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Sometime in late 1980, then-Col. Paul E. Vallely, the Commander of the 7th Psychological Operations Group, United States Army Reserve, Presidio of San Francisco, Ca., co-authored a discussion paper, which received wide and controversial attention within the U.S. military, particularly within the Special Operations community. The paper was titled "From PSYOP to MindWar: The Psychology of Victory," and it presented a Nietzschean scheme for waging perpetual psychological warfare against friend and enemy populations alike, and even against the American people.
The "MindWar" paper was provoked by an article by Lt. Col. John Alexander, which appeared in the December 1980 edition of Military Review, advocating the introduction of ESP (extra-sensory perception), "tele-pathetic behavior modification," para-psychology, psychokinesis ("mind over matter"), remote viewing, out of body experiences, and other New Age and occult practices into U.S. military intelligence. Alexander's paper was titled "The New Mental Battlefield: Beam Me Up, Spock."
But the subsequent paper co-authored by Vallely went way beyond ESP and the other paranormal techniques advocated by Alexander: "Strategic MindWar must begin the moment war is considered to be inevitable," the document stated. "It must seek out the attention of the enemy nation through every available medium, and it must strike at the nation's potential soldiers before they put on their uniforms. It is in their homes and their communities that they are most vulnerable to MindWar....
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