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Approved For Release 2004/08/02 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000600350001-3 CONFIDENTIAL DST-18108-387-75 September 1975 SUMMARY (U) During the past 25 years, Soviet and Czechoslovakian parapsychologists have reported that paranormal phenomena such as extrasensory perception (ESP), telepathy, and psychokinesis (PK) have been demonstrated under rigorously controlled laboratory conditions. Skeptics in both nations have attacked the study of such phenomena on both scientific and political - ideological grounds. Criticism based on political ideology has stemmed from the fact that much past research has been non-materialistic in the sense that results have not been reported in terms of contemporary conven— tional science. Thus the critics feel that parapsychology has fostered continued belief in mysticism, occultism, and religion. (U) In order to rebut the skeptics' contentions that psychic phenomena do not fit accepted scientific and political thought, Soviet and Czech sci- entists now argue that there are many well established "facts" which remain as anomalous to scientific paradigms as extrasensory perception (ESP). ESP refers to information which is not received via the usual senses, and as a general term, includes telepathy (the Soviet "biocommunication") and psychokinesis or PK (the Soviet "bioenergetics"). Communist parapsycho- logists argue that after decades of research, conventional science still has no satisfactory neurophysiological explanation of memory, nor is there any appropriate model for explaining how raw data impinging on man's senses are transformed into a conscious experience. They also point to the dema- terialized character of contemporary physics, a science filled with such bizarre components as advance potential (waves of electrons perceived be- fore they are generated), tunneling effects (electrons penetrating barriers which, by the laws of probability, should be impenetrable), and tachyons (particles traveling faster than light, and thus implying the possibility of a backward flow of time). In short, they conclude that "hard" science no longer offers a secure rationale for the denial of the possibility of any noncausal event. SG1B vii CONFTDENTTAL Approved For Release 2004/08/02 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000600350001-3