In 1968 the U.S. Office of Education commissioned Stanford Research Institute (later called SRI) to have a look into the future and report what they’d found there. SRI took it one step further and spelled out what “changes in the conceptual premises underlying Western society would lead to a desirable future.” (Changing Images of Man, xvii)
The results were made into a book called “Changing Images of Man”, edited by O.W. Markley and Willis W. Harman. You can download a copy of the 1982 reprint here. (I originally was using a scan of the hardback so I am not sure the page numbers align correctly.) This book is a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream. It is nothing less than a blueprint for a vast social engineering project undertaken by the very highest levels of the military/industrial complex. The project, as we’ll see, was already well underway by the time this study was commissioned, but in the late sixties and early seventies, thanks in part to this project, SRI was at the hub of just about every major development in the evolving “New Age” community.
Conspiracy theorists within the Christian right see this book, now almost mythical in status, as evidence of a very longrunning project, indeed, comprised of a Satanic plot to rule the world. But we, especially those on the political left who would completely ignore such theories, will need learn to step out of our own ivory towers from which we scorn those “ignorant fundies” and re-examine how the elites in our society operate. For example, this document most certainly does represent an attempt to undermine Christianity. If nothing else, it is clear, that Christianity is not “useful” for the creation of the “desirable future” mentioned in the book’s introduction. That’s not to say that Christianity has not been manipulated in our society; it most certainly has and one need look no further than Pat Robertson’s call for the assassination of Hugo Chavez to see that cynical manipulation in action. But ultimately, Christianity must go or be transformed into something quite different. As we’ll see, that transformation is also well underway.
But if you think we’ll need to resort to questionable interpretations of ancient Biblical prophecies to make the case that the SRI study represents an ongoing project to manipulate the very core values of our society, think again. One advantage we have in the effort to oppose this program…and it is imperative that we make such an effort…is the sheer arrogance of those undertaking it. You see, they didn’t bother to hide their tracks. Who they are and what they represent are right out there in the open for all to see, sometimes in ways that I can only interpret as a mocking, inside joke. In fact, the program of the “Image Changers” is so apparent, that it is rather stunning to me that so few on the left have written about this before.
Ultimately, this is not about some tiny secret cabal pulling the strings. It’s about how our national security state operates and how our corporate and military rulers find some variation of fascism to be far more convenient for their purposes. This democracy thing isn’t really working for them, and the ability of our capitalist system to keep a majority of the citizens of the industrialized countries lodged within the ranks of the “middle class” is coming to an end. So, how better to transition to some neo-feudalist post-capitalism than to ask the middle class themselves to embrace the coming downsizing as the beginning of a new, golden age. Oh sure, the transition is likely to be a bit…bumpy…say the Image Changers. But they have a plan for THAT, too.
SRI was an founded as a research institution within Stanford University in 1946, though the idea had been in the planning stages for nearly two decades. You can view SRI’s freshly scrubbed and sanitized timeline here. Because no good conspiracy theory would be complete without it, we must note that the original plans were made at a meeting held at Bohemian Grove, a wooded retreat with a very dubious history.
Soon after it’s establishment the institute was losing money. As everyone knows, the real money in higher academe is in government and particularly military research. A new director was brought in, Jesse E. Hobson, who aggressively pursued such contracts. By 1965, the vast majority of it’s projects were with the military.
To turn things around, SRI brought in an aggressive new director whose strategy was to go after the lucrative military R&D contracts. Under the new management, SRI researchers took on electronic miniaturization contracts for the Navy, electronic navigation and antenna systems design for the Air Force, communications research for the Army, and nuclear weapons testing and evaluation for the AEC. In just a few years SRI quintupled its contract revenues from $2 to $10 million and turned a $60,000-a-year loss into a $325,000 surplus. By 1955 SRI was earning half its income from defense contracts, many of them classified, and setting a pattern for the decade ahead. By 1965 government contracts accounted for 82 percent of SRI’s revenues, with military contracts accounting for 78 percent of the government share. 61 Those contracts included some controversial studies of land reform in Vietnam, counterinsurgency surveillance in Thailand, and chemical weapons. By 1968 SRI’s research program rivaled the university’s, in numbers if not in reputation, with 1,500 professional staff members (compared with 1,000 university faculty members) and annual contract revenues of $64 million (compared with $76 million for the university). 62 SRI’s military effort dwarfed the university’s. In 1969 SRI held $28.7 million in military contracts, ranking it third among “think tanks” and nonprofit research corporations, just behind MITRE and just ahead of Rand. Stanford, by contrast, held $16.4 million in military contracts that year, fourth on the university list. (from The Cold War and American Science. )
Students at Stanford did what college students are supposed to do when word of the institute’s extensive military and intelligence contracts began to leak out in the sixties: they kicked SRI’s ass out of Stanford. In many ways, it was only a symbolic victory as SRI was simply “sold to itself” and renamed SRI, but it does suggest that these Image Changers are not all powerful.
Take a moment to look at the various unclassified innovations described on SRI’s website. It’s an impressive list. It’s also incomplete since most of the research was classified. Still, it’s obvious that SRI was a hub of technological innovation. In fact, the very internet which allows you to read this article on SRI was created via technology developed at SRI. I like that.
For our purposes, I’m going to confine this post to examine the projects and relationships at SRI in the late sixties and early seventies which are directly relevant to the Image Changing project. In later posts, we’ll see exactly what the new “conceptual premises” were they hoped to instill in Western society, why the said these premises needed changing and in what ways it was suggested the government go about changing them.
Here then, are some of the people and programs to emerge from the SRI circle we will be examining in some detail. Many, many thanks to reader WondererintheWilderness who continues to flood my inbox with all kinds of relevant links and articles. I am too lazy to credit each piece of information I obtained directly from her, but it is much appreciated.
Remote Viewing
The official history of SRI’s remote viewing program suggests that the initial research got underway in 1972 due to a proposal by Hal Puthoff. Allegedly, the remote viewing program was an attempt to train “psychic spies” who could view locations at any distance via psychic abilities. Puthoff suggests that this idea came about due to a meeting with psychic Ingo Swann who had read some proposal of Puthoff’s about quantum processes in biology. This, like so much involving SRI, is a complete fabrication. In fact, Puthoff and Swann were both high level members of the Church of Scientology and the remote viewing techniques were based on Scientology procedures.
Puthoff will be of particular interest since immediately prior to coming to Stanford, Puthoff says he was a Naval intelligence officer and then a “civilian” employee of the National Security Agency. The initial research for remote viewing at SRI was sponsored by the CIA via MKULTRA.
RV programs were then taken on by the military and CIA directly. Many of the major players would end up founding private remote viewing companies as well as becoming New Age gurus themselves. When we come to examine these men in more detail we’ll find that they share two things in common, involvement in intelligence work and a tendency to lie like dogs about their own background. Another feature to notice is that remote viewers really suck. It’s not just that they aren’t accurate, but that they continue to promote outlandish ideas clearly designed for “Image Changing” purposes. Often, we’ll see, this centers on the role of the planet Mars, though be warned, Ingo Swann was able to view naked aliens on the moon!
It’s also interesting to note that the very man who edited Changing Images, O. W. Markley, now says that they employed techniques for visualizing the future which sound suspiciously like remote viewing. That’s kinda funny because the remote viewing program did not start, says Puthoff, till 1972, but according to this link provided by the fine folks at Skilluminati, they were using these techniques in 1968.
In fact, the entire RV enterprise, whether or not it ever generated any results, was mostly a cover for more troubling mind control related research as well as the springboard for launching a bunch of military spooks into New Age prominence.
The Face on Mars
The primary man behind the whole “Face on Mars” craze is named Richard Hoagland, who claims he was working in 1983 at SRI on a project involving the “rings of Saturn” (likely a lie, but a significant one) when he learned about the anomalous features on Mars. Hoagland and a collection of others, either directly employed by or in the orbit of SRI, not only wanted to spread the word about these interesting geological features, but to convince the world that they were linked to Egypt. Egypt. Mars. Hang onto those thoughts, though if you’ve read my series on Whitley Strieber, you’ll notice the significance. Strieber became involved with these folks in the mid-eighties around the time the abduction experiences in Communion began. There was no reference to Mars in Communion but by 1995 in Secret School, Mars was central to his story.
Uri Geller
Famed spoonbending psychic Uri Geller was brought to SRI by Andrija Puharich in 1973. The tests, led by astronaut and New Age guru Edgar Mitchell, showed Geller to have amazing powers with clairvoyance, telepathy, and telekinesis. Hmm. You can watch these tests in a film available in several parts at Youtube. Here’s part one. And here’s a video of Geller cheating to make a spoon bend. So if Geller cheats and scientists were saying he’s legit….You don’t think…I mean they wouldn’t have…
Assuming as I do that Geller is simply a good stage magician and mentalist who was involved in an elaborate hoax (perhaps unwittingly) then we are left with a very disturbing implication: a premier scientific research institution deliberately faked significant scientific tests in order to promote Geller and the whole theme of psychic ability. Why would they do this? You’ll have to read the book or wait for future posts to get more information.
Andrija Puharich and The Nine
Puharich did not work for SRI though he was central to the Geller testing. But thanks to that testing, Puharich, who had a background in intelligence as well as in hypnotism and other mind control techniques, was not only able to promote Geller, but in doing so, promote the idea of “the Nine”, allegedly a discarnate group of intelligences who secretly rule the solar system and who turned out to be the collection of Egyptian gods called the “Ennead.” Nine. Lots of nines in this story. Naturally, the Nine discussed the Egypt/Mars connection. These entities were channeled not only by Geller but a variety of other folks, all of whom, of course, had to first be hypnotized by Puharich.
Puharich also received MKULTRA money to go to find really potent hallucinogens in places like Mexico.
And most disturbingly to me, anyway, after promoting Geller so heavily, Puharich was able to convince a bunch of parents to send their kids to his house in Ossining, NY to be trained in how to use their psychic abilities. Evidently this training involved lots of unsupervised hypnosis sessions by Puharich and the eventual discovery that each of these kids was actually an alien being come to earth for some purpose.
Mama’s don’t let your babies get hypnotized by spy guys…
Scientology
This relationship was already made clear in the Remote Viewing section. However, it should be pointed out that Scientology, though not mentioned by name, seems awfully close to fitting the bill for the new religion suggested by SRI. And since we know they were “remote viewing” the future in order to determine this, that should be no surprise. Meanwhile, the lesser known occult background of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard consists of beliefs that are very much in line with the Freemasonic and Gurdjieffian belief systems considered desirable by SRI.
Scientology itself does not seem to promote any sort of Mars/Egypt connection nor really any of the specifics as offered by “The Nine”. Still, the relationship with SRI and, by extension, the CIA, along with Hubbard’s expertise in mind control (even writing a handy “manual” attributed to evil communists) makes them an important part of this story.
Oh, and L. Ron thought he was the heir to Aleister Crowley and his role as “The Beast”. There, I said it.
Sphinx Excavations
During this period, SRI sent people to do a variety of remote sensing tests to determine if there were chambers underneath the Sphinx. This was “remote sensing” not “remote viewing”, though this is an interesting confusion in its own right. Remote sensing is simply the use of technology to get information about things we can’t actually get to directly, such as underground structures. Among others chipping in for this work was the Association for Research and Enlightenment, the foundation which preserves the legacy of “Sleeping Prophet” Edgar Cayce. He said there were chambers under the Sphinx, but the question is, why did SRI even care?
Sidney Gottlieb
Gottlieb is the uber-baddie in MKULTRA and was the head of MKULTRA when it was providing startup funding for SRI’s remote viewing program. MKULTRA, under Gottlieb, also funded Puharich’s excursions to find magic mushrooms. Gottlieb had also been at Edgewood Arsenal, where U.S. Army chemical and biological warfare was developed when Puharich was recalled into the military and stationed there himself.
Louis Jolyon West
Despite having completely mocked research into psychic phenomena, West became a “medical advisor” to a private sector remote viewing program. Well, I say “private sector” but his role in this capacity was at Scientific Applications International Corporation which was infested with all kinds of high level intelligence and military officials in its leadership and basically took over SRI’s role in remote viewing. Oh and not to freak you out or anything, but SAIC also took over “Network Solutions.” Those are the guys that parcel out internet domains. Just sayin’.
Anyhow, West was the head of UCLA’s Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, which was involved in “behavior modification” experiments at Vacaville Prison, including on one Donald DeFreeze who would eventually form the Symbionese Liberation Army and kidnap Patty Hearst. Luckily, there was a handy group of psychic spies nearby at SRI, and remote viewer Pat Price was, amazingly, able to pick out a photograph of one of DeFreeze’s accomplices from a huge number of pictures. It’s almost like he knew ahead of time or something.
To complete this sordid circle, when Patty Hearst came to trial for her mind control induced role in a bank robbery, who but Jolyon West was called in as an expert witness.
Esalen
The Esalen Institute was not directly part of SRI, but it might as well have been. A center for New Age thought but also of some curious “cultural exchanges” with Soviet scientists, it could be considered the second focus for the ellipse that was the burgeoning New Age. I ordered a book about Esalen called Upstart Spring as part of this research. There is also another book called Upstart Spring about a cardiac surgeon or something and given my own ADHD, you can guess which one arrived in the mail. In any event, even without that particular source, it is safe to include Esalen in our list of people and places in the SRI orbit.
The Aviary
The Aviary is a group of government “insiders” who tittilated the UFOlogy crowd for years with a wide range of disinformation. Many of these guys track back directly to SRI, such as Puthoff, or to other military or CIA remote viewing programs. Buncha spooks, if ya ask me. These men will be central to steering the UFO mythology and will found all sorts of UFO, remote viewing and “alternative spirituality” organizations.
Jack Sarfatti
A prominent physicist, Sarfatti received a number of phone calls from a “computer from the future” in 1953 while a student attending a “gifted program” sponsored by Sandia Labs and led by a convicted pedophile who would later marry Marion Zimmer Bradley. The calls would put him into a sort of trance. The computer told him that if he chose to, he would be at the center of a high level group of scientists in twenty years. Lo and behold, it came true, and most of those scientists were employed by or involved with SRI. Not to spoil the plot or anything, but he admits it could have been Puharich in a sort of “vocational manipulation” operation. Sarfatti’s not the only one to experience such a mysterious career push.
Ira Einhorn
Einhorn was a master networker and New Age showman who acted as a sort of information distribution hub for a wide variety of scientists, corporate bosses and alternative thinkers. Considered an informant by some on the “serious left” Einhorn came into the orbit of Puharich and a variety of other SRI-associated folks in the seventies. Einhorn started to crack up a bit after meeting Puharich, but that might have just been the constant flow of Ketamine provided by Einhorn’s shrink. Showing signs of a possible dissociative disorder, Jewish Einhorn had a longrunning abusive relationship with Holly Maddux, the daughter of a Texas Nazi. She could not seem to escape this always turbulent relationship with Einhorn, inexplicably compelled to keep returning to him. Eventually, Einhorn killed her and stuffed her in a trunk. It could have been a frame-up…but the facts are pretty damning. Einhorn fled the country and was finally extradited in 2001 and is currently in prison in Pennsylvania.
I could go but I will stop for now. But read it over again. These links are not tentative or speculative in any way. The connections to SRI are very direct. I’ll be providing plenty of documentation when addressing each of the above, but it’s not that hard to come by even while doing my best not to utilize sources whose own sources of information are unclear to me or otherwise unverifiable.
And the point is, if SRI had decided that a project was needed to shape the cultural space of the U.S. and the industrialized world and bring on the New Age, they sure had the firepower to do it. Perhaps it was all a big coincidence and at the very time SRI was calling for a “facilitated” paradigm shift, these New-Age change-agents simply started coming round. But that’s not likely, and when you add the darker connections to various MKULTRA programs, it starts to look like they went beyond “facilitating” and right into manipulation. Maybe I’m just jealous because I never get calls from a computer from the future. Sure, some prerecorded telemarketing calls that sound kinda high tech…
But before looking into those details, I’ll be looking at Changing Images of Man itself. Why do these guys think we need THEM to tell US what to believe? And how, exactly, are they proposing to get us to buy into it? According to the book, time is running out…but these guys ALWAYS say time is running out. Their predictions of doom, just like those of the aliens and all manner of New Age mystics, have still not yet materialized. But maybe it really is coming. Question is, are these the guys you trust to get us safely through to the other side?