MIND BLOWN: U.S. INTELLIGENCE AGENCY RESEARCH INTO MIND CONTROL AND PSYCHIC ABILITIES, 1952–1995

Abstract

Starting in 1952, U.S. intelligence agencies dedicated resources to funding scientific research into mind control and psychic abilities, leading to the creation of the programs MK-ULTRA and STAR GATE. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) established the MK-ULTRA program in 1952 to research methods of brainwashing, and both the CIA and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency funded the STAR GATE program from 1972 to 1995, investigating methods of clairvoyant remote viewing. Both topics are today considered “pseudoscience,” but while STAR GATE researchers faced labels of “pseudoscientist,” brainwashing was not considered pseudoscience during the 1950s. I argue that the assumed reality of brainwashing meant that MK-ULTRA researchers did not feel pressure to make their experiments “scientific,” while skepticism and the controversy around the existence of psychic phenomena influenced STAR GATE researchers to make their experiments “scientific.”