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There's a lot of criticism that this was a waste of effort because obviously you wouldn't find evidence of psychic phenomena, but was it really that obvious at

There's a lot of criticism that this was a waste of effort because obviously you wouldn't find evidence of psychic phenomena, but was it really that obvious at the time? Lots of scientific things seem bizarre and we still know very little about how the mind works, so it's not obvious to me that you could say at the outset that this was a fruitless research direction, though that is now obvious in hindsight.

Liquix 8y ago
>because obviously you wouldn't find evidence of psychic phenomena If they had found proof of said phenomena, wouldn't it make sense for them to convince the public they had not? To prevent others from looking into the subject while researching it farther and weaponizing it? After all, one of the agency's prime purposes (as stated by a former director) is to control the narrative of society - to shape commonly held views: "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false" [1]. The American public is pretty well convinced that 'psychic phenomena' isn't real. While this belief is potentially organic, is it that far out of line to question it, considering the striking similarities between mystical belief systems of ancient societies who had no contact with each other (Egypt & Tibet, for example) and the CIA's stated campaign to shape public opinions? Not directly opposing your statement, just playing devil's advocate around the word 'obviously'. [1] Former CIA Directory William Casey [via Barbara Honegger]
grillvogel 8y ago
>now obvious in hindsight. the data that shows that it worked is still classified
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