Courtney Brown (social scientist)
Courtney Brown (born 1952) is an associate professor in the political science department at Emory University and is known for promoting the use of nonlinear mathematics in social scientific research. He is also known as a proponent of remote viewing, a form of extrasensory perception. Applied mathematics. Brown's research in applied mathematics is mostly focused on social science applications of time-dependent models. He has published five peer-reviewed books and numerous articles in applied mathematics. Brown is also a very visible advocate of the use of the R Programming Language, both for statistical as  well as nonlinear modeling applications in the social sciences. Remote viewing. Brown learned the basic Transcendental Meditation and an advanced technique called the TM-Sidhi program in 1991. He claims to have engaged in "yogic flying" at the Golden Dome of Pure Knowledge at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa in 1992. Brown's remote viewing findings have been dismissed by scientists, such as his colleague at Emory University Scott O. Lilienfeld, who has stated that Brown has refused to subject his ideas and his claimed psychic powers to independent scientific testing on what Lilienfeld describes as "curious" grounds . He normally acts as a data analyst while working with other remote viewers (who do the actual viewing) who have been trained in procedures that were developed by the U.S. military. Among a variety of controversial topics, Brown has claimed to apply remote viewing to the study of multiple realities, the nonlinearity of time, planetary phenomena, extraterrestrial life, UFOs, Atlantis, and even Jesus Christ. According to Michael Shermer "The claims in Brown's two books are nothing short of spectacularly weird. Through his numerous SRV sessions he says he has spoken with Jesus and Buddha (both, apparently, are advanced aliens ), visited other inhabited planets, time traveled to Mars back when it was fully inhabited by intelligent ETs, and has even determined that aliens are living among us—one group in particular resides underground in New Mexico." Martin Gardner wrote about Brown's book "Cosmic Voyage" about his remote viewing findings of extraterrestrials, "The only earlier book about UFOs I can think of that is nuttier than this one is George Adamski's 'Inside the Space Ships' (1955)." Robert Baker writing in the "Skeptical Inquirer" came to the conclusion that Brown's beliefs from remote viewing about alien civilizations is a  case of self-deception. On June 27, 1997, the New York Times mentioned Courtney Brown “has been denounced as a scam artist, ‘definitely deluded’ and a virtual accomplice to suicide.” He went on: "Brown helped spread the idea that the Hale-Bopp comet was accompanied by a mysterious spaceship, a notion that may have inspired 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate group to kill themselves in March. Brown became convinced of this thanks to the controversial practice of ‘remote viewing’ — mental imaging practiced at great distances, which the Federal Government once researched in a defunct program called Stargate. Brown  was told by his own team of remote viewers that a ship lurked behind the comet, and he spread this news on the airwaves and the Internet.” In 1998, after former staff Prudence Calabrese resigned from Courtney Brown's Farsight Institute following the 1996-97 Hale-Bopp comet scandal, she wrote: "What I participated in over the course of a year and a half was nothing less than the manipulation of the public’s mind, not by outright lying, but by the selective representation, improper analysis, and overblown presentation style of remote viewing data. ...I failed in my moral responsibility  to let the public know exactly what was occurring with the data on esoteric targets publicly presented by The Farsight Institute (under the direction of Dr. Courtney Brown).” Today, Brown continues with his previous controversial pattern of the 1990's, claiming that his latest remote viewing data represents the reality of extraterrestrial life, though it cannot be verified and requires 'belief' that he is not manipulating his Remote Viewers. At other times, he contradicts himself and claims that remote viewing is scientific and 'speculative,' despite not following the scientific method for his RV projects, such as PEER Review of  his latest esoteric targets.