Mind-Reach: Scientists Look at Psychic Abilities

Introduction

In my first book: Remote Perceptions: Out-of-Body Experiences, Remote Viewing and Other Normal Abilities, published in 1998, I included a tribute to Dr. Hal Puthoff who I called “One of the first pioneers in Remote Viewing: an inspiration to my journey of exploration.” Their book Mind Reach further validated my admiration of the team: Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ, who carried out their work at Stanford Research Institute, located in Menlo Park, CA.

A book review by Angela Thompson Smith

Mind-Reach

The term Remote Viewing was first coined in 1971 by Ingo Swann and Janet Mitchell, along with Karlis Osis and Gertrude Schmeidler, at the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR). When Swann was invited in the 1970s to participate in Psi experiments at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), CA, he took the concept of Remote Viewing with him. The SRI group initially headed by physicist Hal Puthoff, and later joined by Russell Targ and others, implemented Remote Viewing into their experimental protocols. Swann’s definition of Remote Viewing was that it is a mixture of what used to be called clairvoyance, thought transference and telepathy. It is a process where a Viewer perceives information about a distant location using “something” other than the know five senses. This definition has now been expanded to include much more than just perceiving locations “at a distance”.

What came to be called the “Out-Bound Experimenter” model by SRI, was designed and implemented in 1971–1972, at the ASPR, with Swann as subject, Janet Mitchell as monitor and Osis and Schmeidler as supervisors. In the “out-bound experimenter” model, a viewer would try to perceive the whereabouts of a researcher who had gone to a local target, say a park or museum. Vera Feldman and Erlander Harraldson were the first two modern out-bound experimenters. Swann’s book Everybody’s Guide to Natural ESP documented the early history of Remote Viewing research and the problems encountered in researching this controversial topic.

Since the early research at the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) and, later, at Stanford Research Institute (SRI), the term Remote Viewing has come into general usage, usually to denote the ability to perceive hidden or remote information by anomalous or psychic means.

Over the years, experimental protocols have changed as different laboratories have attempted to study OBEs and Remote Viewing. New terminology, such as Precognitive Remote Perceptions and Anomalous Information Transfer, as well as Remote Viewing, have been introduced. Now the world has claimed the term Remote Viewing as its own and it now appears to have two definitions: Remote Viewing as an experimental protocol, and Remote Viewing as a generalized human ability.

In 1972, Swann offered to be tested by Puthoff and Targ at SRI, after reading a paper of theirs invoking quantum physics as a possible explanation for extra-sensory perception. During the earliest testing at SRI, Swann was accurately able to describe the features of a uniquely designed and shielded magnetometer buried six feet in concrete beneath the floor. He also affected the output signal of the magnetometer on a strip chart recorder. Eventually, Puthoff and Targ initiated “Project Scannate,” Remote Viewing by Coordinates, which was suggested to them by Swann. Ingo Swann and other viewers, including Pat Price, were provided with latitude and longitude, and they attempted to view the geographical location at those coordinates. Swann and Price were remarkable accurate.

Further rigorous testing of Swann, Price, photographer Hella Hamid, and others at SRI convinced Targ and Puthoff that Remote Viewing was not just an ability to be enjoyed by certain psychics but that almost anybody could do it!

In 1977, Targ and Puthoff published the results of their Remote Viewing experiments in Mind-Reach in which they evaluated the ways in which Remote Viewing could be put to practical use, they listed:

1. Survival value—many spontaneous OBEs occur at the time of a serious accident, injury or during surgery. “It is in primarily life-threatening situations that exceptional spontaneous functioning seems to occur” they said;
2. Executive E.S.P.—use of Remote Viewing and other anomalous abilities in the business world;
3. Futuristic predictions;
4. Medical diagnosis; and
5. Space exploration.

The possibilities for the peaceful use of OBEs and Remote Viewing seemed endless and, as the phenomena became more recognized, new uses would undoubtedly be found. To have the ability to access information not normally perceived by the regular senses, and not acknowledge the ability, seemed like having functional ears and eyes and wearing earplugs and a blindfold!

In 2005, Mind-Reach was republished by Delacorte as part of their Studies in Consciousness Series.

book review by
Angela Thompson Smith, Ph.D.