I've seen Backster being credited with introducing Ingo Swann to Hal Puthoff. Like most people, I thought they'd met directly through scientology. Swann was involved with the Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship who were also linked to parapsychology in the later 1960s (SFF explored ESP and religion). I wonder if Cleve Backster attended, or was involved, with SFF? Spit balling here. The Fellowship, at the time, represented apparently common ground for all three. To be clear, I only know because I stumbled onto them a few months ago. I made some notes and haven't spent time exploring.
Digression: Backster, Puthoff, Buchanan, Alexander, Swann were all at the IRVA "PK Party" conference in 2002 so the whole gang was there apart from Pat Price. The images are online and I found them during some crossover research into CB Scott Jones and Puthoff. Some of those many foundations involved links to Russia and China during the Cold War and I wondered if they were front channels for spy games.
I think that is definitely a factor here, diplomatic trips to the Soviet Union were made quite consistently under the auspices of paranormal research with many personalities within this sphere. I especially think in some ways there's a feedback loop of both cold war powers thinking that the other had psychic secrets that needed to be uncovered with a mixture of total believers and intelligence actors that's hard to parse out the differences between. And I am certain there is a lot of overlap.
Shit. I'll be running through those SFF newsletters for days. Thanks for the Backster positive.
I agree with your thoughts on the espionage overlap and admit to being mystified and fascinated by whatever their overall goals are. They outlived the Cold War and continued to be plugged in to the ESP, free energy and UFO fields. I wonder about a darkness there in terms of the appearance of taking advantage of civilians and potentially vulnerable, credulous backers. What I mean is not all their activities are comfortably explained by national security.
Enough for today. I've been pulling at threads for years and enjoy, or admire, the deliberation you put into this. You're putting pieces together.
Spooks hiding behind plants. That checks out! Great analysis.
Always good articles.
I've seen Backster being credited with introducing Ingo Swann to Hal Puthoff. Like most people, I thought they'd met directly through scientology. Swann was involved with the Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship who were also linked to parapsychology in the later 1960s (SFF explored ESP and religion). I wonder if Cleve Backster attended, or was involved, with SFF? Spit balling here. The Fellowship, at the time, represented apparently common ground for all three. To be clear, I only know because I stumbled onto them a few months ago. I made some notes and haven't spent time exploring.
Digression: Backster, Puthoff, Buchanan, Alexander, Swann were all at the IRVA "PK Party" conference in 2002 so the whole gang was there apart from Pat Price. The images are online and I found them during some crossover research into CB Scott Jones and Puthoff. Some of those many foundations involved links to Russia and China during the Cold War and I wondered if they were front channels for spy games.
I think that is definitely a factor here, diplomatic trips to the Soviet Union were made quite consistently under the auspices of paranormal research with many personalities within this sphere. I especially think in some ways there's a feedback loop of both cold war powers thinking that the other had psychic secrets that needed to be uncovered with a mixture of total believers and intelligence actors that's hard to parse out the differences between. And I am certain there is a lot of overlap.
To answer your other question, Backster was definitely involved in the Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship as noted by this newsletter from the org in 1971: https://ia802805.us.archive.org/16/items/SpiritualFrontiersFellowshipNewsletterVol5No3/SpiritualFrontiersFellowshipNewsletterVol5No3.pdf. Apparently he spoke at the 1971 conference! Also cracking up that this archived document was mailed to Edgar Cayce's son.
Shit. I'll be running through those SFF newsletters for days. Thanks for the Backster positive.
I agree with your thoughts on the espionage overlap and admit to being mystified and fascinated by whatever their overall goals are. They outlived the Cold War and continued to be plugged in to the ESP, free energy and UFO fields. I wonder about a darkness there in terms of the appearance of taking advantage of civilians and potentially vulnerable, credulous backers. What I mean is not all their activities are comfortably explained by national security.
Enough for today. I've been pulling at threads for years and enjoy, or admire, the deliberation you put into this. You're putting pieces together.