This is my fifth article in a series of articles in which we have been examining activities related to the occult. Although you may be tempted to think of occult practitioners as black-caped Satanists who meet in dark, underground places, the reality is that occult practitioners and proponents are all around you. Acceptance of the occult is so widespread that it would not be an exaggeration to say that those who dabble in the occult are influential in all areas of society. For the purposes of this article, I will be examining the practice of “remote viewing”. Remote viewing is the purported ability to acquire information about a distant or unseen target using only the mind. It relies on a psychic technique which permits a “viewer” to transcend time and space to “view” or “perceive” people, places or objects without the “viewer” being physically present.
Concerned with the question of whether the Soviets were gaining a battlefield advantage through paranormal means, in April 1977 the Central Intelligence Agency wrote a report entitled “Soviet and East European Parapsychology Research”. The opening line of the precis reads as follows: “Some recent US research suggests that it may be possible to use certain paranormal abilities for military or intelligence purposes.” They were not blind as to where this research would ultimately lead for it was admitted in the Technical Foreword (emphasis added): “Because many parapsychological phenomena often appear to be magical or spiritual, the popular image of parapsychology includes the occult.” The CIA also revealed that at the height of their research, the Soviets were “studying telepathy, psychokinesis and black magic in their covert program, as well as integrating biomedical instrumentation technology with various techniques used in hypnosis, autogenic training (biofeedback) and yoga.” Why yoga? The Yoga Sutras claim that a serious practitioner of yoga can acquire supernatural powers or abilities including psychic powers.
The US Government also began experimenting with remote viewing, but there was a significant difference in the methodology used by the US as opposed to the Soviet Union. In the US trials, participants were in a normal, fully conscious state. According to the CIA “the Soviets reportedly rely heavily on hypnotism, biofeedback, yoga and drugs to induce trances and trance-like states.” If it sounds like the Soviets were researching war fighting through sorcery, a 1969 report would confirm it. That report revealed that the Soviets established a covert group who was “assigned the tasks of identifying, locating and evaluating the capabilities of sorcerers, witches and the incantations used by such individuals.”
The Americans would soon find themselves also researching the capability of the paranormal in military and intelligence applications. In a since declassified report from 1986 (available at the CIA website), SRI International (initially known as Stanford Research Institute) wrote an 80-page report entitled “A Suggested Remote Viewing Training Procedure”, more simply known as the Stargate Project. Instrumental to the experiments were Dr Russell Targ and Dr Harold Puthoff. Targ and Puthoff focused on one psychic in particular – an Israeli by the name of Uri Geller. Their work with him began in August 1973 as they attempted to scientifically verify Geller’s paranormal perception abilities. Geller obviously impressed his handlers with the results, claiming he later went on to work for the CIA. In one interview he said that “I did many things for the CIA. They wanted me to stand outside the Russian Embassy in Mexico and erase floppy discs being flown out by Russian agents. I had to get near someone signing a nuclear deal and bombard him with ‘Sign, sign, sign.’” Although Targ and Puthoff were instrumental to remote viewing research, the “father of remote viewing” is considered to be Ingo Swann who once sensationally claimed that the CIA contracted him to remote view the dark side of the moon to determine if there was an alien presence.
Remote viewing appealed to military and intelligence officers for one simple reason – battlefield advantage. Since applications included spying on military facilities behind enemy lines and obtaining information on the location of missing aircraft, personnel, fugitives and hostages, anybody who could supposedly develop a “reliable remote viewing program” was able to achieve far more than even the best spy satellite. The CIA even once claimed that they could take anybody with no known psychic abilities and turn them into reliable remote viewers within six months. Their research concluded that all they needed to do was enable nonconscious information to rise to consciousness by removing certain barriers. Instrumental to their training program was the ability to unlock this information through use of “the Matrix”. A CIA report from 1988 says this: “Somewhere, perhaps in the unconscious mind, there exists what we will label ‘the Matrix’. The Matrix knows no boundaries and has no limitations – it contains all information about all things. It could be thought of as omnipotent or you could think of it as a data base etc.”
Paranormal activities like ESP, clairvoyance, remote viewing, etc., are a counterfeit of God’s work, empowered by the enemy of our souls in an attempt to deceive. The modern interest in remote viewing reflects mankind’s persistent desire to access supernatural knowledge and power apart from God. Such practices are spiritually dangerous! Instead of seeking information through questionable psychic methods, we can find genuine spiritual truth through our relationship with God and by studying His Word. All occult experiences and so-called psychic gifts have been developed by Satan in order to counterfeit spiritual experiences and undermine mankind’s quest for truth as it is found in Jesus. The reality is that the Soviets and the Americans wasted countless hours and spent millions of dollars (the CIA invested $20 million in the Stargate Project) in pursuing knowledge which ultimately led them to occult practices. Sadly, it is a mistake repeated by many people today.
