The existence of a machine able to read thought takes me back to an old film of the 70’s, which tells the story of a scientist who, in a futuristic laboratory in the United States, develops a mysterious machine that can “read” thought.
The film was not received well, both for the presence of little known actors and a very modest screen presentation and although the critics’ response was negligible and the box-office takings small, the subject of the film provoked a certain interest, which was based on the possibility of creating an instrument which, to say the least, would seem believable only in science fiction. It is not by coincidence that over the years, tied to the fascination and mystery of realizing a system able to read man’s thoughts, the idea has always constituted a creative urge to produce, novels, films and TV series. The continual and extraordinary evolution of the technologies to which we are accustomed, have made us almost insensible to the importance of their range, to the point where we no longer consider these innovations “sensational”. Nevertheless, amazement, mixed with a sensation of incredulity seizes us, especially when we realize that some of those stories, fantastic and fascinating, which until a few decades ago belonged only to the imagination, today, takes the form of yet another scientific discovery. And, therefore, the announcement of a few months back should not be too surprising, on the realization of a software developed by Intel (United States company, leader in the sector of microprocessors), able to effect, at least in part, the reading of the thought of the human mind. The functioning of the device is rather simple (so to speak!) and is based on the use of a system employed to make the magnetic resonances. Essentially, the mechanism makes a mapping of the areas of the brain interested in the generation of words, in a similar way to what the applications do that translate the voice into commands and texts. It is opportune to remember that the cerebral activity of the brain is based on electrical waves (cerebral waves) that generate the cerebral electrical activity. And it is not by accident, of course, that through the electroencephalogramme (EEG), it is possible to record the electrical activity of the encephalon. Therefore, the Intel device is able to identify the words that are “thought” by the human mind, to match their cerebral electrical meaning and to construct, through a learning procedure, a kind of map of connection between the “thought” words and the relative commands to be generated. The demonstration was done with a subject who was asked to think of a series of common words (indicated by the researcher). A specific mathematic algorithm associated the areas of the brain which were activated by each word as they were thought. Subsequently, the subject was asked to think of one of the words which had previously been suggested to him. The system demonstrated, during the various tests, an accuracy level of over 90%. It is unnecessary to underline that the success obtained from this experiment opens the door to a vast range of possible applications. We need only think of the possibility of managing electronic devices without using our hands (it suggests the elimination of the keyboard, mouse, touch screen monitor, remote control device etc.,) but we can consider also the possibility of applications in the home automation sector (interdisciplinary science which is concerned with the study and research of the technologies applied in the home to improve the quality of life). Perhaps, within a few years, we will be able to switch on the television and synchronize the channel by simply thinking of the programme that interests us, or to open or shut doors and locks with a simple desire expressed by our mind. We shall stop here, but we could continue to cite innumerable examples, also looking at the possible applications for people with serious physical handicaps.
The device was presented by Teach Heaven of New York, arousing amazement and interest. At the present, the greatest limitations are imposed by the elevated cost of the particular machinery, mainly, the cost and dimensions of the resonance magnetic device, but according to Dean Pomerleau, researcher of the Intel laboratories, the dimensions of the device will be reduced to the size of a hat, and also the cost will undergo a substantial decrease, thanks to the development of the nanotechnologies. To their merit, the device could assume the same dimensions of an earphone and could be used for the acquisition of personal information. Naturally we refer to uses for Intelligence applications, and its employment could be very interesting in verifying the correctness of the information possessed by single individuals. Let us just try to imagine what the uses of an instrument of this kind could be.
It would be possible to say ‘goodbye’ to the lie detectors, hallucinogenic drugs and specific psychological tests to verify the degree of reliability of a subject. It would simply be enough to “read” his mind to discover exactly what he is thinking and the level of veracity of his affirmations. In reality, the possibility to penetrate the mind of the human being has always excited the interest of all kinds of scientists, above all, to try to understand more of its methods of functioning. To this end, the research and study conducted by scientists since the first years of the 20th Century has mainly concerned the transmission of thought and remote vision. Furthermore, sectors in which colossal investments have been made in various Countries of the planet.

Potential of the cerebral waves:
from thought transference to remote viewing

As we have been able to understand, the scientific basis on which the realization of the Intel system is founded is that of the electric waves generated by the cerebral activity of the human being which, being measurable, allow us to understand not only what areas of the brain are involved for certain functions, but also what the interactions are with the thoughts developed by the individual. In reality, as already mentioned, the study of the cerebral electric waves goes back to the first years of the 20th Century and was crowned with the creation of the electroencephalogram EEG), an instrument able to register the electric activity of the brain, realized by the psychiatrist, Hans Berger, in 1929.
In the course of subsequent decades, the study of the human cerebral capabilities intensified to such a point that they generated real schools of thought and groups of scholars who directed their studies towards yet unexplored potentials of the human brain – studies which were even defined ‘rich in fantasy’ – by that part of the scientific world which is rigidly tied to the canons of the demonstrable scientific experimentation.
Certainly, still today, man is accustomed to interacting with the entire world only on the basis of specific sensory abilities, ignoring, almost systematically his own mind and the sensations generated by it. According to many authoritative scientists, man uses his brain to the extent of only 10%. At this point, it is natural to ask what the remaining 90% is used for, and perhaps someone could assert that actually many human beings, in fact, use their brain very little! Aside from jokes, it has been scientifically demonstrated that within the human brain, unused or even unserviceable areas do not exist. Thus, the human being needs the cerebral system, in full, to perform a myriad of complex functions, some of which are still shrouded in mystery. It is equally true, however, that as far as the real potential of development of the human brain is concerned, precise limits have never been defined. In point of fact, science has always left us to understand that the brain of each individual develops in completely different ways and that manifold factors can contribute to this diversification, often ascribable to genetic aspects, personal growth, life experience etc. Thus, it is possible to say that the human brain can grow and evolve in an infinite manner, reaching boundaries which can throw open the doors of still unexplored abilities and potential.
The concept appears, on first impact, particularly complex, it might seem to lack a solid scientific basis, and from a certain viewpoint, this is absolutely indisputable. For example, for the typically rational human being, accustomed to a “material” vision of reality, it is unacceptable that one can see things by using instruments different from the human eyes. If then we try to involve our mind in this hypothesis of dark power of the individual, the result is that of a total refusal even of the hypothesis that there exists a method of learning which uses instruments different from the senses of man.
Nevertheless, among the possible and unknown cerebral potentials of man, the one that has reached the maximum apex, from the point of view of scientific interest and, therefore, of possible application, is certainly that of remote viewing.
Remote viewing is a mental faculty which allows a viewer to describe or furnish information on things or scenes which are inaccessible to the five senses of the human being and independent of defined parameters such as distance and/or time. Just to make an example, a viewer could be asked to describe a particular street in a distant Country in which he has never been; or what he sees at an intersection of a city thousands of kilometers away; or he could be asked to describe the conformation of buildings present along the coast of a Country located on the other side of the world.
To this is added the fact that the description of the “viewed” scene could also be irrespective of the temporal condition. In other words, the subject might be able to describe a certain scenario of a particular place dating back to a specific historical moment. Therefore, the remote viewing allows a person gifted with this capacity – without being supplied with descriptions or information of any kind – to describe, with a certain degree of accuracy, images, places, objects, persons who are actually present (or who have been present) in very distant places.
For want of a definition for the phenomenon, it could be described as a process through which an individual is able to perceive (visualize at a cerebral level) information (prevalently images) environments and places geographically very far away, without being impeded by limitations of time and space. We are, therefore, speaking about a special ability, which is not covered in the five known senses, and which is ascribable to metaphysical instruments.
Consequently, remote viewing could be identified as an extra-sensory perception – ESP, an ability, therefore, which lies outside of the five senses of man.
Some define it as the sixth sense, but however one wishes to identify it, the certainty remains, of the capacity of acquiring information through unknown and unexplained channels for those who rely, for the demonstration of the phenomenon, on methodologies ascribable to the classic sciences that are scientifically demonstrable.
Within the framework of the extrasensory perceptions (which are part of the sector of studies of Parapsychology), it is possible to identify different paranormal abilities, such as precognition (or capacity to foresee what will happen in the future), telepathy (which allows communication through the transmission of thought) and clairvoyance, which would seem to have many points in common with Remote Viewing (RV). As we have already said, this is based on the ability to acquire knowledge on places, events, persons and things located in distant locations or, however, not visible to the clairvoyant (a term that identifies those who are gifted with this capacity). Also the history of the term is particularly singular, insomuch as it derives from two languages: the present one derives from the French ‘clairvoyance’ (or clear vision), which in its turn comes from the Latin ‘clarus’ and ‘vedere’.


Experimentation on the Remote Viewing: the Stargate project

In 1972, at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) and subsequently at the Applications International Corporation (SAIC), of Menlo Park, CA, Puthoff, together with the person who was to become his most precious collaborator, Russel Targ, also a physicist, made a series of experiments referable to the quantum properties (1) of the mind of the human being. The very first experiments were based on the placing of a subject (receiver) in an electrically screened sealed room, and a second subject (sender) in another room also appropriately sealed and screened. While the sender subject was exposed to intense flashes of light at regular intervals, concomitantly, the cerebral waves of the sender and the receiver were registered through an electroencephalogramme (EEG). Curiously, the cerebral waves of the sender, who was exposed to the flashes of light, were analogous to those of the receiver, who produced them only after a few seconds. It must be noted that the receiver was not exposed to the flashes of light. This experiment showed that a certain cerebral “something” existed, which tied the two chosen individuals.
In that same year, Puthoff proposed to the SRI to make more in-depth research in order to search for the properties of the quantum physics in human beings.
In particular, the two physicists conducted research on a personage who seemed to possess special psychic abilities: his name was Uri Geller. Geller was born in Tel Aviv in 1946, from Hungarian parents and over the years he moved to various Countries, where he had the opportunity to learn several languages. After having served his military service as parachutist (he participated in the Six Day War, in which he was wounded), he even worked as a photo model, very soon began to do shows all over the world, exhibiting his particular abilities, among which was the famous act of bending coffee spoons, thanks to the power of thought.
Targ and Puthoff came to know about his particular abilities and invited him to collaborate in their research. They studied him thoroughly for months and eventually published their findings in the Nature Review. An authentic storm burst: the two physicists judged that the special mental abilities of the young Israeli were reliable.
It did not take long before the news of the experiments conducted at the SRI reached the notice of the CIA, and within very few days, two agents arrived in Stanford to meet Puthoff and Targ.
The Agency showed immediate and particular interest in the research on Remote Viewing conducted by the two physicists, above all, because it had come to their attention that analogous experiments were being made the other side of the ‘iron curtain’. Actually, it seems that since 1940, the Kremlin had shown and unusually high interest for these particular mental abilities, to the point that it appears that Stalin himself became the friend of an eccentric Polish Jew, Wolf Messing, responsible for the premonition on the end of the National-socialist Germany, once Hitler attacked the Soviet Union. Yet the reason for so much attention by Stalin for psychotronics (the science concerned with the real human energies was renamed in this way) was ascribable to a very precise scope. It seems that in 1953, he had already given instructions for the organization, with the cooperation of the Armed Forces, of groups if individuals gifted with telekinetic faculties, who were to be used for a multiplicity of operations: from the interception of enemy strategic plans, by creating interference disturbance of the instrumentation in use by the western armies, to the utilization of ‘telepathic’ spies who would assimilate secret information of a different type. Unfortunately, very little has leaked out on the USSR experiments, but it seems they continued until the end of the 70’s, with the involvement of different particularly ‘gifted’ subjects, such as Karl Nikolaiev (2) and Yurij Kamenskij. It was these very experiments conducted with these last two persons, starting from 1965, that convinced the Soviets of the worth of the studies on the powers of the mind.
In fact, it seems that they were able to effect sessions of mental communication, reaching distances of hundreds of kilometers, obtaining results which were thought to be astounding by the Kremlin itself, which authorized the immediate realization of research centers in various geographical areas, some of them identified near the cities of Novosibirsk, Odessa, Zhaporozhje, Taganrog and Alma Ata.
It was on the basis of this very information which reached them from the communist Country that the two CIA agents (but also with the cooperation of the DIA – Defence Intelligence Agency, and the Navy Intelligence Services) offered the two physicists the opportunity of continuing the experiments with the maximum freedom of action and with the promise of substantial funding paid by the Government. The same offer was extended, obviously, also to Targ.
Certainly, in the offer of collaboration of the CIA, the experience of Puthoff was a determining factor, first as Navy Intelligence Officer in the US Navy and subsequently as an employee at the National Security Agency.
Puthoff and Targ accepted, and the first research work was directed to experimentations based on distance perception of symbols and object hidden in envelopes and boxes. Essentially, some receiver subjects were asked to design or describe some hidden objects, or to design the objects that were located near the sender subject. The results of some of these experiments were described in detail in two publications realized by Putoff himself (3) . Despite the fact that in 1995, the CIA declassified and made public 270 pages of reports of the SRI, almost all the documentation of the experiments – which represents the part of major scientific relevance of the experiments conducted – still remains classified.
Notwithstanding the considerable aura of secrecy that still surrounds the entire project, it seems that the officials of the CIA responsible for the monitoring the progress of the experiments, had been so struck by the results obtained that they considered the thought transmission of information at a distance was possible also for individuals not particularly gifted with these particulars powers. In fact, Puthoff himself affirms in certain documents (4) that the developments achieved at the SRI, could allow CIA agents, who had no specific knowledge of these procedures or were not opportunely prepared, to successfully carry out experiments of information acquisition at a distance.
In 1973, the project underwent a methodological variation, which led also to the definition of its name, which was identified as Scanate (scanning by coordinates). This time, the interest of Puthoff and Targ was concentrated on the experimentation of techniques of information at a distance, through the utilization of geographical coordinates. In practice, the receiver subject was supplied with simple geographical coordinates based on latitude and longitude (ascribable to a precise place in which a person was present, who assumed the role of observer), therefore, the receiver subject acquired the information through a process of mental vision based, exclusively, on the supplied coordinates. After only a few months, a particularly encouraging report was compiled on the results of the experiments conducted; the most famous was certainly the one that concerned an enigmatic character: Ingo Swann. In constant search of subjects presenting determinate characteristics or who claimed to possess particular mental abilities, Puthoff and Targ ran into someone who went down in history for the experiment of the Ring of Jupiter. In reality, Swann had previously entered into contact with Puthoff, on the basis of a financing request, elaborated by the SRI physicist, for a research project on the quantum biology sent by the same Puthoff to the Clive Backster Laboratory of New York. Swan, who had participated in some experiments of psychokinesis at the laboratory of Professor Gertrude Schmeidler at the City College of New York, contacted Puthoff offering his full collaboration in the experiments he was conducting.
Ingo Swann, eccentric artiste and writer from New York, was immediately described by the two physicists as a “particularly gifted” individual. One of the first experiments in which the New York writer was involved was that of the boxes, in which the viewer must guess the contents. During a test of this type, Swann was asked to describe the contents of one of them: he said, “… I see something small, brown and irregular, like a sort of leaf or something similar to it, only that it seems very much alive, as if it were in movement!” The box contained a small butterfly, alive and looked just like a small leaf (5) .
However, the most famous experiment was the one involving the observation of Jupiter. One evening in 1973, the two physicists were participating in a session of remote viewing with Swann, in which, after a period of circa 20 minutes, he described certain physical characteristics of the planet Jupiter among which the existence of a fine line which surrounded it (rather similar to that of Saturn). Moreover, he supplied certain indications on the surface of the planet and on the atmospheric conditions present.
Actually, the ring was observed only in 1979 by the Voyager probe. Also in this case criticism and disputes were not lacking on the accuracy and the approximation of the affirmations of Swann. The results of these experiments were reported in a publication which was issued during a meeting held at the Stanford University in 1972 (6) , in which it publicly announced the mental potential of certain particularly gifted individuals.
The project, renamed Stargate, went ahead for some time and further experiments were conducted which led to the reformulation of the CRV technique (Coordinate Remote Viewing). Further research was conducted also by an analogous project, coordinated, however, by the United States Army (also in collaboration with the DIA), at Fort Meade in Maryland, and known by the name of Grill Flame.
The experiments, conducted by civilian and military personnel, proceeded until 1979, the year in which the two projects were combined.
Both covered by an extremely high secrecy level, not very much was revealed on the outcome of experiments which went ahead until 1983, when the project was taken over by the INSCOM (United States Army Intelligence and Security Command), military structure of the US Army and of the National Security Agency (NSA) with Head Quarters at Fort Belvoir (Virginia). The continuation of the studies was put under the supervision of General Albert Stubblebine and the project was renamed Center Lane Project, and it is in this same period that Puthoff and Swann compiled, in 1986, the CRV Manual, (The Controlled Remote Viewing Manual), the first learning guide on remote viewing (7) . At the apex of its evolutionary curve, the study on remote viewing was being conducted in a good 14 research laboratories completely dedicated to the project.
From this moment onward, and from that we are given to know, it seems that the results obtained were not very encouraging (there was talk of a percentage of successes of remote viewing at 20%, against 80% of failures), and because of an unfavourable review by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the US Army and the DIA, it was decided, definitively, to abandon the project.
The CIA was not of the same opinion and in 1995 refinanced the research and contacted the American Institute of Research, commissioning it to examine the results of the research and experiments. A report was elaborated by two eminent exponents of the NAS, Jessica Utts and Ray Hymann, who expressed divergent opinions on the results obtained in the 24 years duration of the project.
The statistics expert, Utts, positively evaluated the experiments carried out, advising a continuation of the investigations on the actual capacity of certain individuals analyzed and recommended the making of: “ … future experiments to focus on and better understand the functioning of this phenomenon, and how to render it possible”.
The psychologist, Hymann, was of the opposite opinion. He said that notwithstanding the experiments conducted were well projected and analyzed, and although they had demonstrated for certain individuals, the existence of particular “mental capacity”, the reduced number of candidates, the many imprecisions of the experiments and the defects of certain methodologies of experimentation, were not comforting for the continuation of the research.
Although confronted with “mixed” judgments, the American Institute of Research advised the CIA to terminate the Stargate programme.
It is opportune to underline that the evaluations from the two NAS experts were based only on a reduced part of the documentation of all the years in which the project was active. Overall, the Stargate project (which, over the years, changed names more than once), cost, in the two decades, something over 20 million dollars, and led to the involvement of many people, some of whom acquired particular notoriety, like Ingo Swann, Pat Buchanan, Paul Smith, Joseph McMoneagle, Ed Dames.
On April 17th, 1995, President Bill Clinton signed the Executive Order N° 1995/4/17, entitled Classified National Security Information, which produced the declassification and consequent publicizing of more than 270 pages, kept by the CIA, and referable to the reports compiled by the SRI during the years of the experiments, even though, as already asserted, the major part of the documentation produced in those years has still not been “declassified”.
In 1995, the project was officially terminated, but it is not absolutely certain whether the research and the experiments have been definitively abandoned. Likewise, it is unknown whether the project has been newly (and secretly) refinanced by the United States Government.
It is interesting to note that also the British Government, in the 2001-2002 period, seems to have been interested in the study of the remote viewing. It appears, however, that the experiments made with circa 18 “gifted” subjects did not produced interesting results. The experiments were disclosed in 2007, following a ‘Freedom of Information’ request (8) .


The power of thought: the PEAR project PEAR

The PEAR project (Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research), originated in 1979 at the laboratory of the University of Princeton, thanks to the studies conducted by Robert G. Jahn, engineer and founder, in 1961, of the first laboratory dedicated to the research of electric propulsion for satellites and space vehicles, Electric Propulsion and Plasma Dynamics Laboratory), directed by Jahn for over three decades.
The scope of the project, which is still in course, is to verify whether, effectively, there is a delimited border between the subjective abilities (not measurable and tied to the elaboration of though) and those objective abilities of reality, verifiable and quantitively measurable. In actuality, the scope of the experiments was to demonstrate that the human consciousness, in some way, was capable of intervening in a proactive mode on the real world.
Thus, the initial phase of the study was concentrated on the realization of devices which could be influenced by the human will and in function of this, be able to produce a series of random outputs (events). These devices, better known as Random Events Generators (REG), are able to exploit the physical interactions between microscopic particles, through the connection between semiconductors, in such a way as to allow the machine to emit positive and negative impulses (influenced by human thought) and useful for statistic calculations.
Basically, a REG is an engineering device that produces binary type events (0 and 1) in a random manner, utilizing a small wave of free electrons in a junction of semiconductors. Just to cite an example, the device could be compared to an instrument designed to identify the result of the toss of a coin: heads or tails. It is not possible to predict how many times one result or the other will come up, but in percentage, one could predict a trend of 50%. The REG machine, in function of a possible physical interaction between particles, should have produced an alternating series of negative and positive impulses (figure 1). If the number of electrons flowing through the device, in a certain fraction of a second, had been above average, the result would have been 1; otherwise, it would have been 0. The experiment was conducted according to the following modality: the subjects involved were seated some meters away from the device and they had to simply “wish” to produce a variation of the probabilistic average of the results produced by the REG.
Therefore, the experiment consisted in verifying what could happen if some subjects had thought intensely to produce a variation of the average statistic, starting from the first

Figure 1

event (High Intention), passing to the subsequent (Low Intention) and finally, to the manifestation of no thought at all. Essentially, if the mental intention was high, a rise in the average was produced (figure 2), vice versa, if the intention was low, a fall in the average was produced (figure 3).
In the experiments conducted at Princeton, a psychologist of the University of Chicago, Brenda Dunne, also collaborated (presently component of the Psyleron Society and Research Structure founded by the same Jahn and a group of researchers from Princeton) and after almost two decades of experiments, the group produced the following results:

1) 52% of the tests carried out had produced a shift of the data stream of the generator towards the desired direction. This result was produced by over two thirds of the experimented subjects, demonstrating the effectiveness of the influence of thought on the trend of the flows;
2) Typological differences were registered on the trend of the REG. Substantial differences were noted in the experimenters, on the different types of conditioning. The major successes were registered when the intent was high, compared to when it was low;
3)Particularly interesting was the experiment made on chicks which were influenced by the device. In this case a portable REG was used which assumed the role of ‘guide’ for the small animals. It was possible to notice an anomalous trend of the oscillations which affected the behaviour of the chicks;

Figure 2

Figure 3

4) Also involved in the experiments were “couples” of individuals, emotionally linked together, which demonstrated that the alterations underwent higher deviations compared to the single individuals.

Further experiments were made, aimed at the verification of the influences of the environment and persons.
One of these was conducted by Roger Nelson, Director of the Global Consciousness Project (GCP), who realized a transportable REG, better known as a Field-REG, which demonstrated, in many experiments conducted in the last 10 years, that the man-machine interaction is much more intense when an emotionally-strong environment is verified, and much less intense in an unexciting and boring habitat.
Therefore, the experiments confirmed that the major enthusiasm of the participants, generated almost automatically, an emotional resonance which increased, in a significant way, the signal of the anomalous information.
Another experiment of particular interest, still in course, is that conducted by Roger Nelson of the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Group, designer and implementer of the Noosphere project. This ambitious and characteristic project (http://noosphere.princeton.edu/), which also falls under the Global Consciousness Project, has the objective of continually gathering data from a world network of generators of random number located in 65 host sites spread throughout the world. The scope of the project is to examine all the possible correlations among the different human consciousnesses located in different geographical contexts and the large events that are verified at world level. Thus, the experiments in course seem to confirm that there is the real possibility that a kind of social consciousness can produce effects – albeit not very understandable – on the environment.
At the Psyleron, they have even developed a series of devices able to demonstrate the reliability of the experiments performed. The most interesting is certainly the Mind Lamp, able to vary its chromatic tonality depending on the human conditioning (http://www.mind-lamp.com/mind-lamp-research.php).
It is a lamp fitted with a REG which uses the quantum phenomenon known as tunneling of electrons. A classic example of a device that violates the conventional theories of classical science, the Mind Lamp is able to change its colour depending on a series of modifications of the thought and mood of its owner. The mechanism, still object of study and research, according to numerous testimonies of people who have used it in different contexts and scenarios, would actually seem able to modify its colour, in real time, on the basis of the modification of the mental processes of the person who is in close proximity.
Therefore, the connection between the emotional state of the subject and the generation of anomalous events (chromatic variations) would seem demonstrable, and from a statistical point of view, indicates that at both a sub-conscious and conscious mind levels, it is possible to influence the probabilistic processes. Also in this case, it was noted that the presence of a multiplicity of people, above all, if emotionally related, can generate further modifications of the colour of the lamp.
On the whole, the major part of the users confirms that the Mind Lamp reacts in function of the moods, intentions and momentary frame of mind of the subjects.


The era of the discovery of the potentials of the human mind

The Intel achievement, as we can understand, represents much more than an extraordinary technological innovation: it definitively establishes the birth of a new epoch of research and investments, which have as a focal point the study of the human mind. Therefore, we shall witness, in the next millennium, the development of technologies and applications aimed at a greater understanding of brain function and, above all, of the modalities of the interfacing with technological instruments.
What possible discoveries and experiments will be realized is, at the moment, impossible to say with any certainty. Without a doubt, the developments will be directed towards the improvement of the life of the individual, but certainly, sectors and fields of economic, political and national security interests will not be omitted. It is important to make some considerations on this last aspect.
It is clear, by now, even to the most inexperienced security systems of the most backward third world Countries that the Intelligence activities are increasingly conditioned by the Information Technology. This certainty must, nevertheless, lead to a consideration of fundamental importance: the domain of knowledge and of supremacy in the sector of the national security cannot prescind from the involvement of the study and research structures of the Country. Thus the collaboration with these organizations and, in particular, with the academic structures, must assume the connotation of a primary objective. As stated by the Director of the DIS, Giovanni De Gennaro, in his inaugural lecture held at the Link Campus University of Malta, last January, “… the academic world cannot exempt itself from the front line in this difficult activity of study and research, and cannot but be there, to the extent that the information requirements now exceed and go far beyond the mere needs of a public and institutional character”.
For some time now, many nations have well understood the importance of synergic relations between the academic world and the Intelligence services, creating very close collaboration concerning the formation, the research, study and analysis of data and information. It is an obligatory path for the cyber-intelligence of the third millennium.
In conclusion, with regard to the development of thought reading systems, certainly it will be some years yet before we can talk of electronic systems of psycho-intelligence, but the key to the door of access to the human mind has been found and allows man to develop what, until now, has only been hypothesized. For the Intelligence, therefore, a new era has begun. Perhaps we are in condition to be able to inaugurate a new methodology of collecting information, but the moment has not yet arrived to add a new acronym which identifies the new form of psychological intelligence, but hopefully, within a few years we can begin to speak of PsychoInt …