Chapter 1

I have debated at length how to begin this book, and whether to begin it with the philosophical topic of this chapter -- circumstances we get sucked into -- and how we then live our lives on their behalf.
This is a topic which at first seems far removed from the story of remote viewing.
But it is important to the saga and soap opera of the story -- because the real story was always overshadowed by the circumstances which brought about its activity and enactments.

We take "circumstances" for granted, so much so that we seldom look very deeply into them.
In general, most people seem to believe that circumstances are separate from themselves, and that whether they can control and manage them depends on the individual involved.
However, if one studies the dynamics of circumstances, it appears that there are many levels or strata of them, and that there are "local" circumstances and "non-local" ones.

It can also be shown that there are continuums of circumstances which transcend generations of born bio-bodies and suck millions into their workings and effects.
As but one example -- the war-making continuum which sucks millions into it, most of which want to be no part of it and especially not suffer from its effects.

The implication involved here is quite alien in contemporary terms, because it is generally believed, sometimes even insisted upon, that each individual has the power to self-direct their own lives regardless of surrounding circumstances.
Consider, however, getting sucked into the circumstances of love or hate, of poverty or stupidity or power games-playing which have overshadowed humanity since Day One, and for which no permanent cures have ever been found.
On the one hand, many will say that individuals are responsible for these. But on the other hand, many get sucked into them, adapting their perceptions and response-thinking to them. Many are born into circumstances not of their own making -- but learn to emulate them anyway.

The continua of on-going circumstances might also be conceived of, somewhat dramatically perhaps, as currents or patterns in the multi-dimensional fabric of human nature -- and which currents and patterns ebb and flow.
Many of our ancient predecessors were better prepared to have a grip on circumstances and their continua -- believing them to be the activities functions of gods and goddesses external to people. For example, when Mars, the Roman god of war, awoke after a sleep or rest, everyone shortly found themselves sucked into his war-making circumstances.
I don't know if this WAS the case, but I do know that people knowingly and unknowingly get suck into circumstances greater than they are.

But the most important thing about circumstances is that no one seems to know how and why they arise or come about, how and why they take on various formats, and why people become enveloped in them as they do.

There is a great gap of knowledge here -- one well worth a considerable amount of study. I recognize the gap because I've made a great effort to discover if anyone has made any effort to scrutinize and study the "nature of circumstances." Very little along these lines has ever been undertaken.

So, if we consider the above, say for hypothetical entertainment purposes only, the topic of CIRCUMSTANCES can become very involved philosophically, almost metaphysically, and certainly has sociological relevance.
And so it seems a complicated and messy topic and one might well wonder what it has to do with the story of remote viewing.

But, as will be seen in the narrative ahead, remote viewing came about BECAUSE of circumstances which arose -- and had they not come about, then neither would have remote viewing come about.
So, if I omit this topic from the chapters ahead, I find that the real story of remote viewing loses a number of fundamental contexts which are important to it.

Without the topic, the story becomes more "local" in terms of the situations involved and the players within them.
In this "local" sense, the beginning of the story will focus on the particulars of the 1970s when the intelligence community got mixed into what the media ridicule as "psychic research" and "psi spies."
This situation, local to the 1970s, then will be perceived as THE story of remote viewing.
And this story will be interpreted by the various mindsets which interest themselves in it. Based on the realities local to the twentieth century, the story will then seem absurd and ridiculous -- largely because mainstream circumstances of the century condemned psi as vapid imagination, psychological disorder, or quackery.

The nexus, or nub, of the real story of remote viewing, however, is not that the intelligence community DID get involved with psi, but WHY it did.
One will have to admit that there is nothing more mainstream than the American intelligence community. And so why it got involved with something so non-mainstream in contemporary terms is a very pertinent issue.
In other words, why the intelligence community risked becoming a contemporary laughing stock is a matter entirely germane to the real story of remote viewing.

There is only one feasible answer for this WHY.
Circumstances, or a particular set of them, had come into play and which fueled that interest. Circumstances so compelling that the intelligence community became WORRIED about an issue the rest of the mainstream modern world not only laughed at but spit on.
More pointedly, the intelligence community got sucked into "surprising" circumstances it clearly wished did not exist, and if they did exist would remain so minimal or marginal that nothing need be done about them.
And, in provable fact, this marginalization has been the on-going local position of the mainstream modernist world regarding psi.

But behind those marginalizing circumstances looms a quite large and on-going circumstance. The existence at the species level of the superpowers of the human bio-mind -- with the faculties for the superpowers potentially present in all born specimens.

The existence of the superpowers was quite easily marginalized during the twentieth century by claiming them to be irrational and unscientific -- at least in the modernist West. And so very little was known about the superpowers, their real existence even in serious doubt.

In modern, twentieth century terms, then, one could hardly imagine anything that would appreciably shift that the endemic marginalizing. And this, then, was the circumstance that the knowledge of the superpowers was caught up and contained within.

But then something was slowly discovered by Western analysts which would indeed shift the marginalizing.
A world political and military superpower is a circumstance in its own right -- and, to the astonishment of just about everyone, one of the top two of those was found to be conducting serious work regarding the superpowers of the human bio-mind. The only possible goal concerned how to harness and utilize them for "practical applications."

The use of the term "surprised" in the lingo of on-going political, military and scientific circumstances actually means "Oh my God!"
But this is soon dignified as "novel circumstances have arisen" -- and which "novel" circumstances quickly incorporate many, at least as regards learning how to cope with them.

In the light of those novel circumstances, the typical marginalizing of so-called "psi potentials" was now ended within the scope of the novel developments.

We now need to attempt some precision thinking regarding the nature of circumstances.
On the one hand, the particular set of circumstances referred to just above involved, of course, the Soviet Union and what might be called "the threat of an outbreak of applied superpowers of the bio-mind." (I'll review the historical basis for that set of Soviet circumstances in chapter 2, and to various details of it later on in the narrative.)
On the other hand, the larger circumstances of an invisible picture became visible -- the very existence in our species of superpowers of bio-mind.

In this combined sense, then, the big picture consisted of three sets of circumstances, and these need to be identified here at the start, and remembered throughout this book:
(1) the existence of superpowers of bio-mind within our species;
(2) what the Soviet researchers were doing with them; and
(3) what the disbelieving and astonished American intelligence community should do because of what the Soviets were doing.
If at this point you haven't broken into at least a smile regarding this interesting mix of circumstances, then you should to try to loosen up a little.

And, as will become gradually more clear when one is further long in the narrative, these three sets of circumstances comprised both the Saga and the Soap Opera of remote viewing.

Aside from some of its noted foibles, the American intelligence community is by far the greatest power in the world, and to my knowledge DOES take its duties on behalf of the nation quite seriously.
If, then, the Soviet Union (or any other nation) was somehow making advances in "applied psi," then what the American mainstream thought of psi was incidental and of no interest.
After all, if the intelligence community was to bow before mainstream opinion (such opinion in this case largely psi illiterate), then our defenses via the intelligence community would soon consist only of mainstream consensus opinion somewhat dominated by that vagary known as political correctness.

The point I'm trying to make in this chapter, though, is that the intelligence community responded to a set of circumstances not of its own making. "Responded" is one way of saying "got sucked into."
At one level, we can easily say that the Soviet Union aroused those circumstances. But at another level what was aroused was an interest in the existence of the superpowers of the human bio-mind.
At that level we encounter something which, in a legendary sense at the very least, is organic to our species. And we encounter as well the abiding and eternal question of whether our species DOES, in fact, possess such superpowers.

By way of definitions, SUPERPOWERS of bio-mind refers to those cognitive faculties inherent in our species which transcend the tangible time and space, and matter and energy as well -- such as in the case of intuition experienced world-wide, and other so-called "paranormal abilities."
POWERS of the bio-mind refers to those cognitive faculties which work within the more tangible factors of time and space, and matter and energy as well -- or at least utilize those tangible factors as their cognitive basis.

Whether the superpowers exist seems to be only a matter of socio-local perception, enculturalization or indoctrination -- and the CIRCUMSTANCES which dominate within those. Few premodern societies rejected the existence of the superpowers, and so such rejection seems to be only a wobbly fluctuation in the peculiar circumstances which characterize the modernist syndrome.

Circumstances can of course be erected or engineered and brought into play in ways which serve to alienate a social stratum from the existence of the superpowers, and individuals can get sucked into THOSE circumstances -- as most anti-psi skeptics have.
But if the superpower faculties truly do exist, then they, themselves, must constitute on-going and repeating circumstances which likewise suck people into them.

Now, we can utilize the term "circumstances" and attribute all kinds of things to them.
But what, in identifiable fact, do circumstances consist of? What are they?
We know they exist, and that some or many of them are on-going. Cycles analysts can even show that certain circumstances ebb and flow like tides do, repeating again and again.
But even so, we think we can observe circumstances as being only external to ourselves -- meaning that we are not directly aware of getting sucked into them.

The way the term CIRCUMSTANCE is most usually used refers to "the sum of essential and environmental factors." In this sense, we usually see ourselves as independent among the circumstances, and as individuals having the power to make choices.
In other words, our individuality is separate from the circumstances around us.

Most dictionaries, however, give the FIRST definition of CIRCUMSTANCE as "a condition, fact, or event accompanying conditioning or determining another condition, fact, or event." accompany
The two keywords in this definition are CONDITIONING and DETERMINING. In other words, circumstances are something which condition and determine other circumstances.

If we extend this definition to INCLUDE people caught up within or sucked into circumstances, then we would have to consider that the circumstances condition and determine the circumstances of those individuals caught up within them.
In this sense, individuals can become players or victims within the circumstances which incorporate them, or into which they have been sucked by virtue or merely being born.

In this light, it is quite accepted that people get sucked into the on-going circumstances of, for example, poverty, money-making, or religious or philosophical activity -- and within which they either become players or victims, or some variety in between.

The direct implication here is quite astonishing: that circumstances, if they can condition and determine, have a life and a power of their own -- and which, so to speak, are independent of those individuals incorporated into the circumstances.

When individuals become incorporated INTO circumstances, then they function as factors WITHIN the circumstances.
And, indeed, the realization of this appears when anyone says "I got caught up in circumstances" -- which is the same as saying that one got sucked into them.

This concept is exceedingly difficult for Westerners to entertain -- because the concept of complete individuality is paramount in the West and greatly elevated above the concept on on-going circumstances with life and power of their own.
Indeed, Westerners, especially during the modern epoch, felt they could "control circumstances" with the vague idea that they would no longer get sucked into them. Thus, the first definition of "circumstance" was no longer needed -- and which is why it has been forgotten.
Individuals condition circumstances, not the other way round.

What I am of course seeking to establish is that all of us swim in an ocean of on-going circumstances equally as do the fish swim in an ocean of water.
If the fish was asked to describe its environment, it would point out everything except the water -- because it is so omnipresent as to be unnoticeable.

The ocean of water and the ocean of circumstances consist of currents, eddies, strata, states, conditions and continuums, any of which one can "get caught up in" or sucked into -- and all of which remove us from our status as discrete, completely independent individuals.

Indeed, if you look at your own status aside from your conviction of your individuality, you can probably perceive the circumstances within which you are incorporated and which largely are determining what you fondly refer to as your life and your realities.
You might also be able to identify the circumstances others are caught up within, but which you are not.

In other words, no one lives as an individual completely independent of some kind of circumstances.
Everyone is affixed within some kind of incorporating circumstances, whether by action of just simply being born into them, or by volunteering to be within them, or by being forced into becoming part of them.
Being forced to remain WITHIN particular kinds of on-going circumstances is another category, a very interesting one.
So indeed, while we believe we affix our realities by choice, what is much more likely is that our realities are affixed to us by virtue of the circumstances within which we have been incorporated or gotten sucked into.

The idea that circumstances, especially on-going ones, themselves condition and determine is uncomfortable and characterized by many very subtle aspects which escape the notice of most.
On the other hand, and as a reality check here, it is vividly recognized that social management or control is achieved NOT by managing or controlling people -- but the managing (or attempting to do so) situation-like circumstances within which social populations ARE incorporated.
It is also broadly recognized that those with power within on-going circumstances generally will manage and control them for their own benefit FIRST. Thus, although it is hardly ever stated, or even permitted to be stated, all others become "pieces" within the circumstances managed or controlled by others.

The socio-philosophical implications here are quite enormous, of course. But I'll not dwell on them here because they are beyond the contexts of this book.

Within the contexts of this book, however, it IS necessary to draw attention to two on-going sets of circumstances which are important to what will unfold in the narrative ahead.
This is the balance between:
(1) the on-going circumstances within which our species would become enlightened regarding the existence of the superpowers of the human bio-mind, and
(2) the on-going circumstances within which our species is alienated from organized knowledge of those superpowers.

To make this existence of this balance comprehensible, it is necessary to point up the most probable reason why the second set of on-going circumstances exists.
I have distilled this reason as a result of over thirty years directed effort to isolate it. And so I have to bite the bullet here and state that the superpowers of the human bio-mind are FEARED and RESENTED -- because their possessors would have extraordinary power and influence.
This TYPE of power is incompatible with the management of human affairs exclusively on a tangible basis -- a management by human specimens who themselves haven't developed direct contact with their own superpower faculties.
Even if such superpower possessors did not themselves have direct control and influence over human affairs, those who did have them would consult the superpower possessors.

The equation here concerns what would be considered "undue advantage" accessible via the developed superpowers of the human bio-mind.
And in the case of the story of remote viewing, the fear of this "undue advantage" by the Soviets was exactly and precisely and the only motive behind the very extraordinary activities of the intelligence community.

Thus has arisen two on-going sets of circumstances which are at loggerheads with each other.
In the first instance, IF the superpowers ARE indwelling in our species, then evidence and knowledge of them would constantly be "discovered" time and again and via a wide assortment of people.
In the second instance, the fear (and perhaps even jealousy) of the superpowers requires the activation of a continuing set of circumstances devoted to suppressing evidence and knowledge -- and thus the development -- of the superpowers.

The story of the "conflict" between these two on-going sets of circumstances is quite visible within our recorded history -- so there can be no credible denial of it.
It is also a quite ugly story, sometimes involving the physical extermination of those suspected of possessing the superpowers -- and something of this ugly story will be encountered in the narrative ahead at the appropriate junctures.

Within twentieth-century contexts, the anti-superpower circumstances were carrying the day -- largely because the existence of the superpowers had been denied by SCIENCE, the distinct hallmark of that century.
Within the impressive scope of this denial, American academic and media mainstreams had followed suit -- which permitted the skeptics a "legitimization" quite extraordinary in that they claimed scientific precedent to debunk any researcher moving too closely to the vital activity of the superpowers.
In fact, as adequate socio-historical research into the matter easily reveals, there was no real scientific precedent behind this posture -- in that the modern Western sciences had taken no confirmatory or disconfirmatory interest in "psi potentials" because "even if such existed, they were so minimal and so erratic as to be of no interest to science."

In this context, it must be reminded that the American mainstream sciences have consistently refused even to examine the work of American parapsychologists -- most of whom have conducted their work within statistical scientific parameters clearly accepted regarding anything else, and thus mandatory of recognition. Such recognition has never been forthcoming -- and still is not today.

As of the mid-1960s, such was the on-going state of circumstances in the United States of America regarding "psi."
I will show in the narrative ahead that the intelligence community "monitored" parapsychology developments, probably from the early 1930s onward.
But when, as it constantly does, that community consulted "expert opinion" of noted scientists, psychiatrists, and skeptics, well, the picture returned to them was "avoid it like the plague" because it is "non-scientific" and "no sensible scientists of any merit anywhere in the world would put it on their truck."

We are talking about complacent conviction here, a conviction that no competent scientists ANYWHERE in the world would seriously inquire into the nature of ANY of the superpowers of the human bio-mind, much less ALL of them.
And it was especially not credible AT ALL that such an inquiry would be undertaken under the auspices of the world superpower.

Then, as I've already stated, in the late 1960s a "novel" set of circumstances rocked the American intelligence community like a small nuclear device detonated within its prevailing, but culturally and scientifically supported ignorance of "psi."
This set of circumstances has never been made available to the American reading public -- largely because our media have refused to make it available.
You see, such a revelation would ALSO have to reveal that there might be something serious regarding the superpowers of the human bio-mind -- and the circumstances of endemic marginalizing of "psi" would be over with. And, for one thing, not only would philosophical crises ensue, but almost all text books and dictionaries would have to be rewritten.

And such revelations would also have to expose why certain leadership within the American intelligence community and within Congress suddenly jumped from the on-going circumstances of the anti-psychic ship, as it were, and walked on board the OTHER on-going set of circumstances. That ship of DISCOVERY regarding the nature of the superpowers of the human species bio-mind.

The saga-like circumstances behind this somewhat abrupt "reversal of venues" had actually begun occurring in 1919, years before I was born, and constitutes the subject matter of the next chapter.

For the rest of this voluminous book, I can only recommend that you not reduce the story of remote viewing to your own pre-existing "realities" -- and this whether you are skeptical about or true believer regarding existence of the superpowers.
You might instead focus on circumstances. Think circumstances, so to speak. For it is within the circumstances, and their conditioning, determining, and sucking-in influences that the real story exists.
All else is merely decoration on the cake -- fascinating, romantic, sometimes exciting, but mere decoration only.

The first circumstance issue, and in the end it is the ONLY issue, is whether the superpowers of bio-mind exist within our species.
If they don't exist, then surely this whole book and the American intelligence community is a laughing matter.

If they do exist, then the real story of remote viewing is but one brief chapter in the long, very long history of their manifesting down through all the generations born of our species genetic pool.

Think now of THAT on-going circumstance.