Approved For Release 2003/09/1. 0 CIA-RDP96-00788RO01 700210010-1 By Antoinette May 11Wben Ingo Swann was a small child he would sometimes noat from his bed at night, waring out of his body and slipping into the, earth of his native Rocky Mountains where he would follow the veins of metal ore through the ground until they emerged on the mountain surface. A childhood fantasy? Perhaps. But consider the many today, still floating--only ihis time at the direction of Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park. Again and again, Swann has demonstrat-' ed the ability to "see" a distant object without leaving his body. Dr. Harold Nthoff and Russell Targ. physicists at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) call this phenomenon "remote viewing... Swann calls it out-of-body-experience or 008E. Swann's OOBE began in the most common manner, a stress situation. The classic' OODE happens spontaneously during an accident or surgical operation. Tito individual,' generally after being terrified by the prospect of death. is amazed to rind himself hovering above his body watching the surrounding activity with a now detachment. Ingo Swann experienced this phenome- non when he was three years old during a tonsillectomy..Gliding up above his small body', the child watched with fascination as the doctor performed the operation. Hearing tho doctor say a forbiddei; word as his knife slipped brought a sense of shocked pleasure to the small voyeur. Then Ingo Swann says that he looked down his own open mouth and saw blood oozing from the accidental wound. He noted with interest that the doctor placed the tonsils behind two rolls of paper In a side cabinet. "When I awakened from the anesthetic, I began to cry because my throat had been cut- though I couldn't possibly reel it, everything was numb@ The doctor couldn't understand how I knew. Then I asked him for my tonsils. A souvenir was the very least he could do, I thought, but he Insisted that he'd thrown them away. I wouldn't let him get away with thatf 'No, you didn't,* I contradicted him. 'You put' them over there behind those things."' Frwn this point on, out-of-body rambles The classic OOBE happens spontaneously during air accident or operation." added a dazzling dimension to Swann's life. He grow up, was graduated from Westminster College in Salt Lake City with degrees in art and biology, served three years In the army, and became a critically acclaimed artist. Then, thirty years after his initial experience, Swann volunteered as a subject for it series of controlled experiments demonstrating his' unique ability to view remote objects. This was the procedure: Swann would sit or lie quietly In a cubicle at Isolation booth. Several electrodes connect. ed to an EEG were secured to his head. The machine would be disconnected It he moved his head more than minimally-providing proof of a floorbound body. Far above Swann, a small platform was suspended. On the platform, out of sight, were the targets. Swann's task was to "float up out of his body" and observe the objects. After examin. Ing then targets from a point some ton- toot above his body. Swann floated down and proceeded to skitch what he had seen. The experiment over, he was unplugged from the machine. A ladder was brought and the targets taken down from the platform. Then were then compared to the sketches. Later both targets and drawings were submitted to an independent judge who correctly matched each copy with its original. At a series of eight such tests conducted by the -@.@Arnorican Society of Psychical Research In Now York all were easily matched. Statistical- ly, this could happen by chance once in 40,000 trys. Did success spoil Ingo Swann? No, but it bored him. "One day," be says, "life at SRI reached an apex of boredom." Swann was tired of earthly targets. He'd had enough of objects on platforms or In adjoining labs or even outside the building. He wanted a target that was literally out of this world. It was March 1973, nine months prior to the scheduled bypass of NASA's Pioneer 10 spacecraft with Jupiter. Swann decided to float up and observe the planet for himself. His own sightinp could then be compared to the eventual feedback. from Pioneer 10. To make the experiment even more interesting, Swann invited the psychic Harold. Sherman to make the trip with him. The OODE probe took place on the evening of April 27, 1973. Sherman "took off" from his Mountain View, Arkansas home at eight p.m. Central Standard Time, Swann's probe oom- menced at six p.m. Pacific Standard Time from SRI. The simultaneous journeys were recorded by Dr. Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ, who recorded the data and then relayed It to scientific colleagues around the country. The two subjects separated by nearly 2.300 miles described the same things, observed the same environmental conditions on Jupiter. Each spoke or glittering ice crystals, winds of terrific velocity, great mountain ranges and powerful magnetic fore". The same co6ditions were later confirmed by,tbe Pioneer 10 probe. . . Nearly a year later a similar entrusensory probe was undertaken. This time the target was the planet Morctiry. Despite the prevailing theory that the planet would have neither an atinimpherernor a magnetic field, both subjects candnued App .roIVed For Release 2003/09/10': C'A-RDP96-0'78r. 8ROO170021 0010-1 A019,111"AwhirmisaUdws 60aw" Approved For Release 2003/09/10 CIA-RDP96-00788RO01 700210010-1 avior cozilued objective reality or I ,a merely a creation of the imagination had yet to be established sciontifi- "'I haven't met'God yet, cally. But of one thing Palmer Is certain. There t Pv t k b l t t Is nothing, rare about the experience or spo0al a u o s o e e up about the individual having it. ' with him when I do He cites an experiment undertaken with a . insisted otherwise. Scientists evaluating the colleague In Virginia. Seven hundred question- data obtained by Marina 10 on March 29, naires were sent to adult residents of 1974-ninoteen days after the Swann-Sher-. Charlottesviuc, Virginia, and to 300 University Assuming himself to be dreaming, Mon- man probe - discovered both conditions. of Virginia students. Respondents were asked, roe studied the male form curiously@ "Just who What can Ingo Swann possibly-do for an "Have you ever had an experience in which you would I dream to be in bed with my wife?" he encore? folt that you were located outside or away from pondered. Then, peering more closely, Monroe The problem lies in finding places that I your physical body: that it, the feeling that says he. gnized the man as himself. "I must can't be accused of reading up on, that can still your consciousness. mind, or. center of be deadt" was his terrified reaction. Desperate- be verified by someone credible," he explains. 'awareness was at a different place from your ly he swooped down to,his body and dove in. There is loose on this planet an anti-psychic physical body. (if In doubt, please answer Then, footing the bed below and the covers attitude. It breeds jealousy. People say, 'Why ..no.)." . f above, he cautiously opened his eyes and saw does he have it and I don*t?' It's easior for that -Of the 341 townspeople (49 percent) who. the room from a more familiar perspective. kind of mind to simply decide that I don't have returned the questionnaire and answered the This was the beginning of many such It, than to deal with the whys Involved." item, forty-eight (or 14 percent) answered experiences as Monroe discovered that he At the opposite extreme are those who do affirmatively. Of the students queried. 266 (89 could leave his body at will. The M-5000 believe In the OOBE, which they are apt to call percent) answered the Item and aixty-ali of program is an outgrowth of the experiments astral travel." Many of these consider then (25 percent) affirmatively. that followed. It involves a weekend workshop Swann's psychic tripping dangerous. -What if . In the combined samples, 83 percent of where participants spend most of their time In someone wants to. take over your body?" they those reporting an OODE told of having the ',sleeping balix, steroo headphones clamped to ask. "What if you don't come back?" experience more than once, and 34 pe. nt their heads. Ingo Swann believes both possibilities to reported having It eight or more times. The stated purpose of the program is to be unlikely. "Why would anyone want my. @ In an effort to stimulate an OOBE In a enable each participant to become aware of the body?" he laughs, but admits, "perhaps some laboratory setting, Palmer tested some 180 threshold state between wakefulness and sloop., could attract such dangers to themselves by undergraduate students. All were unpaid then to stabilize this threshold to such an their own paranoia. , - volunteers and no effort was made to select extent that it becomes a gateway to now means "I'll come back, I've lots to do In this life;, people with a previous OODE history. The of thought and perception. Quite often this but an even greater incentive to return to this subjects included seventy-eight men and 102 takes the form of an out-of-body experience. body is the idea of having to be bom again and women. Relaxation and sensory deprivation The workshop begins Friday evening and go to grade school another time. I can't thinkof techniques were employed to induce an altered continues through Sunday noon. A minimum -any reality worse than thatl state of consciousness. As In the case of [ago of eleven forty-rive minute tapes are board. "No," Swann replies in anticipation of Swann, bidden targets were employed. Each is designed to develop perceptual abilities the Inevitable question, "I haven't met God yet. When the series of experiments was by careful coordination of Instructions from but I've lots to take up with him when I do." completed. 50 percent of the subjects reported Monroe, combined with varying frequencies of having OOBEs. Evidence of ESP was 6ften audio pulsing. 0 prevalent among those reporting OOBEs, but Between tapes there's a break for 6o who thinkio-the meeting highly that does not constitute proof that their discussion of experiences. Most attend the unlikely is Dr. John Palmer,' a research OOBEa were real -in Palmer's opinion. Both program hoping for an OOBE but this is psychologist at the University of California at OOBEs and ESP are by-products of the generally just the beginning. Some participants Davis. Though Palmer has a love affair going hypnogogic state, he believes, a borderline report talks with long dead loved ones. others with the OOBE-having devoted six years to condition between sloop and wakefulness that tell of self-healing or telepathic communica- its study-he does not see anything mystical can be induced by relaxation and sensory, tion. But greater than any of these wonder tales about the phenomenon. deprivation. is a sense of guidance and perspective from an . -The OOBE should not be regarded as The out-of-body experience is Just that- apparently heightened consciousness. proof of soul survival," he insists. "It may or an experience. It would be premature indeed, 'Christopher Lenz Suggests that those may not be spiritual, and whether it Is or not in Palinces estisnate., to conclude that it attending the workshop bring not only pillows should be decided by something other'then the oonxtitutos@ a "dry' run" for the death and blankets (to keep the body comfortable on out-of-bodiness of it." experience. the floor while the spirit war&) but questions Approaching the OOBE from the point of and problems for which outside help is desired. view of the experimental psychologist and W Ingo Swann might say the answers come from parapsychologist, Palmer's attitude is one of bItaver the prevailing scientific the cosmos. John Palmer would suggest the detachment. "One must consider the psychol. definition of the OOBE, there are many who individual's subconscious mind. Lenz frankly ogical set of the poMn having the OOBB." he would like to achieve it, decide for themselves does not know where the answers come from. It says. the meaning of It all, and then return to tell the is enough for him that they invariably come. .Where is he coining from? What sort of tale. For these cosmic explorers. thd ultimate "We like to make those distinctiom. experience was he having just before his trip can be arranged. neady laboling everything that comes our way OOBE? OOBEs often occur in a death The M-5000 program administered by into either/or categories," he points out. situation. There Is this common idea that dying the Monroe Institute in'San Francisco Is the "Maybe this is more a matter of bdth/and." means leaving the body. -So what do you vehicle, program director Christopher Lenz the - An enthusiastic "Sraduate" Is psychia- suppose that person has In the back of his tour guide. Robert Monroe. known in parapsy- trist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, author of'On mind? Maybe something like. 'Goo, I'm dyingl chology circles as Mr. Out-of-Body, has Death and Dying. who referred to the training What's going to happen next? I go to heaven- devised the route. Formerly a sound engineer, session one year later " a wonderful and' at least I hope I go to heaven.'So the person Is Monroe's life changed forever nearly twenty consistent method of exploring and under- primed for a mystical experience at OOSE. years ago when he discovoccil himself floating standing one's total self. "It has helped Perhaps his unconscious nxind obligingly comes - some twelve feet above the floor of his broaden my understanding not only of Ufa here, through with 0110." bedroom. Directly bol6w was Pfe, wife lyinS in but of that existence beyond What we call W.Udw at not. 0088 has ita bed with an*tb4r.nu&" dftthl@ She saidZI X -A-0pf6'vedTdr Releas-e@2003/09MO CIA-RDP96-0.0788.RG~170021VM-or*-'wlw"6-w***b