A doctor in experimental psychology, Mario Varvoglis has directed experiments on modified states of consciousness at the Maimonides Hospital Dream Laboratory in New York and at the Psychophysical Research Laboratories at Princeton. Since 1998, he has been the president of the International Metapsychic Institute (IMI), a state-approved private foundation dedicated to the scientific study of paranormal phenomena : telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition (or premonition) and psychokinesis (or telekinesis). Founded in 1919, the IMI was one of the first institutions in the world to study “psi” or (metapsychic) phenomena with a rigorous and open approach, free from all religious and philosophical prejudices. The IMI is thus a rational alternative to the wanderings of credulity, as well as to the excesses of skepticism.

Could you explain to us what the study of metapsychics consists in ?

This part of parapsychology consists of two main domains of study : receptive psi and projective psi. Receptive phenomena include telepathy, that is to say when someone receives a message from someone else through thought ; clairvoyance, that is when someone receives information about an objective, exterior, and distant event ; and precognition - or retrocognition - when someone receives a message concerning an event in the future or in the past. Projective psi phenomena concern the influence that a person can have on a non-living physical system, or a biological system from a distance. The various experiments fall into one of these categories, but sometimes we are in a kind of interpretational limbo, between the two. For example, some experiments in precognition can also be interpreted as experiments in psychokinesis - or vice versa. Let’s take experiments with random number generators (RNGs), which produce random events of a heads or tails type. They are characteristic. You put someone in front of a RNG and you ask him to try to predict if the next event will be heads or tails. Such instructions amount to asking him to do precognition. Can you anticipate something that, in theory, cannot be predicted, because it’s random ? Let’s say that the person successfully predicts the results more often than you would expect given the laws of chance. Instead of having fifty successes and fifty failures, they will have sixty-five successes and thirty-five failures. Let’s say that this repeats itself often enough so that, statistically, it seems pretty sure that something is happening, something that goes beyond “mere coincidence”. In such a case, we have at least two possibilities : either the person is indeed anticipating correctly, or the person somehow uses his will and influences the device. The same objective phenomenon, an abundance of positive results, beyond what you expect from coincidence, could thus be explained either by the reception of information, or by the imposition of our will upon the system. In either case, studies show that our psi capacities work better when you are convinced that you can do it. In other words, conviction has a direct impact not only on ourselves, on our own minds, but also on exterior events. How is it that a person, by being convinced, can have qualitatively superior results to someone who doubts ? And yet, these results involve an exterior system that has no relation to these beliefs.

Maybe this is the reason why the zeteticians don’t have any better results ?

It’s too bad that they use that name, which is subtler than what they do with it. The only true zetetician was Marcello Truzzi, the scientist who started zetetics - the approach of which is simply based on critical thinking, vis-à-vis both “believers” and “skeptics”. The so-called French zeteticians have very strongly preconceived ideas ; they are not at all neutral. Instead of examining the reported research methods and results, like you are supposed to do in science, they use approaches which are much easier and less expensive, the purpose of which is to just make us sound ridiculous. There is a strong tendency in France to link rationality with the fight against everything that is supernatural, religious, the Bermuda Triangle, astrologists, UFOs, etc. They try to pigeonhole parapsychology into that, in order to be able to reject everything in bulk. First, there are striking experimental results, and if they don’t demonstrate the existence of psi, then the skeptic must tell us why, how do they explain these results. Secondly, there is clearly a scientific process, a field of research, and it is absurd to deny it. Zeteticians deny that the phenomena exist, but what’s more, they deny that this science exists.

What is your research about ?

I’m particularly interested in altered states of consciousness and their impact on phenomena like telepathy, psychokinesis, and premonition. The question is whether certain mental states would, for instance, increase the psi signal. You can think of this signal as a radio frequency. It’s as if - though, strictly speaking, this is not the case - there was a transmitter who would send a signal and a receiver who would receive it and try to describe it. A major question is, how can we help the transmitter “send” the signal, or the receiver better receive it. We also conduct precognition experiments in which obviously there is no transmitter, but instead a future event, which the receiver tries to describe. Here we can either try to enhance the receptivity of the receiver, or the importance, the impact of the event that will trigger perception. It seems that the possibility of “picking up” a future event is greater, the stronger the future event.

In this case, the notion of space-time is primary...

It is primary, because there are laws that apply to this type of signal in space-time. Theoretically, a signal can leave from here and advance in space and in time, but it cannot move backwards. In certain experiments, it seems as if the signal moves backwards in time. There is an event here, and even before it occurs, the repercussion of information is already there ; it’s like an inversion of causality.

This also exists on a quantum level...

Feynman showed a mathematical equivalence between anti-matter, which we know exists and a hypothetical “anti-time”. We can view anti-matter not as “anti-bodies” that move in normal space-time, but as normal bodies that move inversely in space-time. It’s a kind of symmetry. This representation is possible in quantum mathematics. But something like this was already known much earlier, after Maxwell’s equations, and the concept of advanced waves and delayed waves. We know the solutions to a physical equation with delayed waves, which come after the event. But there are also theoretical solutions that exist with advanced waves, which come before the event. Therefore, parallels with physics do exist. But can we say that this is the answer ? We don’t know yet, we can only say that at least the metaphor exists. It is possible that this approach with mathematical physics is the right one, but it is also possible that that has nothing to do with precognition, and that we must search elsewhere.

The military is also interested in this kind of subject. What can you tell us about the Stargate program ?

It’s a military research program that started thirty years ago at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). Its objectives were to decide if psi phenomena exist and in that case, how to use them. The potential applications were essentially linked to psychic espionage, to the collection of information. They started the program by testing a large number of military men to a number of parapsychological tests. Then they selected just five to ten people that seemed to have results that were systematically above average. Then the investigators worked intensely for several years with this “elite”. The program lasted for twenty-four years and although it was all supposed to be top secret, rumors circulated and various sections of intelligence services came to consult the psychic spies as a last resort - for example to find information about a Russian sub-marine, or to collect information about a possible missile site.

Were there any results ?

All this remained completely classified until 1995. The end came basically following the thaw-out with the Soviets, marked by the fall of the Berlin Wall. At that point, certain programs were called into question, including Stargate, and several were progressively stopped. In order to allow the experts to decide whether the program should be stopped or continued, the US Congress asked that the archives be opened. In fact, only five percent of the files were accessible to the two appointed experts. These were Ray Hyman, one of the best-known rationalists in the United States, who was more or less opposed to the program, and Jessica Utts, a UCLA statistician who was more favorable to the continuation of the program. Utts established significant evidence for certain kinds of psi phenomena, and concluded in favor of the continuation of the program. Ray Hyman also found no clear cut scientific flaws in the program, and concluded that apparently “something” was going on ; but he was unwilling to concede that the phenomena had been definitely established, and held that the effects were not reliable enough to justify the continuation of the program. I personally knew the main investigators of the Stargate program. The budget was big, by parapsychological standards, but not huge. It was a million dollars per year, which is nothing compared with the money that goes into medical or biological or physics research. In any case, Hyman’s view won out, and on the basis of just five percent of the files, the program was stopped. I should add though that, by 1995, the program had completely deteriorated. Basically, at the end of the 1980s, the CIA had placed agents within the SRI that made life unbearable for everyone working there. Anyway, the CIA acts like this everywhere, and it’s a disaster. They were so skeptical and questioned everything to such an extent that the ambiance became very different and most people left. However, they were patriots convinced that they were acting for the good of their country. That’s how the program ended and now, this “psi elite” has left to join other institutes, and some have even founded their own.

What conclusion can we draw from the Stargate program ? Are there any new documents that have been declassified since then ?

Not any more than this five percent, but the known examples are striking. In addition, the researchers that knew the files are forced to keep silent and cannot speak without running the risk of imprisonment. This program was somewhat apart, because everything was concealed and even we, the civilian university researchers, were not aware of what was happening there. Maybe their budget was not huge, but it was a lot more than what we had. At Princeton, there were two laboratories of parapsychology, one addressing the “psi signal” from an engineering perspective, the other - where I was working - focused on the psychophysical aspects of research. We each had budgets of three hundred thousand dollars per year, which is half of what the SRI had, and still we did a lot of things... For example, our lab came out with the auto-Ganzfeld, which is considered today to be one of the most reliable protocols for demonstrating psi phenomena. The other laboratory became known for its work on random number generators (RNGs). They completed one of the most extensive studies on the influence of the mind on micro-events. These two Princeton laboratories, together with the SRI lab, represented the very best of American research from the 1980s onwards.

And how does European research compare to this ?

Europe has been catching up with the United States. There are centers of research in Europe, mostly universities, which are getting to be just as productive as those in the United States. In Britain, the main center is at the University of Edinburgh, where there is a parapsychology chair that awards doctorates. There are several other universities in England, in Holland, in Germany. On the other hand, in France, there’s not much - the only exception, of course, being the IMI. When I left Princeton, I thought that we could establish something in France but I didn’t know the country well enough, the personal attacks, the stigmatization of research, the discredit brought upon anyone who wants to do something scientifically in this domain.

What is the Global Consciousness Project (GCP) ?

In the late 1970s, we knew that a person facing a RNG could shift the proportions of heads and tails. But, as I mentioned earlier, we did not know whether this is due to a form of precognition or rather an influence upon the RNG system. But about this time, some research began to show that the RNG somehow “reacted” simply when the person was in an emotional state, yet not intentionally focused on the RNG. It seemed to react like a psychic barometer. Roger Nelson, for example, of the University of Princeton, launched a portable RNG during some workshops which provoke intense emotions in participants. He found that the RNG activity shifted specifically in periods with such strong emotions, as opposed to more neutral periods, such as during breaks, or when the facilitator would simply be giving instructions. So it looked like RNGs could be used as detectors of strong psychological events. Later on, Dean Radin, at the University of Nevada began to run RNGs specifically during events that were psychologically involving for many people - of the order of a hundred thousand or a million individuals - to see whether it registered something specific in association with the event. This began with the Oscars, and then with sporting events, and there were again characteristic changes in the RNG, compared to chance expectation. Finally, in 1998, Roger Nelson decided to launch the GCP which essentially meant creating a global network of RNGs that would continuously collect random data and act like a kind of world-wide seismograph of the human psyche or the collective consciousness. Little by little, RNGs were placed in different labs around the world. Right now there are more than seventy, permanently sending their data to a central server at Princeton. This allows us to see what happens in the RNGs when unexpected, powerful events occur. You can’t always watch what is happening, but after a major event has occurred, you can see whether the RNG network somehow responded. There were a number of strong deviations from chance, associated with events that attracted the attention of many millions of individuals - for example, during the funeral of Lady Di. But the strongest data recorded, since the project began, was the September 11th attacks. The spike on the RNGs started just before the actual attacks, and continued for hours, into the following day. This of course leads one to wonder whether we can eventually use this kind of system as an “early warning system” : could we eventually come to anticipate a threatening event by observing the variations in the RNG activity ? In any event, the GCP suggests that there is something that somehow provokes a spike at a given moment. Now what that something is, that’s what’s difficult to interpret. We talk about a collective mind, or the collective unconscious, but in fact we are still very limited in terms of theoretical explanations.

Have you done tests to find out if you have psi capacities ?

Chances are that everyone, potentially, has some psi capacities - so researchers are not excluded. In general, people who are interested in this subject - to the point of making it their subject of research - have lived through some kind of psi experience at least once in their lifetime. While we can probably not be compared to “gifted” psi subjects, it is probable that the experimenters, having seen enough phenomena, end up becoming convinced of their existence. And gradually, as they convince themselves, the phenomenon is amplified in themselves. That complicates the research a little, because you no longer know if it’s the subject of the experiment or the experimenter that, unconsciously, provokes the phenomenon.

Certain experiments seem to show that the phenomena are communicated through space and across great distances...

In telepathy experiments, nothing indicates that distance is relevant. Maybe we would need to conduct experiments between here and Jupiter, to be certain, but on Earth at least the spatial factor does not seem to enter into the equation. Perhaps these phenomena do not occur in space. Maybe information passes through another dimension. Today, physicians talk about several dimensions, some talk about eleven dimensions, among which four would be usable. Another possibility is that psi phenomena occur in time rather than space. For example, if I guess what the transmitter sees, you might think it’s because the transmitter sent me a message through space. But actually, as a receiver, I will eventually see the target-image half an hour after the sender “transmitted” it to me, during the debriefing of the experiment. How do I know if my success in finding the right image is due to the transmitter, rather than to a precognitive glimpse of the image seen during the debriefing ? In other words, it may be that what looks like telepathy - indeed all receptive psi phenomena - could be explained by precognition. We would therefore no longer need to explain the transmission of information through space, but just through time.

What is the current state of research ?

As far as I’m concerned, certain phenomena are very well established at the experimental level. Precognition is one of the most studied anomalies. Today, the demonstration is refined to the point of being able to begin to think of cognitive processes specifically linked to precognition. In one of the most recent experiments, we explore persons’ physiological reactions to a future event. The body, with its reactions, is the detection instrument for precognition. We connect sensors - the same that are used in lie detectors - to measure the skin’s conductivity, which is connected to stress level. At a random moment, the machine produces a loud sound, like an explosion. We know very well that the stress of the person is going to rise right after they hear the noise ; there will be a spike in their skin conductivity. But what if we observe the graph starting a few seconds before the person heard the noise ? In fact, we find a similar spike is there, but smaller. If we compare the pre-noise curves with curves preceding a moment of silence, we see a clear cut difference. This experiment has been made by several different research centers, and we repeatedly see a presentiment effect. The body reacts in a manner appropriate to what is going to happen ; yet rationally we have no way of knowing this, as the choice between noise and silence is random. The other anomaly that has now been well established is biopsychokinesis, which is the influence of the mind on living systems. This is about influence at the microscopic level, like on bacteria, as well as at the macroscopic level, on living beings. There are dozens of experiments now that systematically show that there is an effect on biological systems from a distance, and that cannot be attributed to a placebo effect or suggestion. The protocols involving distance and lower organisms exclude these kinds of explanations. So, in general, I’d say we know, at the very least, that receptive psi phenomena, like precognition, exist ; and we know that it is possible to influence living systems from a distance. However beyond that, we are not yet equally sure. For example, if an influence upon non-living matter is demonstrated, is this the same phenomenon as influencing a biological system, or is it different ? And we have still a long way to go on the theoretical level. Nothing has been generally accepted to explain, for example, how a signal can go from the brain of one person to that of another and affect it.

Do we know if the brain plays a part in these phenomena ?

We don’t even know that. We simply know that there are anomalous interactions between a person and his environment, or between a person and his own future. We cannot yet explain the nature of these interactions. There are theories, there are physical hypotheses, for example based on hyperdimensions or time-symmetry, and there are mentalistic theories that state that the mind is qualitatively different than matter, obeys its own laws. But there is no consensus on these different hypotheses.

And what would you need to find out ?

Time, money, and a terrain that is neutral and not constantly mined. We have to get beyond concerns about sheer-survival. Few researchers can pay for their own visionary research. There are not even a dozen centers in the world that can invest in long-term research programs. All the breakthroughs we have had come from such centers. In the United States, private foundations often finance this type of research. It must be realized that, from an applications point of view, we are hardly at the same level as physicists studying particles, at the beginning of the 20th century. At first the research was purely fundamental, with no applications in sight ; and then they made the bomb. Personally, I prefer not to emphasize the applications, because the nuclear experience is not very encouraging. Man is probably not mature enough to handle the applications of this phenomenon.

Could this represent a danger ?

I don’t know. Numerous researchers maintain that it’s qualitatively different. That the nature of these phenomena is mainly concerned with connectedness. It’s a new ecology that connects man and the environment in a very direct way. And this ecology of the mind is inconsistent with separatist dynamics. These phenomena demand a relation that goes beyond the ego and personal preoccupations. For a long time, most researchers, myself included, assumed that psi could not be used, could not be systematized and exploited, because to have the phenomenon, you must be in a dynamic of openness and connectedness. If that’s true, we are condemned - in today’s society - to never find reliable applications. Still, in spite of everything, I think there are people who will manage to bypass that rule. I do not know if psi could be used against humanity, whether it could be depersonalized and misused. But, maybe it can be diverted. In any case, the main thing is that we must not simply deny the phenomena and pretend they’re just not there. If it remains “officially” non-existent, it will eventually fall into the hands of sects or others who do not care about scientific opinions, and who will charge ahead until they manage to exploit it. The best protection against abuses would be to render knowledge of psi public, and open to the healthy scientific process of exchange, debate and investigation.