Spooks on Crack

This revealing -- and I thought, highly amusing -- passage is from The Wizards of Langley: Inside the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology by Jeffrey T. Richelson (p.176-177). THE CIA'S PSYCHIC FRIENDS In June 1973, OTS chief John McMahon and Carl Duckett were briefed by Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ from the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). Puthoff had obtained a doctorate from Stanford University, was the holder of a patent for a tunable infrared laser, and had coauthored an influential textbook on quantum electronics. Targ, a physicist whose father was a devotee of the paranormal, had spent the previous decade conducting laser research. But the SRI scientists did not come to Langley to brief Duckett and McMahon on the use of lasers for intelligence purposes. Rather, the two senior CIA officials heard about a very different, and unconventional, area of research -- psychic spying. Four years earlier, Puthoff had experienced a number of personal and professional changes. Separation from his wife, a visit to the Esalen Institute, and boredom with teaching in Stanford's electrical engineering department had been followed by his moving over to SRI, which had close ties to Stanford University but was funded largely by government contracts. Puthoff joined SRI to assist with a laser-related project, but when funding dwindled, he sought permission from his boss and obtained $10,000 from the part-owner of a fried-chicken franchise to test for the existence of psychic abilities. Puthoff's turn toward fringe science was not exactly a radical departure. For several years, he had been an active member of the Church of Scientology, and he provided the church with a letter referring to Scientology as a "highly sophisticated and highly technological system more characteristic of the best of modern corporate planning and applied technology." In addition, he wrote that he found Scientology "to be an uplifting and workable system of concepts which blend the best of Eastern and Western traditions." Lest readers think this some conspiracy-theorist flight of fancy, here's the author's brief bio: Jeffrey T. Richelson received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Rochester in 1975, and has taught at the University of Texas, Austin, and the American University, Washington. A senior fellow at the National Security Archive in Washington, he lives in Alexandria, Virginia. Publishers Weekly calls the book "a solid, conservative perspective on the agency's history." (my emphasis)

related bonus book In 1979 a secret unit was established by the most gifted minds within the U.S. Army. Defying all known accepted military practice -- and indeed, the laws of physics -- they believed that a soldier could adopt a cloak of invisibility, pass cleanly through walls, and, perhaps most chillingly, kill goats just by staring at them.

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