Psychotronics (parapsychology)
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Psychotronics is a term coined in 1967 by Zdeněk Rejdák for the study of parapsychology. Rejdák used this term to avoid the negative connotations of parapsychology and to define it as interdisciplinary subject, studying both the interaction between living organisms and their internal and external environment and energy processes in both these interactions.[1]
Since Rejdák's original work, the word has been applied to various alleged forms of mind control weaponry and has also been considered as a possible source of medical therapy.
In the Cold War
Rejdák became president of the International Association for Psychotronic Research, organising dozens of parapsychology conferences. The first international psychotronics meeting was held in Prague in 1973.[2] This research sparked Cold War fears in the US that Eastern Block countries were successfully developing technology capable of mind control and other psychotronic weaponry, with particular focus being placed on generators developed by Czech researcher, Robert Pavlita.[2] Pavlita created devices which were "allegedly able to amass human mental energy and release it mechanically or electromagnetically".[2]
The United States' Defense Intelligence Agency took a particular interest in these devices. In a report from 1975 the DIA took the device seriously as a potential weapon, reporting that "when flies were placed in the gap of a circular generator, they died instantly" and that Pavlita's daughter had become dizzy when the device was pointed at her from a distance of "several yards".[2] These fears diminished as it proved impossible to replicate Pavlita's machines and he died in 1991 without telling anyone how they worked.[2] Nevertheless, the generators still spark interest in paranormal researchers comparable to the obsessions of UFO hunters.[2]
Alleged mind control technology
In studying auditory hallucinions, Ralph Hoffman, a professor of psychiatry at Yale, reports that people often ascribe voices in their heads to external sources including government harassment, God, and dead relatives. It can be difficult to persuade people that their belief in an external influence is delusional and the Washington Post reported in 2007 that there are a growing number of US citizens who allege that the government is using "psychotronic torture" against them and who campaign to stop the use of psychotronic and other "mind control" weapons.[3]
Similar campaigns have occured in Russia with the "Victims of Psychotronic Experimentation" group attempting to recover damages from the Federal Security Service for alleged infringement of their civil liberties including "beaming rays" at them, putting chemicals in the water, and using magnets to alter their minds. These fears may have been inspired by revelations of secret research into pscyhological warfare during the early 1990s, with Lopatkin, a State Duma committee member in 1995, surmising "Something that was secret for so many years is the perfect breeding ground for conspiracy theories."[4]
Psychotronics in therapy
Psychotronics was popularized in Canada by family physician Terry Burrows. According to an article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Burrows' version of psychotronics "is concerned with the energy exchange capacities of a mind-body-environment relationship; in other words explaining by technology something that, until recently, was the preserve of Eastern phiosophers - how the mind relates to the body in sickness and health"[5] Suggestions that it was a psychic effect or related to mind control were explicitly rejected.[5] Instead, some research was conducted into biofeedback and whether the relationship between the human mind and body could be used in medical treatment of patients, including those suffering from psychosomatic illnessess.[5]
Burrows joined with engineer Henry Evering, who had been experimenting with changing work-environments to improve the mental health of workers. Burrows and Evering created techniques of biofeedback which were further developed by Dr. Bob James. James described his biofeedback as "the relating of body changes to thinking".[5] According to James, patients hook themselves up to a "galvanic skin response (GSR) biofeedback instrument", which alters the sounds it makes according to levels of stress. Thus they learn to control their own breathing and heart-rate. James then encouraged patients to externalise their own mental imagery, by drawing anything that came into their heads and discussing it.
Psychotronics in popular culture
A low-budget film dealing with mind control, The Psychotronic Man, was released in 1980. This film itself inspired the creation of Psychotronic Video magazine which covered films traditionally ignored or ridiculed by mainstream critics, and the UK punk-band Revenge of the Psychotronic Man.
References
- ^ Milan Nakonečný, Zdeněk Rejdák: Psychotronika. Časopis lékařů českých, 115, 1976, č. 1 (online)
- ^ a b c d e f German, Erik (July 5, 2000). "Is Czech Mind Control Equipment Science-Fiction or Science-Fact?". The Prague Post. Retrieved 16 December 2012.
- ^ Weinberger, Sharon (January 14, 2007). "Mind Games". Washington Post. Retrieved 2010-08-01.
- ^ Matthews, Owen (July 11, 1995). "Report: Soviets Used Top-Secret 'Psychotronic' Weapons". The Moscow Times.
- ^ a b c d Woods, David (1976). "Psychotronics: the new science once the preserve of ancient Eastern philosophy". Can Med Assoc J. 114 (9): 844–847. Retrieved 27 December 2012.
External links
- The Mind Has No Firewall, Parameters, Spring 1998, pp. 84-92
