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I know that
I have been slow in commenting on
the information you
supplied
to me,
but quite frankly,
it
took me a long
time
to digest
it
all and even longer
to check out those references
I could get my hands
on.
Further,
after reviewing
the reports,
I can not honestly say
I
have anything
that important
to add
to what you apparently already
know.
There
is,
however,
one
thing unrelated
to
the report
I would
like
to bring
to your attention which may be of interest
to someone,
somewhere in your organization.
It deals with
a potential model of
psi-magnif ication.
1.
Document No.
76-13197
Overall,
this document bears
a strong resemblance
to
the pro-
posal
I submitted
to you last year.
Unfortunately,
practically
everyone else
in
the field has had
the same thoughts
at one
time or
another,
in one form or another
(Cazfcamalli,
early 1900
T s;
Vasil ietf,
L.L.
,
Experiments
in Mental Suggestion .
Church Crookham,
Hampshire,
England:
Institute for
the Study of Mental
Images,
1963;
Kogan,
I.M.
in Rejdak,
A.
(Ed)
Telepatic
_a Jasnovidnost ,
Prague:
Svoboda,
1970;
for review see Chari,
C.T.K.
in Wolman,
B.B.
(Ed)
Handbook of Para-
psychology ,
New York:
VanNostrand Reinhold Company,
1977).
1.1.
Section
I have not run across any of
the names
(contributors)
listed in
Section
2,
Page
in
the literature.
I am still interested in ob-
taining report No.
75-11096A,
if available
to me.
I have no reason to
doubt anything
in
this
section,
especially
the choice of Kogan as
the
leader in the field.
I found conclusions
(5)
and
(7)
particularly
curious
(p.
2-3,
2-4,
respectively)
as well as
the inclusion of
Document EW-76-011 with those you sent me.
I sense
that neither
the
authors of Document No.
EW-76-011 nor you can determine
the purpose
for psychophysiological training on a large scale.
There
is no indi-
cation that
it
is being used just as screening device
to detect and
develop only those people who are "gifted".
It appears
that
they be-
lieve
the ability
is
inherent
in almost everyone and can be developed
to some reasonable
(and usable
?)
extent
in those individuals willing
to
try.
1.2.
Section
I found
this section very vague.
It seems
as
though
it were
written
to fill a gap rather
than
to
inform.
I also feel
that
they
have greatly underestimated Ryzl
T s attempts
to combine sequential
analysis,
decision boundaries,
probability theory and information
theory.
Even though
I had read
this
section a number of
times,
I did
not see any connection between Ryzl
r s work and my own binary elimina-
tion computer modeling
(see Psi Magnification,
below) until after
I
had
thought out the model and made
the calculations.
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1,3.
Section 4-6
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No comment.
Not my field.
1.4.
S ection
Elegant.
However,
I have
this
scenerio
in my mind where Kogan
presents
a similar
theoretical construct
to his superiors who listen
patiently and
then say "That
f s very nice Dr,
Kogan,
now how do we
use it
to send messages which cannot be detected by satellite"?
My
point
is
that nowhere in this document do
the authors address
them-
selves
to application of
p si-phenomenon
to information transfer.
It
seems
to me that some speculation on this point
is warranted inde-
pendent
of how
it works.
1.5.
Section
Again Ryzl’s work
is mentioned but nothing concrete
is made of
it.
1.6.
Section
I do not agree.
It would seem more likely that a military instil-
lation would be used where large numbers
of mentally healthy volunteers
were available.
If
their research
is
to be reduced
to practice in some
sort of communication effort
it
is doubtful
that mentally unstable
personnel would be used.
There
is an overriding
tone in
this
entire
report
that
the Soviets are restricting themselves
to highly theoreti-
cal and exploratory research without any effort
to develop
a practical,
even
if
crude,
communication system or network.
1.7.
Section 10
Psychophysiology and Psychology
p
10-2
.
I assume the initial re-
port
they are refering
to
is No.
75-11096A.
Although
I have not read
this report,
I can easily guess
that
the authors are refering
to
the
widely known asymmetric functions
of
the parietal and/or
temporal
lobes
of
the human cortex.
Considering
the Holistic nature of psi-
phenomena and
the conceptual nature of information processing performed
by
the non-dominant
(usually right)
cerebral hemisphere
it
is
the only
parsimonious explanation available
to date.
I further assume that
the authors realize
that
the studies pro-
posed on
p.
10-2 would be confounded
(at least)
and irrelevant
(at
worst)
if
the subjects had an intact corpus collosum.
I would agree
that
it would be absolutely fascinating
to
do
these very same studies
in "split brain"
subjects
or right
temporal lobe epileptics known
to
be sensitive
to "gifted" agents.
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2.
Document No.
EW-76-011
I must confess
I fell asleep many
times reading
this document.
It
basically says
the same thing as Ostrander and Schroeder
(Psychic
Research Behind the Iron Curtain ,
Prentice Hall,
1968)
and
J.
G.
Pratt
(in Wolman,
B.B.
Ed.
Handbook of Parapsychology , New York,
Reinhold
Company,
1977).
That
is,
that
the Soviets
take parapsychology seriously,
treat
it objectively
(as opposed
to mystically)
and do
a lo^t of mass
training.
Like all other scientists
in a poorly funded field,
he suggests
that the U.S.
government pump large quantities
of money into his
specialty - biofeedback -
so we can stay ahead
to
the Soviet Union.
Paper by G.
P.
Krokhalev entitled "Photographing Visual Hallucina-
tions"
(Third International Congress on Psychotronic Research,
Part
II,
Tokoyo,
1977).
This
is
a well written account of some Soviet studies
in though-
ography.
It did get me
to read Jule Eisenbtlds fascinating book on Ted
Serios
(The World of Ted Serios
.
New York;
Morrow,
1967).
It
is
in-
teresting
to note that
the
sujj^ects
in Krokhalev' s paper and Ted Serios
were
alcoholics.
Further,
there is nothing new in Krokhalev’s article
which Eisenbt4.d had not already considered.
Such phenomenon have been
known for more than 100 years
(earliest account:
Mumler,
W.
H. Personal
Experiences of William H. Mumler
in Spirit Photography .
Boston:
Colby
and Rich,
1875).
This and other psychokinetic phenomena
(l.e.
polter-
gist activity)
are perhaps
the most demanding forms
of psi-effects
- de-
manding in the sense
that they are real,
leave lasting evidence of
their
existence,
and obviously require large amounts
of carefully focused
energy.
4.
Psi-Magnif ication
This section is a brief report on my own work as
it
relates
to ESP.
It
is all
theoretical .
There
is” no biological
data"."
I t""re^suTted'"Trom
an interest of mine in optical illusions and sensory processing.
Some
of
it
is
tough reading because of
its abstract nature.
\
X
know that in Figures
1 and
that lines "a" and
"b" are equal in length;
that "a"
is continuous with "b2" and not "b^"
in Figure
3;
and
that
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corners
"a" and "b"
cannot be in
two placed at once in Figure
4.
How-
ever,
no matter how hard
or long you look at
these figures,
the illusions
persist
(i.e.
b
> a in Figures
1 and
2,
etc.)*
It occurred
to me,
as
I
am sure it has occurred
to others,
that
the brain does not use all
the
information available
to it before making an irreversible decision as
to
what it "thinks"
it senses within the visual field.
I decided
to
test
a
part
of
this hypothesis with
a mathematical model which incorporated a
simple decision making process.
It went as follows:
according
to inform-
ation theory the number of information bits
(I) necessary
to absolutely
identify
a character with population of fixed size
(N)
is
I = log 2N
For simplicity
I chose a population of N =
16,
thus requiring log 2
16 =
information bits
to positively identify any one character
(mark)
.
I also
chose
to have 16 independant estimates randomly identify the mark.
The
mark was
the number seven
(7)
in the following array in the entire study:
If any one estimate was
in the plurality,
it became
the choice for
the
entire set.
In the case of
a
tie, information bits were used until
a
plurality was established.
The sequence was always
the same:
I-*- dis-
tinguished between 1-8 and 9-12,
I 2 between 1-4 and 5-8,
1 3 be-
tween 5-6 and 7-8 and
I 4 between
7 and
8.
Of
course,
if
the informa-
tion bits were called
for,
the average population size decreased pro-
portionally.
This was calculated separately.
Two examples are shown
below:
Mark
=
Plurality estimate
=
Information bits used
=
none,
chance = 1/16
Estimate correct?
=
no
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Example
Ranked
€
2) <L
Mark
8 O
13 C
Plurality estimate
«
cannot make because of
tie call
for
il,
thus eliminating 9-16
^
remaining
(5
5) (T~
7)
Plurality estimate
=
cannot make because
of
tie^call
for
thus eliminating 1-4
remaining
for
Lty
(
i
»
Plurality estimate
=
thus eliminating
5 and
cannot make because
of
tie^call
remaining
(7_
T)
Plurality estimate
=
Information bits used
=
3,
change - 1/2
Estimate correct?
=
yes
I used
this procedure on 500
sets
of
16 random numbers generated
by computer.
The results were interesting:
Chance with no information bits
=
1/16
= 0.0625
Average change in 500 set
s where information bits
were introduced as
needed'
=
1/11.54 = 0.0867
Incidence of
f s
(hits)
=
1/5.88 = 0.170
There
is probably some very sophisticated mathematical explanation
for
this phenomenon but
it struck me as
a fascinating observation.
What
it means
is
that a unilateral decision making process can increase
the
incidence
of hits above chance.
At
this point
I bisected my interest
into
two areas.
The first
is
a continuation relevent
to my interests
in
illusionary phenomena which
I will not go into further here.
The second
was
a potential method for communication which could be reduced
to
practice with partially "gifted"
subjects.
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4.1.
Percipient Limitations
In order
to determine
the range limitations
of potential percip-
ients
I read
J.
B.
Rhines original
text on extrasensory perception.
His best subjects performed at
twenty percent above chance,
i.e. when
chance was
1/5,
they would operate at
2/5 rather reliably.
It
is
curious
to note
that nowhere in the literature has anyone attempted
to determine whether
the operating level
of
a percipient
is related
to
the size of
the forced choice population.
So we really do not know
whether Rhines best subjects were performing at exactly twenty percent
or rather at twice chance.
This
is an important point.
For instance
if
the population was N
=
Case
I:
operating at
20% above change
0.10
(chance) + 0.20
((£)
= 0.30
(operating level)
Case
II:
operating at
2 x chance
0.10
(chance) +0.10
(t£)
= 0.20
(operating
level)
4.2.
Computer Modeling
For
the sake of argument
I assumed
that a reasonable "alphabet"
could be made of
16 characters.
This alphabet th&n became the forced
choice population or
"N" value.
I
then assumed that
16 percipients
would be available on the "receiving"
end of
the communication link
and an indeterminant number
of agents would be available on
the "send-
ing"
end of
the communications
link.
The last assumption would be
that
separate computer-run data processing devices would be in contact with
each other by conventional radio on
the receiving and sending
end
of
the communications
link.
When an information bit was
to be transferred
the computers would signal both agents and percipients
to "send" and
"receive" respectively.
The
16 percipients would individually indicate
their choice of what
they think
the particular character
(out
of
characters)
was.
Once all
16 percipients
indicat a4 their
choice
the
percipients
computer
(unilaterally)
applied
the decision boundaries
described in
4.
above.
In the case of
ties,
the percipient computer
would ask the agent computer
to apply
1^,
I^...etc.
as necessary until
a plurality occurred on the percipients
end.
Going back
to
the
example
in
4. where only chance was
involved
(and no
ESP),
the chance of
an
external source
(monitoring satellite)
guessing
the correct character
was
1/11.54
or 0.087
(8.7%)
whereas
the accuracy
of information re-
ceived by
the percipient computer was
1/5.88
or 0.170
(17%).
This,
of
course,
is not accurate enought
to make such
a system practical.
Now
let us
consider
the situation where
the percipient group does have ESP
ability.
I modeled
this
out by computer by expanding N
to
,
th£n
18,
then
19,
then
20 but held
the sets
(percipients)
to
16.
When analyzing
the random number sets
of
16,
I assigned those numbers above
(e.g.
17 and/or
18 and/or
19 and/or
20)
as
correct estimates arrived at by
ESP.
Of
course,
the correct guess by chance
(always character number
7)
was also
included.
The results were startling as shown in Figure
1.
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4.3.
Discussion
I have little knowledge
of what
the practical limits are
for
in-
formation transfer but
I assume
that they fall within the range de-
scribed in Figure
1.
The Soviets may have already stumbled upon a
similar principle and
this may be
the reason why
they are training
so
many gifted individuals.
It
is quite possible
that other combinations
of character population,
decision boundaries,
etc. would have even
more appealing characteristics.
The only flaw in
the system that
I
can see at
this point
is
the possibility of response bias,
i.e.
a given
individual will be bias
towards
some characters more
than others
thus
upsetting the random nature
of
chance guessing.
Approvicfrfcor Rel$cts& 2©Q1 /0©0?h4 iC<t>A-RDR86-G>©787ROGi050i&2500<04^8
discuss
it in more detail with members
of your organization.
;hly
X
TO
THE
INCH
•
7X
INCHES
KEUFFEL
&
ESSER
CO.
MADE
IN
U.S.A.
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c0|pfDENT1AL) C1A internal use only