J OURNAL OF P ARAPSYCHOLOGY R HINE R ESEARCH C ENTER Volume 78, Number 1 Spring 2014 ISSN 0022-3387 EDITORIAL STAFF John A. Palmer, Editor David Roberts, Managing Editor Donald S. Burdick, Statistical Editor Robert Gebelein, Business Manager The Journal of Parapsychology is published twice a year, in Spring and Fall, by Parapsychology Press, a subsidiary of The Rhine Center, 2741 Campus Walk Ave., Building 500, Durham, NC 27705. The Journal is devoted mainly to original reports of experimental research in parapsychology. It also publishes research reviews, methodological, theoretical, and historical papers of relevance to psi research, abstracts, and selected invited addresses from Parapsychological Association conventions, book reviews, and letters. An electronic version of the Journal is available to all subscribers on the Rhine Research Center’s website (www.rhine.org.) 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For those organizations that have been granted a photocopy license by CCC, a separate system of payment has been arranged. The Journal is an affiliated publication of the Parapsychological Association. Copyright © 2014 by the Parapsychology Press ISSN 0022-3387 Volume 78 / Number 1 Spring 2014 INVITED ARTICLE Star Gate: The U. S. Government’s Psychic Spying Program 5 Edwin C. May ARTICLES The Nature of Precognition 19 Jon Taylor Revealing Psi Secrets: Successful Esperimenters Seem to Succeed by Using Their Own Psi 39 Adrian Parker and Brian Millar Beyond the Coin Toss: Examining Wiseman’s Criticisms of Parapsychology 56 Johann Baptista and Max Derakhshani How to Remove the Influence of Expectation Bias in Precognition Experiments: A Recommended Strategy 80 Jan Dalkvist, Julia Mossbridge, and Joakim Westerlund Mediumship, Psychical Research, Dissociation, and the Powers of the Subconscious Mind 98 Carlos S. Alvarado Precognitive Dreaming: Investigating Anomalous Cognition and Psychological Factors 115 Caroline Watt OBITUARY Robert L. Van de Castle 126 By Erlendur Haraldsson BOOK REVIEWS Education in Parapsychology: Student and Instructor Perspectives By Harvey Irwin 128 Chris A. Roe Conversations With Ghosts By Alex Tanous and Callum E. Cooper 131 Pamela Heath Randi’s Prize: What Sceptics Say About the Paranormal, Why They Are Wrong, and Why It Matters By Robert McLuhan 133 Graham Watkins Editor’s Note: Policy on Author Pseudonyms 136 Glossary 137 Instructions for Authors 140 We would like to thank the following persons for their work in translating abstracts for this issue of the Journal: Eberhard Bauer (German), Etzel Cardeña, (Spanish), and Renaud Evrard (French). Journal of Parapsychology 78(1), 5–18 INVITED ARTICLE STAR GATE: THE U.S. GOVERNMENT’S PSYCHIC SPYING PROGRAM BY EDWIN C. MAY ABSTRACT: From 1972 to 1995 various agencies of the U.S. government funded applications of and research into psi to the tune of over 20 million U.S. dollars. Although this sounds like a substantial amount of money to most of us, with regard to military and/or intelligence funding it is almost round-off error! This activity was not inspired by some academic curiosity that one might find at a university; rather, it was driven by necessity during the Cold War. Puthoff and Targ deserve unbounded respect for shepherding the project, especially in its early days. My view of STAR GATE extends from late 1975 through 1995, and I am the “keeper of the keys” of all the research and some of the spying. This means I have all the project records, including such things as raw data from a large number of experiments, final reports to a host of clients, administrative records as to who funded the project and for how much money, who was involved, and how and why the gov- ernment’s in-house activity was established at Ft. Meade. This paper is a personal narrative of my first-hand account of much of that work. Keywords: psychic spying, government ESP, insider view, intelligence operations It was late in 1975, in the midst of the Cold War, that I joined the ongoing, highly classified program at Stanford Research Institute (now called SRI International) as a consultant to study and use extrasensory perception, a form of which technically is also known as “remote viewing,” to gather information for the U.S. military and intel- ligence communities. After I had been notified that mysecret government clearance had been approved, the director of the program, Harold Puthoff, called me into his office and closed the door behind me. Hal opened an imposing safe in his office. What he showed me blew my mind. Even to this day, after all these years, I still get goose bumps thinking about the then-classified examples he showed me. Government clearances were not new to me. I was given my first one as a 20-year-old student while work- ing during the summer at the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, California. I worked there for each summer for the next 5 years in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department learning about atmospheric physics. Physics, after all, was my declared major at the University of Rochester, and this job offered me an extraordinary opportunity in theoretical research. The data Hal took from his safe have all been declassified and are now available from the National Archives for $140 (www.archives.gov). Thus, I will not belabor the details here. I simply quote from Puthoff and Russell Targ’s final report to the CIA, dated December 1, 1975: Date: 1 June 1973, 1700 hours, Menlo Park, California. Protocol: Coordinates 38°23’45” to 48”N, 79°25’00”W were given (with no further description) by experimenter Dr. H. E. Puthoff to subject Sl [later identified as Pat Price] by telephone to initiate the experiment. On the morning of 4 June 1973, Sl’s written response (dated 2 June 1973, 1250 to 1350 hours, Lake Tahoe, California) was received in the mail: Looked at general area from altitude of about 1500 ft above highest terrain. On my left forward quad- rant is a peak in a chain of mountains, elevation approximately 4,996 ft above sea level. Slopes are greyish slate covered with variety of broadleaf trees, vines, shrubbery, and undergrowth. I am facing about 3° to 5° west of north. Looking down the mountain to the right (east) side is a roadway—freeway, country style— 6 The Journal of Parapsychology curves then heads ENE to a fairly large city about 30 to 40 miles distant. This area was a battleground in civil war—low rolling hills, creeks, few lakes or reservoirs. There is a smaller town a little SE about 15 to 20 miles distant with small settlements, village type, very rural, scattered around. Looking across the peak, 2500 to 3000 ft mountains stretch out for a hundred or so miles. Area is essentially wooded. Some of the westerly slopes are eroded and gully washed—looks like strip mining, coal mainly. Weather at this time is cloudy, rainy. Temperature at my altitude about 54° F— high cumulo nimbus clouds to about 25,000 to 30,000 ft. Clear area, but turbulent, between that level and some cirri stratus at 46,000 ft. Air mass in that strip moving WNW to SE. 1318 hours—Perceived that peak area has large underground storage areas. Road comes up back side of mountains (west slopes), fairly well concealed, looks deliberately so. It’s cut under trees where possi- ble—would be very hard to detect flying over area. Looks like former missile site—bases for launchers still there, but area now houses record storage area, microfilm, file cabinets; as you go into underground area through aluminum rolled up doors, first areas filled with records, etc. Rooms about 100-ft long, 40-ft wide, 20-ft ceilings, with concrete supporting pilasters, flare-shaped. Temperature cool—fluorescent light- ed. Personnel, Army 5th Corps Engineers. M/Sgt. Long on desk placard on grey steel desk—file cabinets security locked—combination locks, steel rods through eye bolts. Beyond these rooms, heading east, are several bays with computers, communication equipment, large maps, display type, overlays.