It sounds like a movie, a technological thriller where a group of rogue agents working for the government steal top secret technology on the verge of extinction in hopes of preserving it and bringing it to the people who deserve it. This is the story of the birth of PSI TECH in 1989 by former members of Project Stargate, a top secret project within the United States army to develop a team of remote viewers for use in intelligence gathering operations.
Project Stargate
Project Stargate is the codename designating a number of projects undertaken by various branches of the United States government, particularly the CIA, DIA and the United States Army, beginning with Project SCANATE in 1972. The purpose of the project was to investigate parapsychological activity (most prominently remote viewing) and try to put these abilities to operable use.
The program floundered in the mid-1970’s with the death of its first remote viewer, Pat Price. It gained new life in the 1980’s, however, as the United States Army began creating and training a team of remote viewers for use in intelligence. Up to fifteen remote viewers were trained in the course of this operation, with as many as seven viewers operating at any one time.
From the beginning, however, the project was controversial, particularly considering results that were mixed at best and absolutely worthless at the worst. As leadership changed in the groups overseeing the project, it began to become clear that this newest incarnation of Project Stargate would soon be ended, the team of remote viewers disbanded and the technology developed for the project lost.
While Project Stargate would not completely end, it would exist in other forms until the final completion of the Project in 1995, those most intimately involved in the program knew that trouble lied ahead. A group of these individuals, led by the star viewer of the team Major Ed Dames, decided to take the technology into the corporate sector and create their own remote viewing corporation.
Ed Dames and the Birth of PSI TECH
Of the remote viewers working for the Army in the 1980’s, Major Ed Dames was the most promising and soon became the star of the project. A pupil of the father of remote viewing, Ingo Swann, he trained with the well-known psychic for two years in preparing for the program.
Dames founded PSI TECH in 1989, amidst a contentious battle brewing within the leadership of the Stargate Project. Many of his fellow viewers followed him, as well as Major General Albert Stubblebein, former head of INSCOM who sat on the original board of directors.
The purpose of the company was to provide remote viewing services for individuals and corporations, as well as using the protocols developed over the course of the project to train interested individuals in the development of their own remote viewing capabilities.
As Dames rose to prominence, he also came to be a figure of great notoriety. He travelled the talk show circuit and soon became known as “Dr. Doom” for his constant predictions of great destruction (none of which have yet come to pass). Soon a controversial figure, many within PSI TECH began to see him as a liability rather than an asset.
In 1991 Ed Dames left the company he had founded only two years prior. Control of PSI TECH, including the technology behind it, passed to the hands of his recently divorced wife, Jonina Dourif. She remains the president of PSI TECH to this day.
The Development of PSI TECH
In the beginning PSI TECH billed itself as a remote viewing corporation that could assist individuals and corporations with any number of tasks through the use of their psychic abilities. Early controversy arose over this fact, as many claimed that PSI TECH were charging extremely high fees and delivering little or nothing in return.
PSI TECH also began assisting with government and military projects as well. During the first Gulf War, for example, they ran remote viewing searches for Saddam Hussein. After the end of the war they also assisted the United Nations in their search for weapons of mass destruction. Proponents of the company and the technology show this as evidence of their abilities, but the results of their operations never amounted to much, and their services in this arena have petered out as time has gone on.
The new company was plagued by the same problems that had persisted throughout Project Stargate. While on occasion their were interesting and perhaps even amazing results, information provided by their remote viewing services was inconsistent at best. Skeptics view their sometimes quite accurate information as the result of nothing more than educated guesswork, proven by the large amount of incorrect information provided. Psychic apologists view the remote viewing abilities as genuine, but recognize the currently little understood and uncontrollable nature of this new psychic science.
As time went on, PSI TECH began to lose many of the ex-military viewers who had continued to work with the company on a contractual basis throughout the 90’s. The company began to focus less on actual operable use of remote viewing services and more on the training of individuals in the development of their own psychic potential. It is the belief of PSI TECH that all people have psychic ability latent within themselves.
PSI TECH and the Elizabeth Smart Case
Despite its focus on individual training, PSI TECH has continued to work on high-level investigations. One of the more famous and controversial of these investigations was their work on the Elizabeth Smart Case of 2002.
When Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her home on June 5th, 2002 the entire country was shocked and watched the story unfold on their television screens throughout the summer. One of the less highly publicized aspects of the story, however, was PSI TECH’s involvement with the case.
Although not solicited in any form, PSI TECH decided to use their abilities to aid in the investigation. Almost immediately they declared Elizabeth Smart deceased, killed by her abductor. They then began a psychic investigation to find the identity of the abductor and where the body was buried. Information was posted on their web site and sent to law enforcement officials whenever they gathered new information.
In August of that year Elizabeth Smart’s father Ed Smart contacted PSI TECH, in hopes that they might have some useful information. They assured him that they were still working on the case. By the end of August they believed they knew where the burial place was, and attempted to get local law enforcement to cooperate in assisting them to find the body.
Finally law enforcement allowed them to go through. Due to the sensitive nature of the area in which they felt the body was buried (a crypt not far from a Native American Burial Ground) they brought with them two police officers as well as a local archeologist. The crypt was opened and they searched where they felt the body was. Elizabeth Smart’s body was not there.
As those who followed the case at the time know, Elizabeth Smart was not murdered by her abductor. In March of 2003 she was found alive and rescued. As the news came out it was also discovered that she had never been anywhere near the site that PSI TECH claimed she had been buried. In every respect PSI TECH had been wrong.
PSI TECH immediately deleted all of the information from their web site on the subject, and issued a statement attempting to explain the reason for their failure, using a number of excuses. For skeptics, however, the debacle was nothing more than a further proof of the falsehood of psychic abilities and the opportunistic and sleazy nature of psychics.
TRV® University
If you visit PSI TECH’s web site, you will find that its most lauded product is their TRV University. (TRV stands for Technical Remote Viewing®, their trademarked name for their remote viewing program). In a series of courses taken over the internet.
These four layered training courses are meant to develop anyone’s psychic abilities and give them the power to use TRV for themselves. The first three courses are available online or through a series of video cassettes, while the final course is a live in person training seminar that takes place twice a year that takes place in Maui, Hawaii, and is reserved only for those who have previously passed the first three levels of training.
While there have been many happy customers of the program, skeptics claim that they are feeding on the faith of good-natured people and are taking their money and giving almost nothing in return. Despite these claims, however, and the controversy that has surrounded PSI TECH since its earliest days, it seems that company is going to stay around, and that remote viewing will continue to be offered by this offshoot of the government’s top secret and 20 year Project Stargate.
