for not believing these things.

In the early chapters she talks about "Andrija" Puharich. In the 1940's and 50's Mr. Puharich built a "Faraday" cage and tested psychics, inside the cage, including Eileen Garrett. Mr. Puharich discovered that the Faraday cage shielding didn't suppress psychic messages or psychic powers.

In this same timeframe, Mr. Puharich became involved in searching for substances that might enhance psychic abilities and raced members of the CIA to become the first to discover and test the (psilocybin) mushrooms of Mexico. This then leads to a brief mention of the CIA's MKULTRA program.

We also learn about the Soviet threat. The Soviets had a woman, Ninel Kulagina, who, it was claimed, could stop the heartbeat of a frog, with just her mind.

For some reason, the Soviets came to bucket research into both psychic abilities and microwave radiation together. This may have had something to do with politics due to the potential religious or spiritual implications of psychic phenomena.

During the 1960s the Soviets beamed microwave radiation at the top floors of the US Embassy in Moscow. (I wonder if this is this the same thing that's going on in regards to the internet stories I've heard about regarding the illness of Americans in the US Embassy in Cuba). The effect of these microwave beams aimed at the US Embassy in Moscow were then studied by Pentagon personnel, who found that they were probably very unhealthy for people.  However, they didn't bother to mention this to embassy personal, for many years. 

Then we hear about Uri Gellar, who became quite popular in Israel, when, while performing a telepathy demonstration on stage, suddenly got very ill. While he was ill, he announced to the audience that President Nasser of Egypt, had just died or was about to die. Then twenty minutes later Radio Cairo announced that President Nasser was dead; he died of a heart attack. In other chapters of this book we'll hear more about Mr. Gellar, who apparently did some pretty incredible things when studied by US researchers.

We learn about Edgar Mitchell, the astronaut, and his Apollo 14 experience with his trip to the moon. We also learn how and why he came to be involved in consciousness and psychic studies and how and why became fast friends with Mr. Puharich. 

We also learn about Hal Puthoff and SRI (Stanford Research Institute), Cleve Backster and his plant experiments, and the relationship between these men and Douglas "Ingo" Swann. We learn how Ingo Swann, was able to affect a magnetometer that was embedded in probably the world's best shielded electromagnetic field at SRI and how this event totally freaked out the scientists who witnessed it.

We learn about the various skeptics in the US government and how some of the men in the CIA were much more open to psychic abilities. We also learn much more about Uri Geller and the results of his testing at SRI.

After this we start to learn about "remote viewing" and how this all came about.

I'm only a little more than 1/3 the way through this book at this point and I just don't want to put it down.  What I've written here isn't anywhere near as interesting as what the author has to say or how she says it. If you are at all interested in this topic, then you may want to check out this book either at a library or a bookstore. It's really fascinating.


-jbseth

[T.M.]

Hi All,

Thanks Jbseth. That's an interesting synopsis of the book!
There's a movie loosely based on U.S. military psychic research called The Men Who Stare at Goats. The movie is a comedy.
It was rumored certain psychics could stop the heart beat of a goat via telepathy . I think it's a funny movie. And loosely based on some true events.

I find it very interesting what the book your reading had to say

"In this same timeframe, Mr. Puharich became involved in searching for substances that might enhance psychic abilities and raced members of the CIA to become the first to discover and test the (psilocybin) mushrooms of Mexico. This then leads to a brief mention of the CIA's MKULTRA program."

And

"We learn about Edgar Mitchell, the astronaut, and his Apollo 14 experience with his trip to the moon. We also learn how and why he came to be involved in consciousness and psychic studies and how and why became fast friends with Mr. Puharich. "
_____________________

It's my own theory that we never physically went to the moon. We did go psychicaly. I think the suits particularly do something to the body that allows for and maintains the body to allow for an alteration of consciousness.
I've heard that Stanley Kubrick confessed to shooting the "moon landings" on a Hollywood set as well.
I don't want to divert the topic of your thread though, and won't go into other inconsistencies about that.
I do find it immensely interesting that Mitchell was working with Puharich. I didn't know that either.
Thank you! 

[jbseth]

Hi T.M.

Thanks for your reply. I've heard several different versions of the moon landing issue.

I've heard several people on the internet say that they believe that we never physically went to the moon. Some of these maintain that the moon landings were all shot inside a studio.

Someone else I heard said that we never went to the moon because humans couldn't survive the radiation that we'd be exposed to, when we passed the Van Allen belts. That's an interesting thought.

I've also heard some people say that there are black ops groups that, not only have been to the moon and Mars for instance, but have also spent quite a bit of time on bases at both locations. Some of these are claimed to be in contact with some E.T.'s

Then again one of the psychics that I sometimes follow said that both of these 2 things occurred. That is, some of the first moon landings were actually shot in a studio, while other, later moon landings were actually legitimate and the video and photos taken there were also valid.


Personally if I had to go with one of these beliefs, I'd probably go for the belief that we actually did walk on the moon at some point in the late 1960's or early 1970s.

I am interested in hearing about the "other inconsistencies" that you mentioned.


- jbseth

[T.M.]

Hi Jbseth,

I listen to a YouTube channel that loves to rip apart official narratives. In one episode he pointed out that the communications equipment wasn't sophisticated or small enough to take with them in the 60's.
Also that the temperature outside the capsule on the surface of the moon was something like 400 degrees. He pointed out they would need a huge a.c. unit to keep cool in those temps, and wanted to know where that was in the 60's capsule.
I think he's onto something with both points. Especially the communications equipment.

There's a vid where a young NASA engineer admits they can't get through the van Allen belts today. The vid is only about 3 years old.

I've heard theories that there are jump rooms, aka star trek transporter device's to the moon and mars. I think that's likely more plausible than physical craft being used. I don't quite buy that either.

Did you know every astronaut that went to the moon was also a 33 degree mason?! Nothing suspicious there, lol.
I really think the suits they use, and perhaps in conjunction with the craft, does something to the body and keeps it in a certain state, that allows for an alteration of consciousness. Makes astral traveling reliable and sustainable.

There's a few who think space is water. The language, ships are she/her. I wonder if perhaps they are onto something too. You can find YouTube vids where it looks like air bubbles are escaping from the astronaut suits as they work on the space station, which is in low earth orbit. NASA tried denying that, then a few years later admitted the astronauts train in water. If I recall correctly.
There's something to do with water, depths, and states of consciousness.  Me thinks

[T.M.]

P.S.

Seth said it's been some time, and will be a very long time in the future before we encounter an actual extraterrestrial.
He also mentioned that psychic travel to other physical locations happens before physical craft are able to be constructed to match the psychical ability of travel.

[jbseth]

Hi All,

Regarding the book, "Phenomena" the author, Annie Jacobsen partitioned the 25 chapters of this book, into 4 Parts.

Part 1, "The Early Days", consists of Chapters 1 through 5.

Part 2, "The CIA Years", consists of Chapters 6 through 12.

Part 3, "The Defense Department Years", consists of Chapters 13 through 22.

Part 4, "The Modern Era", consists of Chapters 23 through 25.


In Part 3 I learned about many issues and details in regards to this remote viewing program and how their mission seemed to have changed from time to time. The author also explains how this programs ultimate downfall came about.

In Part 4, we learn about various types of offshoot programs that are going on in modern times (2011, 2014, 2016 etc.)

We also learn that in modern times, Hal Puthoff, is researching zero-point energy to see if it can be harnessed. This zero-point energy reminds me very much of Seth's concept that All-That-Is, is a gestalt of "awareized" energy.

We also learn that Dale Graff is still actively involved in Remote Viewing and using it to investigate Precognition. In 2016, he gave a presentation on this topic.

Finally we learn the Uri Geller is still bending spoons almost daily at people's request and that when the author interviewed Edgar Mitchell about a year before he died, he showed her the actual Zener cards that he used for his ESP experiment that he did while on the moon.

I have just finished this book and I can absolutely say it was an easy and exciting read throughout and contained very many interesting and amazing stories. There are very many other interesting stories in here that I haven't even mentioned.


-jbseth

[Deb]

Hi folks! Sorry I've been out of the loop, I have company and was out of town with them to boot.

Just wanted to thank jbseth for the book report. It was convincing enough that I placed a hold on it at my local library. I requested the audio version, which means I'll be taking a break from Tim Hart's narrations to read the book. It really sounds fascinating and I'm looking forward to it.

T.M., you wrote about the US lunar landings. I never really questioned them, but of course I was just a kid when they took place and trusted. I've heard the theories over the past years that it was staged, but had not heard about the Kubrick 'confession'. I came across this, which seems reasonable enough. I think I also read not long ago that Russia is planning to send up a satellite to fact-check our lunar landing, looking for the US flag and other artifacts such as the mirror used in laser data experiments.

How do we know what to believe? I guess we just pick what feels right to us.

[jbseth]

Hi Deb,

What did you think of Susan Watkin's "What a Coincidence" book? Have you finished reading it yet?

Just curious, I've been thinking about checking it out.

-jbseth

[Deb]

I have not finished it yet, I read about 1/3 through the day I picked it up but haven't a minute to myself since then. It's OK. Some of the coincidences are interesting, some of them seem kind of iffy. I'll finish it probably this weekend and will let you know what I think (my guests are leaving tonight).