Approved For Release 2003/09/10
: CIA-RDP96-00788R001 70021 001 0-1
*Behavior continued
insisted
otherwise.
Scientists
evaluating
the
data obtained by Marina
10 on March
29,
1974—nineteen days
after
the Swann-Sher-
men probe — discovered both conditions.
What can Ingo Swann possiblydo for an
encore?
“The problem lies in finding places that I
can’t be accused of reading up on, that can still
be verified by someone credible,” he explains.
“There is loose on this planet an anti-psychic
attitude.
It breeds jealousy. People say, 'Why
does he have it and I don’t?’ It’s easier for that
kind of mind to simply decide that I don’t have
it, than to deal with the whys involved.”
At the opposite extreme are those who do
believe in the OOBB, which they are apt to call
“astral
travel."
Many
of
these
consider
Swann’s psychic tripping dangerous. “What if
someone wants to take over your body?" they
ask. “What if you don't come back?"
Ingo Swann believes both possibilities to
be
unlikely. “Why would anyone want my
body?" he laughs, but admits, “perhaps some
could attract such dangers to themselves by
their own paranoia,
“I’ll come back. I’ve lots to do in this life;
but an even greater incentive to return to this
body is the idea of having to be born again and
go to grade school another time. I can’t think of
any reality worse than that!
“No,” Swann
replies
in anticipation of
the inevitable question, “I haven’t met Qod yet,
but I’ve lots to take up with him when I do.”
CL who think»-the meeting highly
unlikely
is
Dr.
John
Palmer,
a
research
psychologist at the University of California at
Davis. Though Palmer has a love affair going
with the OOBE—having devoted six years to
its study—he does not see anything mystical
about the phenomenon.
“The OOBE should not be regarded as
proof of soul survival,” he insists. “It may or
may not be spiritual, and whether it is or not
should be decided by something other than the
out-of-bodiness of it.”
Approaching the OOBE from the point of
view
of
the
experimental
psychologist and
parapsychologist. Palmer’s attitude
is one of
detachment. “One must consider the psychol-
ogical set of the person having the OOBE,” he
says.
“Where is he coming from? What sort of
experience
was
he
having
just
before
his
OOBE?
OOBEs
often
occur
in
a
death
situation. There is this common idea that dying
means
leaving
the
body.
• So what do you
suppose
that person
has
in the back of his
mind? Maybe something like, ‘Gee, I’m dying!
What’s going to happen next? I go to heaven—
at least I hope I go to heaven.’ So the person is
primed
for a mystical experience or OOBE.
Perhaps his unconscious mind obligingly comes
through with one.”
Whether
or
not
an OOBB
has
an
objective reality or is merely a creation of the
• imagination has yet to be established scientifl-
... cally. But of one thing Palmer is certain. There
is nothing, rare about the experience or special
about the individual having it.
He cites an experiment undertaken with a
colleague in Virginia. Seven hundred question-
naires
were
sent
to
adult
residents
of
Charlottesville, Virginia, and to 300 University
of Virginia students. Respondents were asked,
“Have you ever had an experience in which you
felt that you were located outside or away from
your physical body; that
it, the feeling that
your
consciousness,
mind,
or. center
of
‘ awareness was at a different place from your
physical
body.
(If
in
doubt,
please answer
. ‘no’).”
-Of the 341 townspeople (49 percent) who
returned the questionnaire and answered the
item,
forty-eight
(or
percent)
answered
affirmatively. Of the students queried. 266 (89
percent) answered the item and sixty-six of
these (23 percent) affirmatively.
In the combined samples, 83 percent of
those reporting an OOBE told of having the
experience more than
once, and 34
percent
reported having it eight or more times.
•
In an effort to stimulate an OOBE in a
laboratory
setting. Palmer
tested some
180
undergraduate
students.
All
were
unpaid
volunteers and no effort was made to select
people with a previous OOBB
history. The
subjects included seventy-eight men and 102
women.
Relaxation and
sensory
deprivation
techniques were employed to induce an altered
state of consciousness. As in the case of Ingo
Swann, hidden targets were employed.
When
the
series
of
experiments
was
completed, 30 percent of the subjects reported
having OOBEs. Evidence of ESP was Often
prevalent among those reporting OOBEs, but
that
does
not
constitute
proof
that
their
OOBEs were real
in Palmer’s opinion. Both
OOBEs
and ESP
are
by-products
of
the
hypnogogic
state,
he
believes,
a
borderline
condition between sleep and wakefulness that
can
be
induced
by
relaxation
and
sensory
deprivation.
The out-of-body experience is just that—
'
an experience. It would be premature indeed,
in
Palmer's
estimate,
to
conclude
that
it
constitutes
a
“dry'
run"
for
the
death
experience.
^Whatever
the
prevailing
scientific
definition of the OOBE, there are many who
would like to achieve it, decide for themselves
'
the meaning of it all, and then return to tell the
tale. For these cosmic explorers, the' ultimate
trip can be arranged.
The M-3000 program
administered by
the Monroe Institute in San Francisco
is the
vehicle, program director Christopher Lenz the
tour guide. Robert Monroe, known in parapsy-
chology
circles
as
Mr.
Out-of-Body,
has
devised the route. Formerly a sound engineer,
Monroe's
life changed forever nearly twenty
years ago when he discovered himself floating
some
twelve
feet
above
the
floor
of
his
bedroom. Directly beliow was his, wife lying in
bed with another.mail.
'
"
** 7 haven't met God yet,
but I've lots to take up
with him when I do.'
Assuming himself to be dreaming, Mon-
roe studied the male form curiously; "Just who
would I dream to be in bed with my wife?” he
pondered. Then, peering more closely, Monroe
. says he recognized the man as himself. “I must
be dead!” was his terrified reaction. Desperate-
ly he swooped down to, his body and dove in.
Then,
feeling the bed below and the covers
above, he cautiously opened his eyes and saw
the room from a more familiar perspective.
This was the
beginning of many such
'
experiences
as Monroe
discovered
that
he
could
leave
his
body
at
will. The M-S000
program
is an outgrowth of the experiments
that followed. It involves a weekend workshop
. where participants spend most of their time in
sleeping bags, stereo headphones clamped to
'
their heads.
The stated purpose of the program
is to
-
enable each participant to become aware of the
,
threshold state between wakefulness and sleep,
then
to
stabilize
this
threshold
to such
an
.
extent that it becomes a gateway to new means
of thought and
perception. Quite often
this
takes the form of an out-of-body experience.
The workshop begins Friday evening and
'
continues through Sunday noon. A minimum
of eleven
forty-five minute tapes are
heard.
Bach is designed to develop perceptual abilities
by careful coordination of instructions from
Monroe, combined with varying frequencies of
audio pulsing.
Between
tapes
there’s
a
break
for
discussion
of
experiences.
Most
attend
the
program
hoping
for an OOBE
but
this
is
generally just the beginning. Some participants
report talks with long dead loved ones, others
tell of self-healing or telepathic communica-
tion. But greater than any of these wonder tales
.is a sense of guidance and perspective from an
, apparently heightened consciousness.
Christopher
Lenz
suggests
that
those
attending the workshop bring not only pillows
and blankets (to keep the body comfortable on
the floor while the spirit soars) but questions
and problems for which outside help is desired.
Ingo Swann might say the answers come from
. the cosmos. John Palmer would suggest the
individual’s subconscious mind. Lenz frankly
does not know where the answers come from. It
is enough for him that they invariably come.
“We
like
to make
those
distinctions,
neatly labeling everything that comes our way
into
either/or
categories,”
he
points
out.
“Maybe this is more a matter of both/and.”
-
An
enthusiastic “graduate”
is
psychia-
trist
Elisabeth
Kubler-Ross,
author
of
' On
Death and Dying, who referred to the training
session one
year
later
as a
wonderful and
consistent method
of exploring and
under-
standing
one’s
total
self.
“It
has
helped
broaden my understanding not only of life here,
but of that existence beyond
)vhat wo
call
death,” she said£)
"Approved ‘F6r Release 2003/09/10
: CIA-RDP96-00788R0017002ltMMTPr'