Monday, October 23, 2006
Modern consciousness research, World War II lessons combine to win hearts and minds, war and peace
by Steve Hammons, October 12, 2006
Breakthrough research and discoveries in human psychology and consciousness might be successfully applied to U.S. efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and globally to decrease violence and accomplish worthwhile objectives.
Personnel using the conventional military and intelligence tools of psychological operations and information operations might find new opportunities by using knowledge developed from other intelligence efforts such as research into “anomalous cognition,” “remote viewing” and related fields.
Additional insight might be gained from careful study of the human assets in past U.S. intelligence operations during World War II such as the U.S. Army Military Intelligence Service (MIS) and the U.S. Marine Corps Code Talkers.
Combining state-of-the-art consciousness understanding with awareness of the successes of the MIS and Code Talkers, as well as using other resources, can allow U.S. “soft power” to succeed where bullets, bombs, imprisonment and torture have failed.
Effective information operations using films, books, stories and articles, fiction and nonfiction, can all provide valuable perspectives for Americans and for peoples we are dealing with around the world.
For example, the new film FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Clint Eastwood, explores the psychological factors of not only our troops in the Pacific during World War II, but also the persuasion operations by the U.S. Government to influence the American people.
SOFT POWER, SMART POWER
Recent assessments by elements of the U.S. military have concluded that sheer military force, “hard power,” when dealing with an indigenous insurgency can often be counterproductive. This is probably true of many situations.
A new Army-Marine Corps field manual focuses on the limits of hard power and the advantages of soft power.
Killing innocent civilians including women and children, securing geographic areas only to lose them again to adversaries and creating more violence and hostility in an area of operations can simply make matters worse.
Making enemies instead of friends is not useful.
These factors, along with many other widely-recognized mistakes in the Iraq and Afghanistan situations, have created and are currently creating increasingly difficult and tragic consequences for the people of these regions, U.S. forces and Americans at home.
The view internationally and here at home that American forces around the world are the “good guys” has been seriously damaged by the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
To try to improve this perception and the underlying realities, significant changes on many levels seem to be indicated.
As far as the actions and decisions of U.S. national leaders that began the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the American people and our system of democracy and justice will hopefully resolve some of these problems.
And people around the world will watch and judge what America does and whether the U.S. is an asset for or danger to world peace.
In the specific challenges facing U.S. and NATO forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, human psychology and human behavior come into play.
This is true for our own forces and for the indigenous people. Both can be positively affected by intelligent and appropriate awareness and understanding of human consciousness research.
What are these specifics and how can they be utilized in successful psychological, information and persuasion operations?
WORLD WAR II AND TODAY
In the Spielberg and Eastwood film, we can get some useful information and viewpoints because there seem to be both similarities and differences regarding World War II and the situation we find ourselves in today.
Media platforms such as this movie teach us, and our friends and adversaries around the world, about the complexities of American society and American history, which also continue now.
Both in World War II and currently, Pearl Harbor and the “new Pearl Harbor” (the 9/11 attacks) triggered the fear and anger in Americans that led to significant militarization of the U.S. and widespread military operations.
In both cases, suspicions arose about whether these Pearl Harbors were allowed to happen on purpose, or even if they were desired to accomplish the aims of U.S. administrations in office.
Some people wanted us to get into World War II just as some now want us to fight a World War III.
And as with most wars and human endeavors, there are many different motivations in these situations that may be honorable or dishonorable. This is more of the complexity that is useful to try to understand.
In FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, one character is the famous and tragic Marine Ira Hayes. He was a Pima Indian from southern Arizona.
The complex factors of his combat service in the Pacific (when “post-traumatic stress disorder” was not fully understood), the pressures on him and others to become public relations figures for the war effort and aspects of his Pima heritage are parts of this new movie.
The 2002 film WINDTALKERS starring Nicholas Cage also examined battles in the Pacific in World War II and told part of the story of the Navajo Code Talkers.
Now widely known, the Code Talkers were a top-secret project that used Navajos from northeastern Arizona and the Four Corners area and their native language to convey American military radio communications in code.
It was a code the Japanese military was never able to break.
The Navajos used native words for animals to represent certain military terms. For example, a fighter plane was the Navajo word for a hummingbird, “da-he-tih-hi.” A submarine was an iron fish, “besh-lo”. A tank was a tortoise, a “chay-da-gahi.”
When they had to spell out a word, they also used Navajo that meant an English word that began with letters of the alphabet. In this case, the letter “a” was the Navajo word for ant, “wol-la-chee.” The letter “b” was the word for bear, “shush.” The letter “c” was cat, or “moasi,” and so forth.
Another much less known group of Americans in the Pacific was the Army Military Intelligence Service, the MIS. This top-secret group was composed of Americans of Japanese ancestry.
They were recruited primarily from California, Hawaii and even from the detention camps in the U.S. where their families were forced to spend the war years, behind barbed wire and armed guards.
Like the Navajo Code Talkers, MIS personnel were also involved in intelligence and communications. MIS men translated captured Japanese documents, intercepted Japanese radio transmissions, tried to break codes, interrogated prisoners and conducted behind-the-lines and deception operations.
Interestingly, in contrast to recent and current infamous U.S. interrogation and torture activities, MIS men treated captured Japanese prisoners with decency and dignity, according to many accounts.
MIS interrogators used psychological understanding to help Japanese prisoners cope with the indoctrination they had received at home. MIS men used mutual respect and effective communication to persuade the Japanese prisoners of war to provide useful information to the Americans.
The MIS reportedly used their knowledge of Japanese culture and psychology to work with the prisoners in a humane way and this reportedly yielded sound military intelligence results.
This kind of approach is, of course, in stark contrast to recent U.S. approaches that include torture, degradation, sexual humiliation and other techniques which some experts say constitute severe violations of the Geneva Conventions, international law and U.S. law – war crimes.
In addition, these activities may be counterproductive in the short-run – not getting valid intelligence, and in the long-run – making enemies for the U.S. instead of friends.
In the case of the MIS, during the occupation of Japan, they were instrumental in rebuilding that country and cementing long-term positive relations between Japan and the U.S.
There are many different kinds of lessons to be learned from the Code Talkers and the MIS. The way they used their ethnic psychology and communications in accomplishing crucial intelligence missions are part of the importance of human assets and human consciousness.
HEARTS, MINDS AND CONSCIOUSNESS
Navajos and other Native American Indian tribes also had a long history of exploring different kinds of consciousness, as have other cultures.
“Vision quests,” fasting, dreams and in some cases the use of certain plants, mushrooms or cacti were seen as legitimate methods for information gathering, spiritual development and insight, and to contact the Great Spirit, departed loved ones and ancestors.
Now, various research efforts over the past few decades have discovered that human psychology is far more complex and interesting than many believed.
The human brain, mind and emotional heart are linked to a larger field of consciousness in ways not completely understood. Some people suspect that the human spirit and soul are also involved.
Normal, everyday consciousness is only a limited wavelength or channel, much like a channel or frequency on a radio or TV. There are other levels and modes of using our consciousness, many of which can be valuable.
For example, well-known health and wellness expert Andrew Weil, M.D., wrote a book called THE NATURAL MIND, published in 1972. In the book, Weil proposed that human consciousness not only has the capability of moving into different states, but that humans actually have a natural tendency to do this.
Examples he cites include children who spin in circles or roll down hills to experience dizziness, and people who enjoy the adrenalin rush of dangerous or exciting activities.
Skydiving, rock-climbing, roller coaster-riding, sexual activity and lovemaking, fighting and warfare, prayer and meditation, coffee, tobacco, alcohol and certain plants, mushrooms, cacti and medications can all change human consciousness. Even sleep is a form of “altered consciousness.”
With some, but not all, of these consciousness-adjusting methods, positive results can occur. For example, in the case of one well-known plant, cannabis, testosterone levels are said to be affected in ways that can reduce the violent tendencies in men.
Along these same lines, it is generally accepted that healthy and frequent sexual activity among men may also reduce violent and anti-social behavior in many cases. In situations or cultures where normal and natural sexual activity is limited, increased violence can result.
Weil also pointed out that the human race has been doing things to explore inner consciousness for thousands of years.
In fact, he indicates that maybe human development and even spiritual development might be linked to this inborn inclination to change the channels, the wavelengths of our awareness.
Also in the 70s, 80s and early 90s, the CIA, Army Intelligence and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) were conducting research into the ability of U.S. military personnel and civilians to move their consciousness into a mode that allowed them to perceive things, people and activities at a distance, without any direct sight or other information coming through their five senses.
They soon found that valuable intelligence information could be accessed.
The U.S. efforts were originally begun as a counterintelligence program, to understand and keep up with similar “psychic spy” research and operations in the Soviet Union.
Since that time, other intelligence services around the world have also reportedly conducted similar activities regarding these kinds of phenomena.
Remote viewing was a term used to describe the specific techniques used by the U.S. military and intelligence personnel involved in these operations.
The specific parameters of remote viewing are just one part of a much larger aspect of human consciousness commonly called anomalous cognition. This phrase refers to the wide range of interesting phenomena such as telepathy, telekinesis (affecting physical objects with one’s mind) and other abilities.
This kind of research was quite different from the “mind control” experiments that U.S. intelligence conducted post-World War II, such as the MK-ULTRA projects. Reportedly drawing on some Nazi research and using techniques and mind-altering drugs, many objectionable and unethical activities were allegedly conducted.
In contrast, remote viewing looked at some of the best and most promising aspects of the human mind, freeing the consciousness of these U.S. personnel to explore the far reaches of human capability and even human spirituality.
Today, taking these kinds of consciousness studies as a whole, there seems to be an emerging consensus that there exists a kind of “psychic internet.” Famous psychologist Carl Jung called this idea the “collective unconscious.” Others prefer the physics-oriented term “zero-point field.”
Whatever words are used, these ideas propose that consciousness of individual human beings, groups of people and larger psychological, natural and metaphysical elements and forces are connected.
Understanding and utilizing these connections in ways that achieve positive outcomes in international efforts and relations are something that our intelligence personnel could be, and probably are, pursuing.
Research into all of these areas and then applying the resulting knowledge to achieve positive goals are missions that are not just optional and desirable, they are absolutely necessary if we are to live in a peaceful world and help the human race advance as an intelligent species.
In fact, our very survival may depend on it.
Using human assets, human psychology and human consciousness will help us win the war, and the peace.
The veteran MIS men, many of whom are alive and well, can help us learn how to deal with an adversary to gather information and persuade the opponent to join us as friends and allies.
The Code Talker vets can teach us about applying Native American wisdom from the ancient ones to successfully resolve current challenges.
They can help us protect “Ne-he-mah,” the Navajo word for “our mother,” which in Code Talker code meant … America.
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Interesting stuff. A couple books about this were written ... called
"Psychic Warrior" by David Morehouse. And another called, "The Seventh Sense", by Lyn Buchanan.
Also, a documentary ... directed by Jim Marrs, author of "Rule by Secrecy." (a great book)
And an interesting interview with Lyn Buchanan. (Lyn Buchanan's websites are down currently.)
Buchanan and Morehouse are 2 of the good guys, supposedly.
Regrettably, the negative energy around these topics is huge.
Otherwise, it's quite interesting.
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"Psychic Warrior" by David Morehouse. And another called, "The Seventh Sense", by Lyn Buchanan.
Also, a documentary ... directed by Jim Marrs, author of "Rule by Secrecy." (a great book)
And an interesting interview with Lyn Buchanan. (Lyn Buchanan's websites are down currently.)
Buchanan and Morehouse are 2 of the good guys, supposedly.
Regrettably, the negative energy around these topics is huge.
Otherwise, it's quite interesting.
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