The image below is from a paper uploaded to the virtual “reading room” of a certain well-known intelligence agency.
I came across this paper on the “psychotronic universe” as the indirect result of googling for the phrase “a reconciliation of opposites” along with “consciousness”. The first result was something from the agency.
The paper (if one can call it that) on the “unified field with human beings” is basically a salad of math and mysticism. Here is how the two-page document ends:
I sent this to some friends who immediately began searching the reading room for consciousness-related gems. The results (including the ｐｓｙｃｈｏｔｒｏｎｉｃｓ) are quite priceless. As it turns out, the spooks have been indiscriminately collecting papers about consciousness and parapsychology for decades, and their treasure-trove of gibberish was declassified in the early 2000s.
Some of these documents are the kind of thing that Hollywood writers (and conspiracy theorists) dream about. It’s all very Stranger Things (and “flesh interfaces“?).
The Cold War had an interesting effect on government-funded research — it seems like any conceivable knowledge that could give one side an edge was actively pursued. And by the time the psychedelic 60s had rolled around, the “conceivable” had expanded quite a bit. Here is a document about “the gateway experience“.
One striking aspect of this sort of “research” is how quickly people seek to depart from mainstream physicalism, and “even the restrictions of time and space”.
Some of this stuff appears to be actual peer-reviewed research.
I’ve never heard of this Psychoenergetics journal, but the next one is in Foundations of Physics, which seems legit, as do the authors, who were at Princeton.
Only the most cold-hearted reductionist would wish this sort of research to be restricted to science fiction. But it may not be enough to evince amusement at this research, or curiosity about the occasional psi finding that appears plausible (and typically of weak effect-size). Perhaps society would benefit from a sane alternative to “woo” that taps into the perennial desire for holistic unity and meaning. If people only hear about research into these (aspirational?) concepts via declassified spy documents, then they will be primed for conspiratorial, paranoid explanations. In fact some of these documents have already been adopted by the loons as evidence for… whatever truth they believe is “out there”.
So… keep an eye on that psi?
