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Mind-Reach: Scientists Look at Psychic Abilities
Originally published by Delacorte , Mind-Reach is the book that led to the U. S. Army's psychic spy program and the subsequent prominence of remote viewing. The protocols that physicists Targ and Puthoff developed at the Stanford Research Institute are still in use today and have proven again and again in laboratory settings that psychic ability is universal. Targ is the author of three recent books with New World Limitless Mind , The Heart of the Mind , and Miracles of Mind . Mind-Reach is the eleventh title in Hampton Roads' Studies in Consciousness series.
258 pages, Paperback
Published February 1, 2005
69 people are currently reading
638 people want to read
About the author
Russell Targ
18 books109 followersRussell Targ was born in Chicago on April 11, 1934. He is an American physicist and author, ESP researcher and pioneer in the earliest development of the laser.
Targ received a Bachelor of Science in physics from Queens College in 1954 and did graduate work in physics at Columbia University. He received two National Aeronautics and Space Administration awards for inventions and contributions in lasers and laser communications.
Targ is also an editor, publisher, songwriter, producer and teacher. In 1997 he retired from Lockheed Martin as a project manager and senior staff scientist, where he developed laser technology for airborne detection of wind shear and air turbulence. He has published more than a hundred papers on lasers, plasma physics, laser applications, electro-optics, and psychical research.
At the Stanford Research Institute in the 1970s and 1980s, Targ and his colleague Harold E. Puthoff co-founded a 23-year, $25-million program of research into psychic abilities and their operational use for the U.S. intelligence community, including the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and Army Intelligence. These abilities are referred to collectively as "remote viewing". Targ and Puthoff both expressed the belief that Uri Geller, retired police commissioner Pat Price and artist Ingo Swann all had genuine psychic abilities. They published their findings in Nature and the Proceedings of the IEEE. From 1972 to 1995 the program was classified SECRET and compartmentalized with Limited Access. That is to say, the program was not only classified, but every single person who was informed about the program had to personally sign a so-called bigot list, to acknowledge that they had been exposed to the program data.
Targ's autobiography, Do You See What I See: Memoirs of a Blind Biker, was published in 2008, and describes his life as a scientist and legally blind motorcyclist.
Targ lectures worldwide on remote viewing. He now resides in Palo Alto, California with his second wife, Patricia.
Targ's website presents videos demonstrating remote viewing at: www.espresearch.com.
Targ received a Bachelor of Science in physics from Queens College in 1954 and did graduate work in physics at Columbia University. He received two National Aeronautics and Space Administration awards for inventions and contributions in lasers and laser communications.
Targ is also an editor, publisher, songwriter, producer and teacher. In 1997 he retired from Lockheed Martin as a project manager and senior staff scientist, where he developed laser technology for airborne detection of wind shear and air turbulence. He has published more than a hundred papers on lasers, plasma physics, laser applications, electro-optics, and psychical research.
At the Stanford Research Institute in the 1970s and 1980s, Targ and his colleague Harold E. Puthoff co-founded a 23-year, $25-million program of research into psychic abilities and their operational use for the U.S. intelligence community, including the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and Army Intelligence. These abilities are referred to collectively as "remote viewing". Targ and Puthoff both expressed the belief that Uri Geller, retired police commissioner Pat Price and artist Ingo Swann all had genuine psychic abilities. They published their findings in Nature and the Proceedings of the IEEE. From 1972 to 1995 the program was classified SECRET and compartmentalized with Limited Access. That is to say, the program was not only classified, but every single person who was informed about the program had to personally sign a so-called bigot list, to acknowledge that they had been exposed to the program data.
Targ's autobiography, Do You See What I See: Memoirs of a Blind Biker, was published in 2008, and describes his life as a scientist and legally blind motorcyclist.
Targ lectures worldwide on remote viewing. He now resides in Palo Alto, California with his second wife, Patricia.
Targ's website presents videos demonstrating remote viewing at: www.espresearch.com.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 28, 2023
TWO PROMINENT PARANORMAL RESEARCHERS REPORT THEIR FINDINGS
Authors Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff wrote in the Preface to this 1977 book, “During a lengthy series of experiments conducted in the Electronics and Bioengineering Laboratory of Stanford Research Institute for the past three years, we have been investigating those facets of human perception that appear to fall outside the range of well-understood perceptual or processing capabilities. The primary achievement of this research has been the demonstration of high-quality ‘remote-viewing’: the ability of experienced and inexperienced volunteers to view, by mean of mental processes, remote geographical or technical targets such as roads, buildings and laboratory apparatus.
“Our accumulated data from over a hundred observations with more than twenty subjects indicate the following: The phenomenon is not limited to short distances; electrical shielding does not appear to degrade the quality or accuracy of perception; most of the correct information given to subjects is of a nonanalytical nature pertaining to shape, form, color, and material rather than to function or name, suggesting that information transmission under conditions of sensory shielding may depend primarily on functioning of the brain’s right hemisphere; and finally, the principal difference between experienced and inexperienced volunteers is not that the inexperienced never exhibit the faculty, but rather that their results are simply less reliable. This indicates to us that remote viewing is probably a latent and widely distributed perceptual ability.
“Although we do not yet understand the precise nature of the information channel that couples remote events with human perception, certain ideas in information theory, quantum theory, and neuropsychological research appear to bear directly on the issue. As a result, our assumption is that the phenomenon will be found consistent with modern scientific thought, and can therefore be expected to yield the scientific method. We consider it important to continue data collection and to encourage others to do likewise; investigations such as those reported here need replication and extension under as wide a variety of rigorously controlled conditions as possible.
“We have two principal reasons for writing this book: The first is our desire to put our research into perspective with regard to the publicity it has received over the past three years… although our work with [Uri] Geller accounts for only 3 percent of our overall effort, it has received 97 percent of our publicity. Therefore, one of our purposes here is to present a more balanced view of our research. Our second objective is to attempt to prevent psychic functioning from again becoming undiscovered. There is great resistance to accepting data indicating the existence of the paranormal… With the success of modern science in organizing and explaining most of the (normal) observable phenomena and available experience, we have become accustomed by dismissing the merely unexplained as nonexistent. Psychic functioning is simply a body of observational data whose scientific description is as yet very incomplete… Our attempt here is to provide the beginning of a stable data base upon which an understanding of these phenomena can be constructed.”
In the first chapter, they explain, “Creating the proper environment to encourage psychic activity in our several subjects is the major theme of this book. Our laboratory experiments suggest to us that anyone who feels comfortable with the idea of having paranormal ability can have it. At least one hypothesis as to why the country is not filled with people exhibiting a high degree of psychic functioning is that it is frowned upon by society… there can be little doubt that negative reaction from society is sufficient to discourage many fledgling psychics. In sharing our experiences, our methodology, and our results, we hope to provide the reader with an opportunity to examine the effects of conditioning… which may be limiting how own abilities. Even worse, psychic functioning has had more than its share of charlatans. As a result, the issue of psychic functioning is avoided by a large segment of society who do not wish to chance being fooled, even at the cost of being wrong… Nonetheless, throughout history there have been those courageous enough to venture forth into the roughly charted land of the paranormal… Another purpose of this book is to share with the reader those observations and experiences that might be useful to him in taking the first steps toward functioning as a psychic individual…” (Pg. 4-5)
They argue, “There is often a remarkable inversion of … logic when applied to psychical research. An oft-repeated suggestion is that people who have seen examples of psychic functioning are soft on ESP, that is, they are believers, so their observations cannot be trusted. This raises the following paradox” If observing an event disqualified one as an observer, who then is qualified to observe?” (Pg. 16)
They first experimented with Ingo Swann, and recount, “His descriptions were exceptionally good that day… Ingo said, ‘I see something small, brown and irregular, sort of like a leaf, or something that resembles it, except that it seems very much alive…’ The target … turned out to be a small live moth he had captured, which indeed did look like a leaf.” (Pg. 26)
Of their experiments with Pat Price, “the subject began to describe the randomly chosen remote location being visited by the target demarcation team.” (Pg. 48) “A long series of experiments was carried out, and the observed activity was found to correlate with Pat’s efforts to a statistically significant degree (offs of 250:1). Thus the experiment was a success.” (Pg. 60)
They recount, “By the end of 1973, we had carried out more than twenty remote viewing experiments with Pat and Ingo… No longer doubting the existence of paranormal functioning, we had come to expect our experiments to be successful, and were beginning to look for some physical laws that might be governing the phenomenon we were observing… [We] decided to concentrate on finding out what personality factors or physiological characteristics might separate psychics from nonpsychics (a dichotomy, as it turned out, that may not exist).” (Pg. 69-70)
They admit, “The mechanics of remote viewing is still a mystery, but this does not prevent us from continuing to seek answers. It does, however, make us apprehensive each time we find ourselves in the position of possibly having to carry out a ‘demonstration’ experiment.” (Pg. 91)
Of their experiments with Uri Geller, they state, “we can give an accurate description of the ‘effects’ we saw that night. But, because these effects were carried out on Uri’s terms (unlike our later experiments) we are unable to explain what really happened.” (Pg. 140)
They note, “The most severe criticism [of our work] is that leveled by the well-known British parapsychology critic C.E.M. Hansel. He began his examination of the ESP hypothesis with the stated assumption, ‘In view of the a priori arguments against it we KNOW IN ADVANCE that telepathy, etc., cannot occur.’ Therefore, Hansel’s examination of the literature centered primarily on a search for possible fraud… Hansel’s conclusion … was that these experiments were not ‘fraud proof’ and therefore could not in principle serve as conclusive proof of ESP… the above argument … could be applied equally well to any other scientific endeavor. It is therefore the a priori assumption of the nonexistence of the paranormal functioning that makes this argument appear damaging, and not anything in the argument itself.” (Pg. 167-168)
They conclude, “Perhaps our place in the universe is now secure enough that we can begin to take another look at a piece of ourselves that we have long attempted to ignore. Perhaps humankind had matured.” (Pg. 212)
This book will be of keen interest to those studying psychical research.
Authors Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff wrote in the Preface to this 1977 book, “During a lengthy series of experiments conducted in the Electronics and Bioengineering Laboratory of Stanford Research Institute for the past three years, we have been investigating those facets of human perception that appear to fall outside the range of well-understood perceptual or processing capabilities. The primary achievement of this research has been the demonstration of high-quality ‘remote-viewing’: the ability of experienced and inexperienced volunteers to view, by mean of mental processes, remote geographical or technical targets such as roads, buildings and laboratory apparatus.
“Our accumulated data from over a hundred observations with more than twenty subjects indicate the following: The phenomenon is not limited to short distances; electrical shielding does not appear to degrade the quality or accuracy of perception; most of the correct information given to subjects is of a nonanalytical nature pertaining to shape, form, color, and material rather than to function or name, suggesting that information transmission under conditions of sensory shielding may depend primarily on functioning of the brain’s right hemisphere; and finally, the principal difference between experienced and inexperienced volunteers is not that the inexperienced never exhibit the faculty, but rather that their results are simply less reliable. This indicates to us that remote viewing is probably a latent and widely distributed perceptual ability.
“Although we do not yet understand the precise nature of the information channel that couples remote events with human perception, certain ideas in information theory, quantum theory, and neuropsychological research appear to bear directly on the issue. As a result, our assumption is that the phenomenon will be found consistent with modern scientific thought, and can therefore be expected to yield the scientific method. We consider it important to continue data collection and to encourage others to do likewise; investigations such as those reported here need replication and extension under as wide a variety of rigorously controlled conditions as possible.
“We have two principal reasons for writing this book: The first is our desire to put our research into perspective with regard to the publicity it has received over the past three years… although our work with [Uri] Geller accounts for only 3 percent of our overall effort, it has received 97 percent of our publicity. Therefore, one of our purposes here is to present a more balanced view of our research. Our second objective is to attempt to prevent psychic functioning from again becoming undiscovered. There is great resistance to accepting data indicating the existence of the paranormal… With the success of modern science in organizing and explaining most of the (normal) observable phenomena and available experience, we have become accustomed by dismissing the merely unexplained as nonexistent. Psychic functioning is simply a body of observational data whose scientific description is as yet very incomplete… Our attempt here is to provide the beginning of a stable data base upon which an understanding of these phenomena can be constructed.”
In the first chapter, they explain, “Creating the proper environment to encourage psychic activity in our several subjects is the major theme of this book. Our laboratory experiments suggest to us that anyone who feels comfortable with the idea of having paranormal ability can have it. At least one hypothesis as to why the country is not filled with people exhibiting a high degree of psychic functioning is that it is frowned upon by society… there can be little doubt that negative reaction from society is sufficient to discourage many fledgling psychics. In sharing our experiences, our methodology, and our results, we hope to provide the reader with an opportunity to examine the effects of conditioning… which may be limiting how own abilities. Even worse, psychic functioning has had more than its share of charlatans. As a result, the issue of psychic functioning is avoided by a large segment of society who do not wish to chance being fooled, even at the cost of being wrong… Nonetheless, throughout history there have been those courageous enough to venture forth into the roughly charted land of the paranormal… Another purpose of this book is to share with the reader those observations and experiences that might be useful to him in taking the first steps toward functioning as a psychic individual…” (Pg. 4-5)
They argue, “There is often a remarkable inversion of … logic when applied to psychical research. An oft-repeated suggestion is that people who have seen examples of psychic functioning are soft on ESP, that is, they are believers, so their observations cannot be trusted. This raises the following paradox” If observing an event disqualified one as an observer, who then is qualified to observe?” (Pg. 16)
They first experimented with Ingo Swann, and recount, “His descriptions were exceptionally good that day… Ingo said, ‘I see something small, brown and irregular, sort of like a leaf, or something that resembles it, except that it seems very much alive…’ The target … turned out to be a small live moth he had captured, which indeed did look like a leaf.” (Pg. 26)
Of their experiments with Pat Price, “the subject began to describe the randomly chosen remote location being visited by the target demarcation team.” (Pg. 48) “A long series of experiments was carried out, and the observed activity was found to correlate with Pat’s efforts to a statistically significant degree (offs of 250:1). Thus the experiment was a success.” (Pg. 60)
They recount, “By the end of 1973, we had carried out more than twenty remote viewing experiments with Pat and Ingo… No longer doubting the existence of paranormal functioning, we had come to expect our experiments to be successful, and were beginning to look for some physical laws that might be governing the phenomenon we were observing… [We] decided to concentrate on finding out what personality factors or physiological characteristics might separate psychics from nonpsychics (a dichotomy, as it turned out, that may not exist).” (Pg. 69-70)
They admit, “The mechanics of remote viewing is still a mystery, but this does not prevent us from continuing to seek answers. It does, however, make us apprehensive each time we find ourselves in the position of possibly having to carry out a ‘demonstration’ experiment.” (Pg. 91)
Of their experiments with Uri Geller, they state, “we can give an accurate description of the ‘effects’ we saw that night. But, because these effects were carried out on Uri’s terms (unlike our later experiments) we are unable to explain what really happened.” (Pg. 140)
They note, “The most severe criticism [of our work] is that leveled by the well-known British parapsychology critic C.E.M. Hansel. He began his examination of the ESP hypothesis with the stated assumption, ‘In view of the a priori arguments against it we KNOW IN ADVANCE that telepathy, etc., cannot occur.’ Therefore, Hansel’s examination of the literature centered primarily on a search for possible fraud… Hansel’s conclusion … was that these experiments were not ‘fraud proof’ and therefore could not in principle serve as conclusive proof of ESP… the above argument … could be applied equally well to any other scientific endeavor. It is therefore the a priori assumption of the nonexistence of the paranormal functioning that makes this argument appear damaging, and not anything in the argument itself.” (Pg. 167-168)
They conclude, “Perhaps our place in the universe is now secure enough that we can begin to take another look at a piece of ourselves that we have long attempted to ignore. Perhaps humankind had matured.” (Pg. 212)
This book will be of keen interest to those studying psychical research.
December 23, 2008
Lightweight as far as the hard science goes, but an extremely interesting presentation of the control methods for ESP experimentation. If for no other reason, the comparison in the logical paths taken by the scientists in the book versus those of the ultra-skeptic opposition is of note. Presented clearly, concisely, and logically correctly, it provides an interesting launching point for anyone willing to look his or her own dogmatism in the face.
May 17, 2023
It’s okay in providing information. But the mind race is better at introducing the topic of psi to those who are new to it. And is great at providing answers to questions you didn’t know you already had
February 19, 2025
If this subject interests you, this is a great read
May 1, 2016
Carefully done psychic research at Stanford in the ‘70’s on remote viewing and Uri Geller.
November 12, 2025
quedé paloyo con la aparición de Richard Bach y de Ingo Swann. También con el hecho de que existe un documento desclasificado de la CIA que confirma lo de la visión remota
/ a distancia 😛😛 es parte del entrenamiento militar de hecho,, pero de eso me enteré después de leer el libro mnajsj yao na más que agregar 10/10
/ a distancia 😛😛 es parte del entrenamiento militar de hecho,, pero de eso me enteré después de leer el libro mnajsj yao na más que agregar 10/10
April 7, 2016
Interesting for it's descriptions of protocolls used when doing parapsychological research. Well-written and accesible. Thouroughly debunked of course, but still an interesting read
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews