Until I began the article I was researching on the Russian work in 1961 and 62, I had never even HEARD of esp except vaguely. Not kidding at all. No one in my family or friends group had ever gone to a psychic or talked about it - my Dad, a cop, said he 'ran gypsies out of town once a year'.... and that's the only reference I could remember.
I never had a psychic dream, a hunch or anything like that. NO input and the closest I came was reading about 'the people' in Zenna Henderson's science fiction, and that WAS fiction....not reality.
My family are hardnosed, mostly cops and real estate. No funny aunts, no spiritual types - nothing. My mother didn't even believe in life after death. I was born Presbyterian but grew up Baptist. You didn't even think about esp!
I was still researching the article, and then came the Kennedy 'prediction' a la J. Dixon, and I started looking harder....I'd been soaking up all the stuff I could for the article and got some more stuff after that from a friend at Rand Corp, who had a tap-in to the USSR programs. In fact, was the same person who later tapped me into the CIA work. He could get about anything. Of course, I had to hand it back. (this person still alive and could verify)
The Russian programs and Czech programs were solid - they were teaching non-talented college students, and it worked. Drs. Vasiliev and Kogan and some others, plus Milan Rzysl (sp) were the forefront. Very hardnosed...color sensing, sketch tests, mild archaeology and reconstruction stuff. And then there was Dr. Tenhaeff....
Eventually I just thought "if Russians can learn this - why not Americans?" and I got into training myself.
Then met Dr. Rhine here and had a disagreement to the max with him, as he was certain you could not learn this stuff. Over the next four years I kept trying to convince him, but he was adamant. His wife was more receptive...then I met Harold Sherman and he was willing to help me learn, as was Wm. Finch of Phoenix. So those two gave me a big hand up - and then I met a woman who could remote view and she took me under her wing and trained me via the telephone, one hour a day.
So it took me years to learn and I couldn't see a thing until Carolyn forced it into me.
Therefore, I KNOW that you can learn it - and that's why I teach it the same way I learned it....hard work, theory, understanding and TONS of practice. I began teaching in 1966 just to see if I could. And I could.
I've also taught a bunch of no-nonsense cops who didn't believe in ANY of this 'weird stuff' - and some very skeptical reporters, one of which I met at the 1999 Conference - he was covering it for Popular Science - and I put him thru a little 'test' to prove it - which he handled 100% - using a small bag of mud....no clues, no nothing. It was from Cahokia Mounds pyramid complex and he not only described it but also described it as it looked 1000 years ago.... And this was from just a tablespoonful of anonymous mud in a ziploc bag - witnessed by 10 to 20 people... A month later he came here for further training...
I'm very hard-headed, not in the least a 'believer' and, in fact, I'm probably the worst skeptic in this field.... remember my attitude on Ouija etc. I think like a scientist and if I can't learn to do it, or at least understand it - I don't BELIEVE it....
Lots of people don't like my attitude and I don't care. I learned this very common-sense method that made sense - nothing I had to 'believe' - and I'll stay that way.... :)
Bevy Jaegers