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|---|---|
 Russell Targ | |
| Born | (1934-04-11) April 11, 1934 (age 90) |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | physicist, parapsychologist and author |
| Known for | Remote viewing |
Russell Targ (born April 11, 1934) is an American physicist, parapsychologist and author, best known for his research in the pseudoscience of remote viewing.
Targ originally became known for early work in lasers and laser applications. He then joined Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International) in 1972 where he and Harold Puthoff coined the term "remote viewing" for the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen target using parapsychological means. Remote viewing has been conceptually replicated across a number of laboratories, by various experimenters, and in different cultures. This is a robust effect that, were it not such an unusual domain, would no longer be questioned by science as a real phenomenon. It is unlikely that methodological flaws could account for its remarkable consistency. Remote viewing is not “pseudoscience.” This is an inaccurate and insulting term that certain people with an agenda utilize to impugn this area of research.
Biography
Targ was born in Chicago. He is the son of publisher William Targ. Russell was married to Joan Fischer Targ (sister of world chess champion Bobby Fischer), who died in 1998. Russell and Joan had a daughter, Elisabeth Targ, who was a psychiatrist, and two sons Alexander, a physician, and Nicholas, an attorney. In 2003, Targ married artist Patricia Kathleen Phillips.
Targ was introduced to the paranormal by his father who had published the work of Erich von Däniken.
Targ received a Bachelor of Science in physics from Queens College in 1954 and did graduate work in physics at Columbia University. From 1986 to 1998 Targ worked in electro-optics as a senior staff scientist at the Lockheed Missiles and Space Company.
Targ who is legally blind is an avid motorcyclist and has published a memoir on his experiences as a "blind biker".
Laser research
Russell Targ originally became known in the laser research community. He co-authored the first paper describing the use of coherent detection with lasers (1962). He contributed to the development of frequency modulation mode-locking laser (FM laser) and coined the term "super-mode" used to describe FM laser operation. The paper he co-authored "Kilowatt CO2 gas‐transport laser" was the first to describe the operation of a 1000 watt continuous wave laser (CW laser). Targ continued to work in laser research into the 1990s developing windshear sensing lidar for use in aviation.
Remote viewing
In 1972 Targ joined the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), (now SRI International), a program founded by Harold E. Puthoff, as a senior research physicist where the two conducted research into psychic abilities and their operational use for the U.S. intelligence community, including the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and Army Intelligence
Works
Books authored
- Targ, Russell (2004). Limitless Mind: A Guide to Remote Viewing and Transformation of Consciousness. San Francisco: New World Library. ISBN 9781577314134.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|authormask=ignored (|author-mask=suggested) (help) - Targ, Russell (2010). Do You See What I See: Memoirs of a Blind Biker. Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads. ISBN 9781571746306.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|authormask=ignored (|author-mask=suggested) (help)CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Targ, Russell (2012). The Reality of ESP: A Physicist's Proof of Psychic Abilities. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books. ISBN 9780835608848.
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Books co-authored
- Targ, Russell; Puthoff, Harold (1977). Mind Reach: Scientists Look at Psychic Abilities. Dell. ISBN 9780224014243.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|authormask1=ignored (|author-mask1=suggested) (help) - Targ, Russell; Harary, Keith (1984). The Mind Race: Understanding and Using Psychic Abilities. New English Library. ISBN 9780450061042.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|authormask1=ignored (|author-mask1=suggested) (help) - Targ, Russell; Katra, Jane (1998). Miracles of Mind: Exploring Nonlocal Consciousness and Spiritual Healing. New World Library. ISBN 9781577310709.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|authormask1=ignored (|author-mask1=suggested) (help) - Targ, Russell; Katra, Jane (1999). The Heart of the Mind: How to Experience God Without Belief. New World Library. ISBN 9781577310419.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|authormask1=ignored (|author-mask1=suggested) (help) - Targ, Russell; Hurtak, James (2006). End of Suffering: Fearless Living in Troubled Times...Or, How to Get Out of Hell Free. Hampton Roads. ISBN 9781612831145.
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Journal articles
On lasers
- Rabinowitz, P.; Jacobs, S.; Targ, R.; Gould, G. (November 1962). "Homodyne detection of phase-modulated light". Correspondence. Proceeding of the IRE. 50 (11): 2365.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|authormask3=ignored (|author-mask3=suggested) (help) - Harris, S.E.; Targ, Russell (1964). "FM Oscillation of the He-Ne laser". Applied Physics Letters. 5 (10): 202–4. doi:10.1063/1.1723588.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|authormask2=ignored (|author-mask2=suggested) (help) - Massey, G.A.; Oshman, M.K.; Targ, R. (1965). "Generation of single-frequency light using the FM laser". Applied Physics Letters. 6 (1): 10–1. doi:10.1063/1.1754114.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|authormask3=ignored (|author-mask3=suggested) (help) - Tiffany, W.B.; Targ, R.; Foster, J.D. (1969). "Kilowatt CO2 gas‐transport laser". Applied Physics Letters. 15 (3): 91–3. doi:10.1063/1.1652920.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|authormask2=ignored (|author-mask2=suggested) (help) - Targ, R.; Sasnett, M.W. (February 1972). "High-repetition-rate xenon laser with transverse excitation". IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics. 8 (2): 166–9. doi:10.1109/JQE.1972.1076913.
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On remote viewing
- Targ, R.; Puthoff, H. (18 October 1974). "Information transfer under conditions of sensory shielding". Letters to Nature. Nature. 251: 602–7. doi:10.1038/251602a0.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|authormask1=ignored (|author-mask1=suggested) (help) - Puthoff, H.E.; Targ, R. (March 1976). "A perceptual channel for information transfer over kilometer distances: Historical perspective and recent research". Proceedings of the IEEE. 64 (3): 329–54. doi:10.1109/PROC.1976.10113.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|authormask2=ignored (|author-mask2=suggested) (help) - Tart, C.T.; Puthoff, H.E.; Targ, R. (13 March 1980). "Information transmission in remote viewing experiments". Matters Arising. Nature. 284: 191. doi:10.1038/284191a0. PMID 7360248.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|authormask3=ignored (|author-mask3=suggested) (help) - Targ, R. (1996). "Remote viewing at Stanford Research Institute in the 1970s: A memoir" (PDF). Journal of Scientific Exploration. 10 (1): 77–88.
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On precognition
- Targ, R.; Katra, J. (1995). "Viewing the future: A pilot study with an error detecting protocol". Journal of Scientific Exploration. 9: 367–80.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|authormask1=ignored (|author-mask1=suggested) (help) - Rauscher, E.A.; Targ, R. (20–22 June 2006). "Investigation of a complex space-time metric to describe precognition of the future". AIP Conference Proceedings. Frontiers of Time: Retrocausation - Experiment and Theory. Vol. 863. San Diego, CA. pp. 121–46. doi:10.1063/1.2388752.
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Notes
References
- ^ "Russell Targ". Gale Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology. Gale.
{{cite book}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help);|website=ignored (help); External link in|chapterurl=|chapterurl=ignored (|chapter-url=suggested) (help) - Gardner, Martin (March–April 2001). "Notes of a fringe-watcher: Distant healing and Elisabeth Targ". Skeptical Inquirer. Vol. 25.2. Retrieved 2011-01-07.
- Marks, David; Kammann, Richard (1980). The Psychology of the Psychic (2nd ed.). Prometheus. p. 67. ISBN 9781573927987.
- Targ 2010.
- "Do You See What I See?". Internet Bookwatch. 1 July 2008. Retrieved 2014-05-03 – via HighBeam Research.
{{cite news}}: Unknown parameter|subscription=ignored (|url-access=suggested) (help) - Laser Focus. 1978.
{{cite news}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - Electronics. 20 September 1965. p. 101.
{{cite news}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - Laser Focus with Fiberoptic Communications. Vol. 1. 1965.
{{cite news}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - Harris & Targ 1964.
- Tiffany, Targ & Foster 1969.
- Targ, Russell (27 May 2008). "Do You See What I See: Memoirs of a Blind Biker". Reality Sandwich (book excerpt). Retrieved 2014-05-09.
- Targ, R.; Kavaya, M.J.; Huffaker, R.M.; Bowles, R.L. (1991). "Coherent lidar airborne windshear sensor: Performance evaluation". Applied Optics. 30 (15): 2013–26. doi:10.1364/AO.30.002013.
- Targ, R.; Steakley, B.C.; Hawley, J.G.; Ames, L.L.; Forney, P.; Swanson, D.; Stone, R.; Otto, R.G.; Zarifis, V.; Brockman, P.; Calloway, R.S.; Klein, S.H.; Robinson, P.A. (1996). "Coherent lidar airborne wind sensor II: Flight test results at 2 µm and 10 µm". Applied Optics. 35 (36): 7117–27. doi:10.1364/AO.35.007117.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|displayauthors=ignored (|display-authors=suggested) (help) - There are a number of reasons that editors at Misplaced Pages should not characterize remote viewing as pseudoscience, when it is not characterized that way by the informed scientific community. 1--In order to publish our findings in the 1976 Proceedings of the IEEE, we had to meet with the Robert W. Lucky, managing editor, and his board. The editor proposed to us that we show him how to conduct a remote viewing experiment. If it was successful, he would publish our paper. The editor was also head of electro-optics at Bell Telephone Laboratory. We gave a talk at his lab. He then chose some engineers to be the “psychics” for each of five days. Each day he hid himself at a randomly chosen location in the nearby town. After the agreed-upon five trials, the editor read the five transcripts and successfully matched each of the five correctly to his hiding places. This was significant at 0.008 (one in 5!, 5-factorial). As a result, he published our paper on “Information Transmission Over Kilometer Distances”. 2—In our 23 year program for the government at SRI, we had to carry out “demonstration of ability” tasks for the Director of CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, NASA, and Commanding General of the Army Intelligence Command. (The names are available upon request.) For the CIA we were able to accurately describe and draw a giant gantry crane rolling on eight wheels over a large building, and draw the 60 foot gores, “slices” of a sphere, under construction in northern Russia. The sphere was entirely accurate, although its existence was unknown at the time. The description was so accurate that it became the subject of a Congressional hearing of the House Committee on Intelligence. They were afraid of a security leak. No leak was found, and we were told to “press on.” 3—Remote viewing is easily replicated and has been demonstrated all over the world. It has been the subject of several Ph.D. dissertations in the US and abroad. Princeton University had a 25 year program investigating remote viewing with more than 450 trials. Prof. Robert Jahn also published a lengthy and highly significant (p = 10-10 or 1 in ten billion) experimental investigation of remote viewing in the 1982 Proc. IEEE. 4—The kind of tasks that kept us in business for twenty-three years include: SRI psychics found a downed Russian bomber in Africa; reported on the health of American hostages in Iran; described Soviet weapons factories in Siberia; located a kidnapped US general in Italy; and accurately forecasted the failure of a Chinese atomic-bomb test three days before it occurred, etc. When San Francisco heiress Patricia Hearst was abducted from her home in Berkeley, a psychic with the SRI team was the first to identify the kidnapper by name and then accurately describe and locate the kidnap car. I was at the Berkeley police station and witnessed this event. 5—Jessica Utts is a statistics Professor at the University of California, Irvine, and is president of the American Statistical Association. In writing for her part of a 1995 evaluation of our work for the CIA, she wrote: “Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well established. The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond what is expected by chance. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted.… Remote viewing has been conceptually replicated across a number of laboratories, by various experimenters, and in different cultures. This is a robust effect that, were it not such an unusual domain, would no longer be questioned by science as a real phenomenon. It is unlikely that methodological flaws could account for its remarkable consistency.” 6--Whether you believe some, all, or none of the above, it should be clear that hundreds of people were involved in a 23 year, multi-million dollar operational program at SRI, the CIA, DIA and two dozen intelligence officers at the army base at Ft. Meade. Regardless of the personal opinion of a Misplaced Pages editor, it is not logically coherent to trivialize this whole remote viewing undertaking as some kind of “pseudoscience.” Besides me, there is a parade of Ph.D. physicists, psychologists, and heads of government agencies who think our work was valuable, though puzzling.
External links
- ESPResearch.com - Russell Targ's site
