Psychoenergetics

Psychoenergetics was the scientific nomenclature adopted by Soviet researchers to describe their government-sponsored research into paranormal human abilities, including clairvoyance, telepathy, and psychokinesis, framed as the study of "energy" phenomena related to consciousness and biological systems. The term was adopted by U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency officials in the early 1980s as the program designation for a classified DIA initiative to assess the Soviet and Chinese research programs in this field and to develop comparable U.S. capabilities.¹

Soviet Origins

Soviet interest in parapsychology as a potential weapons and intelligence application dated to the early twentieth century, with serious government-sponsored research beginning under Stalin in the 1920s-1930s. Soviet researchers including Leonid Vasiliev at Leningrad University conducted telepathy and remote influence experiments. The framing of these phenomena as "psychoenergetics" - implying an energy mechanism that could be studied by materialist science - was the Soviet attempt to investigate paranormal claims within a Marxist-Leninist ideological framework that rejected religious explanations while remaining open to unusual natural phenomena with potential state utility.¹

Soviet research programs intensified in the 1960s-1970s as reports circulated in Western intelligence channels that the Soviets were investing substantial resources in "psychotronic" weapons and remote influence capabilities. U.S. intelligence assessments estimated Soviet annual spending on psychoenergetics research at tens of millions of dollars, with facilities in multiple Soviet republics and research groups at military and academic institutions.¹

On June 12, 1987, Colonel Henry Shinol, Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff for Studies and Analyses at Headquarters USAF, asked DIA's Deputy Director for Scientific and Technical Intelligence for "an informational briefing on the substance and status of Soviet parapsychology research" for June 30 or July 6, "as part of AF/SA's continuing support to Maj Gen Bissell, AF/IN." DIA's note of July 14 recorded that the briefing "reviewed soviet research in this field, with emphasis on the recent integrated efforts of several U.S.S.R Academy of Science laboratories," and that Shinol "expressed an interest for additional details." The slides, headed "Soviet Activities in Psychoenergetics," ran from V. M. Bekhterev and L. L. Vasil'yev ("hypnosis," "automatic responses," "long distance (1700 km)," then "open publications" and a "new lab, Leningrad Univ." in 1959-1965) to G. A. Sergeyev (1965-1970, "Vasil'yev's lab," "communication (EEG code)," "remote action," N. Kulagina) and I. M. Kogan (1965 to about 1975, "communication, symbols, digits," "long distance (3,000 km)," "screening for talented people," "hypnosis not used," a "low frequency electromagnetic hypothesis"); a 1972 slide had Zinchenko, Leontiev, Lomov and Luria recommending "controlled research" in "Questions of Philosophy" with a "revised definition of 'parapsychology'"; one slide reproduced the entry from the Moscow "Filosofskiy Slovar" of 1980, which ends: "The materialistic approach to research on parapsychological phenomena, which are difficult to explore by experimental means, assists its demystification, and unmasks idealistic speculations about them"; and one quoted Yu. B. Kobzerev, "radar pioneer, member USSR Academy of Science," that Kulagina's psychokinesis and L. Korabelnikova's extrasensory perception "are by no means tricks," and V. A. Kotel'nikov, vice president of the Academy, that "psychokinetic abilities of N. Kulagina are real." Three pages of the deck remain exempt from release.⁹⁰⁰

DIA Psychoenergetics Program

In 1981, Jack Vorona, the Assistant Director for Scientific and Technical Intelligence at the Defense Intelligence Agency, contacted Dale Graff and brought him to Washington to help run a classified DIA program formally designated Psychoenergetics. The program had two stated goals: "to evaluate the threat that foreign psychoenergetics achievements might pose to U.S. national security, and to explore the potential of psychoenergetics for use in U.S. intelligence collection."¹

Vorona believed that with DIA resources, genuine scientific progress could be made toward understanding ESP and psychokinesis. The DIA Psychoenergetics program oversaw and funded the Grill Flame and later Sun Streak remote viewing operations at Fort Meade, and the SRI research program directed by Hal Puthoff continued to receive DIA-channeled funding.¹

The program's conceptual framework was explicitly competitive: American intelligence officials saw Soviet and Chinese psychoenergetics research as a potential asymmetric threat requiring a response, regardless of whether the phenomena were real. If the Soviets had functional remote viewing or remote influence capabilities, the United States needed to understand them; and if U.S. researchers could develop comparable capabilities, they provided a potential intelligence collection tool operating outside normal technical surveillance channels.¹

Chinese Extraordinary Human Body Function

A significant driver of DIA Psychoenergetics investment was intelligence on Chinese research programs. Puthoff's 1982 classified report, "Psychoenergetics Research in the People's Republic of China," documented research by Chinese physicist H. S. Tsien and others into what Chinese researchers called Extraordinary Human Body Function (EHBF) - a term covering clairvoyance, psychokinesis, and related claimed abilities. Tsien, a leading figure in Chinese aerospace engineering who had been expelled from the United States during the McCarthy period, reportedly endorsed the scientific investigation of EHBF as consistent with materialist science. The report confirmed an active military-adjacent research program with potential intelligence applications, strengthening DIA's case for continued U.S. investment.¹

Transition to STARGATE

The DIA Psychoenergetics program provided organizational continuity for U.S. remote viewing research from 1981 through the successive program designations Grill Flame (1978-1983), Center Lane (1983-1985), Sun Streak (1985-1991), and finally STARGATE (1991-1995). When the program was declassified and transferred to CIA control in 1995, and subsequently evaluated by the American Institutes for Research in a study that resulted in the program's termination, the full history of Psychoenergetics/STARGATE became available for review.²