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Join Host Alex Tsakiris for a discussion with remote viewer and former U.S. Army psychic spy, retired Major Paul H. Smith. The hour long interview explores the science of remote viewing portrayed in the film, The Men Who Stare at Goats and role Major Smith played in the StarGate project.
Major (Retired) Paul H. Smith served for seven years in the government’s remote viewing psychic espionage program at Ft. Meade, MD. He is one of only a handful of government personnel to be personally trained in remote viewing by Ingo Swann at Stanford Research Institute (SRI). He has a MS from the Defense Intelligence College, and is currently completing his Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Texas.
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Announcer: On this episode of Skeptiko, remote viewer and retired psychic spy, Major Paul H. Smith.
“Ronson himself is on record that he only cared about the people, not about the phenomena, but that’s because as I think he said on your interview, that he didn’t actually believe in the phenomenon. And he said something about he hadn’t seen any evidence that convinced him, but I know I’m paraphrasing here. I’m not exactly sure how he said it, but he said that he hadn’t seen any evidence that convinced him. In fact, kind of just the opposite. Well the fact is, he never saw any of the evidence. He never looked into the evidence.
You know, he might have listened to some of the stories but he of course, is able to dismiss those because when we did tell him credible things - now he interviewed me at length at the Remote Viewing Conference and I tried to present some real bottom-line, fundamental — this is how it really was, these are the kind of things that we did - that kind of stuff. None of that shows up in the book. None of that shows up anywhere, which just to me, that’s irresponsible. “
Join Host Alex Tsakiris for a discussion with The Men Who Stare at Goats author, Jon Ronson. The 35-minute interview explores the science of remote viewing portrayed in the film, and whether skepticism is warranted.
Jon Ronson is a British journalist, author, and documentary filmmaker. Ronson has a distinctive self-deprecating reporting style, which incorporates aspects of Gonzo journalism while skeptically exploring quirky characters.
Ronson’s third book, The Men Who Stare at Goats, has been turned into a major motion picture starring George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges.
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Announcer: On this episode of Skeptiko, author of The Men Who Stare at Goats, Jon Ronson.
“They stuck a bunch of soldiers in a room at Fort Meade in Maryland, including some who’ve gone on to become quite famous paranormal buffs like Ed Dames and Dermot Monocle and Ingo Swann and so on, and they kind of stuck them in a room and told them to be psychic. And some of them tried to be psychic for like 20 years and they do point to some remote viewing successes, but even if they did manage to harness psychic powers which you know, I suspect they probably didn’t, but even if they did, there was still nothing the military could do with it.”
Announcer: Stay with us for Skeptiko.
Alex Tsakiris: Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris, and on this episode I have a very interesting interview with the author and really main character behind the movie, The Men Who Stare at Goats, Jon Ronson.
Of course, I was more interested in the science behind the movie and the skeptical spin on it. I mean, haven’t people like Hal Puthoff and Steven Schwartz established that remote viewing really works and that the military should be interested in it? So we had a chance to talk about that and a number of other of Jon’s projects. And stick around for the end of the interview and I’ll tell you about a little bit of the additional research I did and some of the follow-up e-mail exchange I had with Jon. Here’s my dialogue with Jon Ronson.
Join Host Alex Tsakiris for a discussion with remote viewer and former U.S. Army psychic spy, retired Major Paul H. Smith. The hour long interview explores the science of remote viewing portrayed in the film, The Men Who Stare at Goats and role Major Smith played in the StarGate project.
Join Host Alex Tsakiris for a discussion with The Men Who Stare at Goats author, Jon Ronson. The 35-minute interview explores the science of remote viewing portrayed in the film, and whether skepticism is warranted.
