
CIA Doc on Time Travel, Consciousness, and Existence of the Absolute (1983) [pdf] - jules-jules
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00788R001700210016-5.pdf
======
colechristensen
Any reasonable government needs to have a small outlet for things that seem
crazy. In other words, you need X Files.

Not because you believe everything, most things, or even any thing in them,
but because having an open mind is important. If you think you know
everything, you will miss a lot. Being open minded means spending some time at
the tail edges investigating things that look like utter garbage woo, even if
the result is that they are invariably utter garbage woo.

Also, it is not complete nonsense.

Altering conscious states is absolutely real and there are many avenues to it.
Altered consciousness is also solidly in the interests of an intelligence
agency and research is only natural.

There is definitely a flavor of pseudoscientific nonsense that comes along
with altered consciousness experiences, but you can look past that.

Reports like this look to me very similar into pre-flight experiments. There
were a whole lot of people making patently ridiculous flying contraptions but
with hindsight many of them had some important ideas right.

See also: alchemy as a precursor to chemistry

Studying and treating the brain by developing methods to alter conscious
states is, I think, going to be a major achievement of the 21st century, and
things like this are precursors.

~~~
mikekchar
> If you think you know everything, you will miss a lot.

However, searching for low probability events in a large search space is not
necessarily going to be a fruitful experience. For example, imagine that there
is non-zero probability of a 20 karat diamond being on the beach somewhere,
buried in the sand. You can look for it as much as you want, but you will
_still_ probably miss it.

Having a small outlet for things that seem crazy because they might turn out
to be true is the same kind of logic as buying a lottery ticket because you
can't win if you don't play. Yes, you _will_ miss things, but you will almost
certainly miss them anyway unless you expend more resources than they are
worth -- and then you _still_ aren't guaranteed to make progress.

On the other hand low probability risks that are likely to happen _sometime_
are often worth investigating. For example, if there is a 1 in 1000 year
earthquake event, it's highly unlikely to affect you in your life. But it will
eventually affect _someone_ so it may be work the effort to study what might
happen. To get more esoteric, perhaps we can talk about large meteorites
hitting the planet. Do we need a contingency plan for it?

To me, that's the main question you need to ask before you start: are we
building up an understanding of something that will almost certainly affect us
one day, or are we simply sifting through grains of sand on the beach hoping
to find a diamond?

~~~
colechristensen
>low probability risks that are likely to happen sometime are often worth
investigating.

>buying a lottery ticket because you can't win if you don't play

These are the same situation

~~~
nmca
What? Expectation or risk-adjusted expectation are specified in neither case,
they are the defining characteristics and you can't make statements about
either of the cases without knowing or estimating them.

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opportune
If you go on some of the CIA FOIA tools you can also read about their
experiments with astral projection. One of the more famous ones is about some
guy astrally projecting on mars, in the past, and seeing aliens and buildings:
[https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-
RDP96-00788...](https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-
RDP96-00788R001900760001-9.pdf)

The CIA back then was all kinds of fucked up. Doing illegal experiments on US
civilians, installing dictators, and selling drugs. Makes you wonder what
terrible shit they're doing now that hasn't come to the surface yet...

~~~
radicaldreamer
Probably something with manipulation of large populations using social media
or predicting the future using user data and metrics.

~~~
therein
It categorically seems much more innocent if that's the case. Effective sure,
but it just doesn't feel as advanced as as injecting subjects with brand new
chemicals or exploring some advanced technology.

My point is, I am pretty sure that's not _the_ flagship project at the CIA or
NSA.

~~~
AngryData
I dunno, social manipulation is a pretty powerful tool. The difference between
a peaceful loving society and an aggressive and warlike society is in large
part controlled by social pressures and perceptions.

~~~
wallace_f
>in large part controlled ompletely controlled.

The intents of Nazis, Imperial Japanese, Crusaders, etc., can only be
explained by their social pressures. Same people born in different place and
time would have different intents.

Control what people see and hear and you control what they think.

Einstein quote: >Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions
which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are
even incapable of forming such opinions

------
goombastic
While people say the CIA invested in woo woo, I believe science progresses
this way. Reported edge cases of established theories need to be checked,
validated and proved/disproved before moving on to modifying the theory or
dumping the case as woo.

As scientists we should not be pre-disposed to shutdown things we do not
understand without putting said phenomena through a testing phase.

~~~
whatshisface
> _Reported edge cases of established theories need to be checked, validated
> and proved /disproved before moving on to modifying the theory or dumping
> the case as woo._

There are literally an infinite number of possible violations of established
physics. Momentum is not conserved inside this cubic inch. Momentum is not
conserved inside this other cubic inch...

The only reason one might prefer astral projection as a theory over the cubic-
inch-ism of any particular volume is that astral projection fits a few
preconceived notions about how the universe should conform to our
psychological expectations. It might be surprising to hear, but exploding a
goat with your mind is actually more psychologically familiar than any
particular fact about quantum field theory. It involves explosions, minds, the
exertion of will, and goats, while QFT involves unfamiliar components
following unfamiliar rules to unfamiliar ends.

In short, if your idea is to test for a violation of the known laws of nature,
great. If your idea is to test for a violation of the laws of nature _that is
only motivated by the predispositions you acquired in the cradle_ , that's not
so good.

~~~
jfoutz
I think they were checking culturally popular predispositions. I may claim
this one cubic inch is special, but who cares? If 5-10% of the country
believes it, it sorta makes sense to look into.

~~~
whatshisface
If someone believes something that all people are naturally predisposed to
believe (compared at least to other competing beliefs), then within the
palette of explanations for why they believe it lies, "just because they're
predisposed." As a result paranormal theories are actually less credible than
cubic-inch-ism.

~~~
mcbits
Are people also predisposed to believing that people are predisposed to some
belief without actually investigating the belief or understanding why people
might be predisposed to it?

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PinkMilkshake
They weren't 'taken' by it. It was likely to investigate it on the off chance
it was possible. They had to try because if an enemy did and it turned out to
be real, the advantages they would have would be huge. It's easy to look back
from 2019 and roll our eyes, but I think the truth was less obvious then and
it's likely our now easy dismissal of these things came from those very
studies.

~~~
TomMckenny
Alternatively, it's handy to create and leak documents to get the other guys
to waste resources competing with your supposed advances.

~~~
PinkMilkshake
That's certainly a possibility. I believe they did something similar with UFO
sightings by publicly giving them more credibility to mask testing of
experimental aircraft's?

~~~
jacobush
They did some research on "red mercury" and leaked plausible info on it, such
that the other side would try it out, sink resources and get themselves killed
(in the lab) in the process.

------
MrLeap
In 1983 the United States was spending 250 billion dollars on defense. Not
sure if CIA spending is included in that piece of the spending pie, but
regardless.. Lots of money gets dumped into the economy via that route. It's
well known that some government agencies have a "spend it or lose it" funding
model. If all your main budgetary needs are met and you have a few million
dollars at the end of the year, why not throw some at researching wizard shit?
No one wants to be the last super power to discover magical brain lasers.

Weird stuff like this doesn't bother me probably as much as it should. Sure,
I'd prefer if we spent that money on more reasonable endeavors, but this was
probably a cheap waste of time all things considered. And who knows? Maybe the
moonshot will pay off, and Americans everywhere will gain powerful psychic
shields to reflect communist hexes.

Government spending is a primary vector for new money into the economy. If it
passes through a coven real quick, meh. Many think we should be spending more
money on the arts, and I think the dark arts should count.

~~~
tbabb
There are a million better long-shot scientific experiments that could be done
with better rigor and better theoretical/experimental foundation than what's
in that paper. The ideas there are 'not even wrong' in the Wolfgang Pauli
sense; it is scientific-sounding words jumbled into a picture that isn't even
coherent, let alone in agreement with reality.

Just because you can think of it, or can imagine it being true, or are
_afraid_ of it being true, doesn't mean it's worth investigating. Should the
CIA engage in leprechaun research?

------
m463
some of the document is "out there", but there's one section I've had some
experience with: biofeedback.

Many years ago I tried a friend's biofeedback device - it used Galvanic Skin
Response.

It seems you can still buy approximately the same device my friend owned on
amazon: [https://amzn.com/B01IPSUIZ0](https://amzn.com/B01IPSUIZ0) (this is
not a referral link and I have no association of any kind with them)

So here is the idea: you lay down on the bed, put your fingers across the
contacts and move the knob until you get a medium high-pitched tone from the
device. If you relax, the tone will decrease in pitch. You cannot cheat. If
you _think_ you are relaxing but are not, the tone will not budge (or will
rise in pitch). If you continue to decrease the tone you will eventually relax
so much you will fall asleep.

The first time I used this (~20 years ago) I learned how to relax in about 30
minutes. I have carried this ability all my life.

~~~
equalunique
The $76 investment is worth it if there is a 50% chance I could gain an
ability to relax within 30 minutes.

------
SubiculumCode
1\. Try and see. 2\. Leak program. 3\. Get USSR to waste resources trying it
themselves, and/or spying on the American program.

~~~
cftm
This exactly.

The cold war was ended by the Strategic Defense Initiative - not because it
worked but because we forced the USSR to pour resources into matching us and
it bankrupted the country.

~~~
mjevans
What an horrid war of attrition. The only winning move is to have deeper
pockets.

~~~
nradov
It was less horrid than the alternative.

------
nyc111
The author quotes Niels Bohr who says "you are not thinking you are merely
being logical." sounds like a nice saying, but what is really the difference
between being logical and thinking? What does Bohr do when he thinks? (I was
just reading Polya's How to Solve It, maybe Bohr had in mind methods of
investigations studied by Polya).

------
lostpasswordz
Well this is kind of crazy. I saw the title and instantly thought "oh wow,
this is totally in line topically with a recent activity".

Read 1 page in and instantly realized they were going to the Monroe Insititue
- where I just was.

Great place TBH.

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pytyper2
I get the feeling that the budget for this project was actually spent on
something nefarious and they only produced this document to claim they
actually spent it on the task.

~~~
ransom1538
+Yes. The obvious answer is probably correct: it was just a front to fund more
contras.

~~~
mgarfias
more likely hookers and blow

------
godelmachine
Nazi's certainly had their $0.02 to contribute -

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Glocke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Glocke)

They say Heinrich Himmler was a practitioner of Occultism and had influenced
SS to a considerable extent.

------
tbabb
Utter garbage woo. I'd say it's indicative of something, but should we be
surprised that even large government organizations can be taken in by BS?

~~~
taneq
I think it's less "taken in by BS" than "eliminating possibilities."

~~~
Cheyana
Exactly this. They had to at least say they TRIED knocking goats out by
staring at them.

~~~
mattkrause
Bingo! And it works two ways.

The far-fetched worst case scenario is that this actually works, and that some
enemy figures that out first.

The realistic nightmare scenario goes is a congressman going “DCI Casey, we’ve
heard rumors that the Soviets/Qaddafi/Al Qaeda/baddy of your choice have
developed methods for controlling minds. Yet we’ve heard little about how you
plan to protect the US from such a threat.”

