By now, it’s vastly recognized that the Central Intelligence Company ran a decades-long professionalgram of experiments involving LSD and other psychoactive medication referred to as MKUltra from the 9teen-fifties to the seventies. As one would possibly suspect, that wasn’t the one analysis venture into the manipulation of human consciousness the CIA had happening within the twentieth century. Another, a research of somefactor referred to as the Gatemethod Course of, has newerly come to vast attention by way of an not likely channel. The relevant documents “had been declassified for many years — however a brand new, youthful audience was introduced to the Gatemethod when TikTok caught on in 2021.”
So writes Elle’s Hannah Summerhill, a self-described “lengthytime searcher” receptive to the Gatemethod Course of’ concept of harnessing not medication however sound to “the artwork of becoming extra conscious of 1’s particular internal assets, internal abilities, and, most of all, one’s internal guidance.” The documalestation breaks down the levels of focus thus theoretically achievin a position right into a sequence of levels: Focus 10 is “a meditative state conducive to healing, psystylish abilities, and distant viewing (the ability to ‘see’ objects in actual time from a distance). Within the deeper Focus 12 state, participants report meeting their excessiveer selves; in Focus 15, they will manipulate time and channel a ‘sturdy and guiding’ God-like figure.”
All this was originally conceived by former radio executive Robert Monroe, whose self-experimalestation with the impact of sound on human consciousness — the identical phenomena exploited by study-and meditation-assisting “binaural beats” — led to his discovereding the Monroe Institute. “Within the late phases of the Chilly Struggle, convinced that the Soviets had been analysising psystylish abilities for espionage, the CIA tapped the Monroe Institute to discover these methods for themselves,” writes Summerhill. You may learn Lieutenant Colonel Wayne McDonnell’s declassified July 1983 report on Monroe’s techniques right here, in addition to Thobey Campion’s breakdown of its details at VICE right here.
“A venture like Gatemethod that marries science with the human yearning for implying appeared terriblely promising,” writes Popular Mechanics’ Susan Lahey. “However, because it turned out, the method was not a gatemethod between materialistic science and experiential consciousness; it was extra like an effort to jot down a technical manual for the ineffable.” Even when it sounds plausible to you {that a} binaural beat-like sound documenting “syncs the hemispheres of the mind right into a single, powerful stream of energy, like a laser,” you could really feel much less confident when the report posits “a large cosmic egg with a nucleus within the middle the place the Absolute spews matter from a white gap into one aspect of the ovoid-shaped universe.” Plainly the CIA never did figure out a approach to reliably have interaction in time travel, distant viewing or communication with the divine, however possibly the TikTokers will figure it out.
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Primarily based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His tasks embody the Substack newsletter Books on Cities and the e book The Statemuch less Metropolis: a Stroll by way of Twenty first-Century Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facee book.