Military Mindfields -
By Daniel Pinchbeck
January 2008

Recently, while at a Phoenix, Arizona conference on UFOs, crop
circles, alternative archaeology and other such fringe matters, I
encountered, to my surprise, a true American hero. A straightforward
and unassuming man whose father was a well-respected Alaskan
congressman, Dr. Nick Begich has been waging a long and often lonely
campaign to raise the public’s awareness of the extraordinary perils
and potentials of new technologies that can act upon the brain and
influence our cognitive and somatic capacities, often without us
knowing about them. At first, many of the military initiatives and
scientific research projects described by Dr. Begich sound like
science fiction â€" the stuff of Philip K. Dick’s most paranoid visions
â€" but they are quite real, and in many cases already available. A huge
trove of documents, articles and public testimonies assembled by
Begich’s team can be found at the website of The Lay Institute.

Confronted with this information, I was shocked at first, and wondered
why it is almost never discussed in the media or public sphere. My
next reaction was to want to run away from thinking about it ever
again. Unfortunately, as Begich makes clear, the only protection we
have against misuse of these discoveries is an increase in public
knowledge and debate about them. The legislative system we inherited
from the 18th Century was not set up to deal with the current
scenario, where rapid-fire developments in technology and science have
immediate political meaning and potentially great social consequences.
It is up to civil society â€" and us as individuals â€" to step into this
breach. The consequences of not doing so may be severe.

Dr. Begich began his work studying the HAARP (High-frequency Active
Auroral Research Program) Project, an array of radio frequency
transmitters in Alaska designed to affect the ionosphere, an
atmospheric sheath that protects the Earth from solar rays. Beyond
potentially influencing missile guidance systems and changing weather
patterns, HAARP can also be used, potentially, to affect the
brainwaves of civilians over a large geographical area, causing
inexplicable agitation or aggression by beaming ELF (extremely low
frequency) waves or high-frequency pulses beyond the threshold of our
auditory capacity. Dr. Begich objects to HAARP because of this
capacity, and because it changes the delicate ionosphere. Although we
don’t know much about the ionosphere, we are treating it as an arena
in which to “plug and play” our experimental technologies.

In the last decades, a huge amount has been learned about the
electromagnetic environment of the human brain and body. This
knowledge, as Dr. Begich discusses in his latest book, Controlling the
Human Mind: The Technologies of Political Control or Tools for Peak
Performance (Earthpulse Press, 2006), could lead to tremendous
advances in healing and in methods of self-development, or to weapons
that “pierce the very integrity of the human being.” Potentially,
memory, emotion and cognitive function can be transformed by these
technologies.

Dr. Begich isolates a spooky trend in military thought that sees the
human being reduced to the status of a “data-processing system” that
can be affected or incapacitated depending on the energy inputs it
receives. As one article, “The Mind Has No Firewall,” from Parameters,
the U.S. Army War College Journal, put it, “The body is capable not
only of being deceived, manipulated, or misinformed but also shut down
or destroyed â€" just as any other data-processing system.”
Electromagnetic or acoustic energy waves can alter the individual’s
“hardware system” and manipulate the “data” stored in their psyche.
According to Dr. Begich, technologies already exist that can “shift a
person’s emotions using remote electromagnetic tools,” and “transfer
sound in a way where only the targeted person” hears a voice in their
head.

Interestingly, developments in these areas could lead to breakthroughs
in healing, to tools that greatly increase cognitive function and even
amplify “abilities of individuals for anomalous phenomena” â€" psychic
capacities â€" according to a military analyst. Biofeedback techniques
have been proven to accelerate skills-based learning and to
successfully treat children with ADD. Use of “binaural beats” can
harmonize relationships between the two hemispheres of the brain,
while tools focusing on the energy fields of the body can augment
acupuncture and other treatment modalities.

Begich calls for an end to government secrecy about study of mind and
behavior control techniques. He notes that the area of mind
modification technologies is “changing so rapidly that the science is
being formed faster than the applications can be fully recognized.”
Considering the enormous potential of these tools to help liberate the
mind or control it at a level beyond anything previously known, the
U.S. public should demand to have a rigorous “precautionary principle”
put in place.

Philip K. Dick is great fun to read, but few of us would want to live
in one of his maniacal, paranoid dystopias. Unfortunately, the
powerful knowledge we are now accessing about the intricate workings
of our energetic systems could lead in that direction, if we don’t
take action.

Daniel Pinchbeck is the author of Breaking Open the Head: A
Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism (Broadway
Books, 2002) and 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl (Tarcher/Penguin,
2006). His features have appeared in The New York Times Magazine,
Rolling Stone, Esquire, Wired and many other publications.

http://wholelifetimes.com/2008/01/pinchbeck0801.html