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INTRODUCTION
Throughout the last decade, Preston Nichols has developed a considerable reputation for his alleged involvement in time travel and secret government projects. However, it is not very well known at all that he was just as deeply involved in the music scene of the 1960's as rock 'n roll came to center stage in world pop culture.
Although I have acted as Preston's ghostwriter and co-researcher for a number of years, it was his expertise in sound engineering that brought me to meet him in the first place. This is very curious to me because I grew up with an antipathy to the subject. As I kid, I never understood what all the fuss was about when it came to stereo sound as opposed to monaural. It seemed to me that people were spending far too much time discerning the quality of sound rather than just listening to the music. I could detect a difference, but I always thought the music being played was far more important than the sound system it was played on. Therefore, I tended to tune out when someone would start talking about the virtue of one stereo system over another.
That was until, one day, I heard about quadraphonic stereo. All of a sudden, my ears perked up. I wanted to know everything about it. I was even surprised at my own interest in the subject. I was not a technical buff, but I wanted to know about each track and each speaker and what all of the functions were. Unfortunately for my interests at the time, quad stereo in the late 1970's was nothing but a flash in the pan. Before I could begin to seriously think about buying a system, the fad was gone and written off as a complete failure, never to return to the commercial market since. In retrospect, there was only one significant aspect with regard to my capricious interest in a subject I had shown no previous interest in. It proved to be a premonition of my future and eventual collaboration with Preston Nichols.
In 1990, it had been over a decade since I had heard about quadraphonic sound. It was the last thing on my mind when I learned about another device that had elements of quad sound. At least, it had four speaker-like boxes and played music. It was owned by a chiropractor in Manhattan and was purported to balance the electro-magnetic field that surrounds the human body. It was called the Betar and was put together by a man named Peter Kelly. A patient of the chiropractor told me about the machine and told me that a public company was being created to market it.
The Betar was going to retail to the public for $70,000 a unit but would also be marketed to the medical and healing community. They were going to need a full brochure. As I was in the field of advertising and design, this patient thought that maybe I could help them. This interested me as a potential business proposition, and I felt that I had a good angle as I knew I understood much more than most advertisers do when it comes to esoteric aspects about the human body. I pursued the lead.
Eventually, I met the chiropractor in Manhattan. He showed me the Betar but complained that it was not set up right when he received it. It needed adjustments, and he had to make them himself. I did not know what he was talking about, but the device was aesthetically pleasing in its construction, and I just scoped it out. It had a reclining platform with four speaker-like boxes surrounding it so that while you rested comfortably, musical sound penetrated your energetic field. Two of the boxes were actually speakers and were directed at the center of the body. Two other boxes were opposite the other boxes and were input devices. The speakers sent waves directed at the body which bounced off and went into the input device. The doctor explained that this was a biofeedback device.
He gave me a pair of goggles which he said would reflect my state of being at the time I was looking at them. I would see colors and patterns that my own biological system was generating as I listened to the music. As I listened to the music, the colors were a cross between a kaleidoscope and what you might see looking under a microscope, but they were always moving. After forty-five minutes, the doctor came over and brought me back to the real world. I was completely relaxed. What was particularly significant to me was that I remained relaxed for the entire day, even after a train ride from Manhattan to Long Island. Riding the Long Island Railroad has never been a pleasant experience for me. It has always been somewhat stressful, so this was a very welcome surprise.
Nothing ever came of the public offering for the Betar, but one day I was talking to a guy named Jeff who was studying to be a chiropractor. I was telling him about the Betar, and he said that he had been on it, too. In fact, he said there was an even better machine. It was put together by an inventor named Preston Nichols, and he said that I should check it out. Jeff said that Preston was not so much into marketing, but maybe I could help him. The device, he said, was about $60,000 cheaper. Another one of Jeff's friends was Margo Geiger, a nice older lady who worked as my proofreader up until her death. She told me that I must go to the Long Island Psychotronics Association and listen to Preston. She said it would be absolutely fascinating.
I met Preston soon after but never got a chance to ask him about his inventions. He was lecturing with others and talked on and on about the Philadelphia Experiment and the Montauk Project. I was subjected to an earful of science-fiction-like information that I deemed the best story-telling that I had ever heard. It was all about time travel with a stunning array of technical oriented information.
His stories also included the subjects of mind control, aliens, and Nazis who were allegedly operating an activity right under our noses on Long Island. Even if his stories were untrue, they were worthy of an "A" for creativity and holding one's interest. As it turned out, my life would be changed forever by the remarkable stories I heard that night. I met Preston to see if I could help him market his equipment but ended up marketing his incredible stories. Since then, writing and researching the history, legends, and circumstances surrounding Montauk has become an entire career.
When I finally got the opportunity to sit down with Preston and talk about his machine, he told me that he was the one who had invented the prototype for Peter Kelly's machine. He said that his own system did not have the goggles which he called "blinky lights." Preston did not advocate the use of these as they tend to be hypnotic and can be used to entrain a person's thought patterns to their detriment. Preston also told me that when the original quadraphonic systems were introduced, the people behind them did not really know what they were doing. He could show me a far superior system.
It was not a quad system in the same sense that the sound industry had already produced. There were four boxes, but two of them were input devices, not speakers. The idea behind both stereo and quad stereo was to reproduce the actual experience of listening to live performers. His system, he explained, did that better than any other system on the market. After all, he had been in sound engineering since its emergence in the 1960's. He called his device the Biofiss. I will defer the technical description of that device to Preston, and you will read about it later on in this book.
Preston's music system was very much a focal point of his research into the paranormal, but as I interviewed him in order to write the The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time, he never really linked the subject of music to Montauk. Nevertheless, I heard many stories about his experiences in the music business and his work with different artists. These anecdotes were told to me in bits and pieces throughout the years. The Montauk Project book was basically a summary of a decade worth of research by Preston. It consisted of scuttlebutt he had heard throughout his years in the defense industry, countless interviews conducted at Montauk, as well as research done with people involved in the project.
The Montauk Project itself was put together as a result of human behavioral studies conducted secretly under the umbrella of Brookhaven Laboratories. These studies were done as a result of the Philadelphia Experiment in 1943 when the Navy experimented with degaussing technology and sought to make a ship, the U.S.S. Eldridge, appear invisible to radar. The Navy denies this, but the subject matter is still highly classified and considered to be the forerunner of today's stealth technology. Not only was the U.S.S. Eldridge reported to have become invisible, but the sailors involved were hurled out of this dimension. Upon their return, some were imbedded in the bulkheads and other fixtures of the ship with others spontaneously combusting or suffering severe psycho-logical trauma.
Even if one does not accept the more sensational aspects of the Philadelphia Experiment, there is absolutely no doubt about the fact that the sailors were exposed to non-ordinary electromagnetic fields as a result of the degaussing coils that were employed to demagnetize the hull. In order to first prevent negative effects on human beings, a massive study was eventually begun after the war, at Brookhaven Laboratories, in order to under-stand how human beings and the human consciousness relate to different electromagnetic fields. This research project also had at its disposal human behavioral studies conducted by the Nazis. Many of them were quite gleesome, but they were empirical in nature and were as meticulous as only Germans can be. They provided considerable information about human reactions.
It is no small irony that when Brookhaven Laboratories was erected in 1946, the location selected was Yaphank, home to the largest concentration of Nazis outside of Germany. Before the war, Yaphank sported an "Adolf Hitler Boulevard" with other streets named after Goebbels, Goring and the like. Many people of German descent worked at the lab as well, and there have always been questions about their loyalties. Not only did Brookhaven entertain top international scientists, many of whom were German, but it became the premier atomic and scientific research center in the world.
Shortly thereafter, the National Security Act was passed and the CIA was brought into being. Covert connections between the Nazis and the U.S. were completely affirmed when Allen Dulles, the first director of the CIA, hired Reinhard Gehlen to set up the working procedures of the CIA Gehlen had served as the director of Nazi intelligence in Europe. Dulles also hired Ewen Cameron, the head of the American Psychiatric Association, to conduct mind control experiments under a program known as MK-ULTRA. These are documented facts, and no one who honestly researches this subject will deny it.
As the human mind was studied, and sometimes quite brutally, all sorts of empirical observations were made. Just as the Nazis had their own occult bureau and re-searched the supernatural, so did the researchers at Brookhaven. Finally, after years of research, there were successes in integrating the human mind with computers. The experiments in mind control, although limited, were successful.
Eventually, this clandestine research was considered to be potentially very dangerous and the funding was denied. Nevertheless, great strides had been made in terms of technology and secret forces carried forward, eventually moving the project to a decommissioned Air Force Station at Montauk, New York. It was there that eye witnesses say that the research reached its apex on August 12,1983, when a full scale hook up was made to the U.S.S. Eldridge in 1943 and time travel became a reality. The general pattern of this research is related in The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time.
Preston Nichols remembers entering the fold of the Montauk research when he became a paid employee of Brookhaven Labs in the late 1960's. But, his first recollections occurred when he was having a family dinner that included his cousin and her husband. The husband mentioned that he had seen Preston at Montauk, yet Preston had no recollection of ever having been there. This resulted in a heated argument. Over the years, more people began to recognize Preston from Montauk and other associations he had no conscious memory of. Preston soon realized that he had an entire life he knew nothing about. Memories were buried, including what appeared to be memories of other realities which were elusive but nevertheless tangible in many respects. All of these experiences fostered Preston's research which resulted in the book The Montauk Project.
This pattern of unrecovered memories is a primary reason why the music aspect of the Montauk Project was never dealt with in the earlier books. The connection was never completely made. He remembered being in the music business, and I knew something about it, but the working components of it and how it related to Montauk were overlooked by both of us. There was also another factor. Although I had suggested for years to Preston that he should do a book about his music experiences, he was always reluctant. He said he had angered enough people with The Montauk Project, and he thought this music book might be even more aggravating to certain folks. Consequently, he has not relayed many anecdotes at all about various musicians and their bizarre behavior. Nevertheless, there was key information he was willing to release that will hopefully serve as a springboard to further research and understanding.
Working with Preston on this book was not an easy task. For example, he gave me four separate times (about seven years apart) for when he first met his boyhood friend, Mark Harnill. Finally, I asked his dad, Bob Nichols, if he remembered Mark. Bob remembered Mark raking leaves in their backyard as a youngster. By going over different information from different angles, we were able to arrive at as accurate a representation as possible. Preston explained his disparities by telling me that he seems to live on at least three different time lines, and they get confused. He has appreciated this attempt to put his history into words because it straightens out his own memories
Preston is a genius. He is unsurpassed when it comes to understanding electromagnetic functions and all of the technical details that go with it. This is verifiable in science and industry and also makes him an irritant to those who would want to dismiss him as a mere crackpot or nut. He is also knowledgeable in psychology, religion and occultism and sees realms that regular human beings are cut off from. In esoteric terms, Preston occupies nonlinear space. This means that he is operating in a consciousness that is not regulated by linear thought. Therefore, his memories and experiences do not always conform to linear applications. This book is an attempt, and certainly not a perfect one, to put his experiences into a linear reality.
There are many controversial statements herein. I have made reasonable attempts to verify certain information, but these are Preston's memories, not mine. I can neither prove nor disprove certain statements. Also, his experiences often defy ordinary attempts to verify them. For example, false identities are common throughout his experiences at Montauk. Sometimes, people appear to be one person when they are really another. Preston Nichols was definitely in the music business as a key player and knew plenty of famous people. Whatever the truth is, it is always stranger than fiction. After you have read the entire book, I will offer some additional perspective on the relative truth of the situation.
The second half of this book takes us on another adventure all together. It concerns some of Preston's key activities post Montauk and attempts to harass and attack him that ultimately ended in the indefinite incarceration of one of his associates, John Ford, the founder and president of the Long Island UFO Network. What happens here is based upon cold hard documented facts that were chronicled in the local newspaper. It is an exposition of human rights violations, and a massive effort to hide the truth.
If the future contains endless possibilities, including a time when the truth of the universe will be fully known and the consciousness of man can move fluidly through time, there will be many stepping stones of realization along the way. This book and the stories herein are not a step back to the "The Land Time Forgot" but rather to the "The Land Where Time Remembered."
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
MY START IN THE MUSIC BUSINESS
My involvement in the music world goes back to 1958 when my father and I were deeply involved in scouting. One evening, while attending a "Blue and Gold Dinner" for Webelo scouts at Oscar's Bowling Alley in East Islip, the public address system suddenly went dead. We had been listening to a live band known as "The Recorders." I thought they were fantastic and so did all most everyone else. No one knew what to do about the busted sound system until the pack master told the band that one of his Cub Scouts could probably fix it. They got a charge out of that and said "Sure, let's see if the kid can fix it."
That kid was me. I took a look at the amplifier and found out it had a burned out resistor. I bridged it with some aluminum foil and this turned out to be an excellent temporary solution. The amplifier was working again, and the band continued to play. During a break in the music, I talked to the guys in the group and convinced them to let me do a demo tape of their music. My father then took me down to St. Mary's Church in East Islip where we borrowed their big Ampex tape recorder. We took it back to the bowling alley and did a demo tape of a song called "I've Had It".
The leader of the Webelo scouts from Bayshore was Cal Mann, a small time record producer and an aspiring performer. He thought the recording was great and played it for a friend of his who had just started his own label. This man liked the song, too, but he needed a better recording than what I had provided. He eventually called the Recorders up to Belough Instruments in Manhasset for a more conventional recording, but the sound was faulty. Finally, they had to get me out of grade school to g recording they wanted. The record "I've Had It" was subsequently cut at Grand Award of Pickering and Company in Freeport, New York and was released under the label "Time Records." It can be found in CD format to this day. The name of the group "The Recorders" was changed to "The Bell Notes."
Cal Mann, the scout leader and record producer, had noticed my acumen in the area of recording. When I ran into him again during a camping weekend, he talked to me about his interest in music and told me that he was originally from Philadelphia. He was trying to break into the music scene in New York City.
One Saturday, Cal and I got together and talked for most of the entire day. At the time, he was renting a house that was filled with all sorts of old audio equipment which would be considered antiques by today's standards.
Even in those days, most of what he had was considered to be old for the time period we were in. Based upon our discussion and what he had already witnessed with my recording of "I've Had It," Cal recognized that I was a whiz in electronics. He offered me four dollars an hour to work as his recording engineer in the hopes that I could do something with his old equipment and get his music career to take off. To a twelve year old kid at that time, his offer was huge money. I accepted it and told my parents that I had a job with a black fellow in Bayshore. When my mother saw his big limousine, she figured that he must be all right.
One of Cal's old audio pieces soon came in very handy for both of us. It was a "brush development corporation sound-mirror" and was patterned after the German ferograph, a recording device which came to this country after World War II. It had a cork capstan and was used to produce a hit song entitled "The Twist", a hit record which topped the charts in the early 1960's. Al-though I knew this man as Cal Mann, most of you will recognize him by his stage name of Chubby Checker.
When we took our taped recording of "The Twist" to Crest Records, they put it on their Ampex 350 but could not get the speed right whatsoever. Consequently, we had to trudge the sound-mirror down to Crest. When we played it on the sound mirror and put it on the 350, the audio engineer was curious about this piece of equipment and wanted to know where we got it. Cal told him that he had found it in the attic of the house he was renting. There were also some preamps and mixers in his collection which took me about three days to fix. This was accomplished primarily by changing the capacitors.
Once I got everything to work, including the sound-mirror, "The Twist" did not sound too bad, as long as the speed was right. God only knows what speed that sound-mirror ran at as they did not have a standard in those days. It depended on how big the piece of cork on the capstan was. The capstan literally had a piece of cork wrapped around it and still does to this day. I know as I actually own the machine.
For those of you who are too young to remember, "The Twist" was a huge fad and started a new trend in pop music. It is the only record other than "White Christmas" to reach number one on the charts two different times. One reason it caught on as a fad has to do with a very esoteric principle in sound recording. In fact, it has been a closely guarded secret until now, but we will go into that in detail later on in this book.
Although I had proven to be a success in the recording business, I still had to attend school. By the age of sixteen, I met up with a group of guys who became known as "The Ventures" and did a few of their albums. While working for them, I met up with Frankie Valle and the Four Seasons and eventually recorded them at St. Mary's Church in East Islip. Sometimes, I even used to fill in on the drums for them. If you listen to the song "Big Girls Don't Cry," you will hear me in the background. At the end of the song, you can hear my voice exactly, singing "Big Girls Don't Cry."
My early work with the Four Seasons taught me what I considered to be a very valuable lesson. Frankie Valli's real name was Frank Valenti and when his songs were released, the records contained the words "written by Frank Valenti." Of course, he lived under that name and could be easily found. Consequently, he was besieged by fans and ended up moving to New Jersey. I took this to heart and insisted that my name never be put on any recordings, even if only listed as sound engineer. That is why you will not see my name in too many places.
The general public does not realize how contrived some aspects of the music business really are. A prime example is Chubby Checker himself. If you consult the internet, you might find a web site that says his real name is "Ernest Evans". This is possibly going to cause people to say that I am making up what I am saying. If one looks at the particular web site I am referring to, it says that "Ernest Evans" is the "name" that was contracted to Cameo Parkway and was later changed to "Chubby Checker". It is not necessarily the true name of Chubby Checker. The man I knew referred to himself as Cal Mann, and he was the Chubby Checker who has become a part of pop culture.
As you read this book, there will be other discrepancies between my experiences and what publicity people write about music stars. In the music business, publicity is designed to cultivate an image that will sell records and make the person well thought of. There is also a deeper side to some celebrities and that includes mind control. Sometimes there are even stand-ins or doubles. The world of celebrity can be very convoluted. I know because I was right in the middle of it for many years.
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CHAPTER TWO
THE WALL OF SOUND
After getting involved with Chubby Checker, my career began to blossom. I became heavily involved at his company which was known as Parkway Records. Park-way subsequently bought Cameo and became known as Cameo Parkway. At the age of twelve, I was probably the youngest recording engineer in the field. As I continued my part time career in the record business, I was still growing up in East Islip. At the age of sixteen, I combined forces with a group of friends in the neighborhood. They provided the musical writing and performance, and I worked as their sound engineer. Although this group had considerable talent, we could not sell the music we produced to anybody.
It was during this period with the band that I met one of the most beautiful girls I have ever known. Her name was Lucy, and she was the cousin of one of my friends in the group. Lucy's two brothers hung out with their cousin, and I decided to make friends with them in order to meet their sister. These two brothers were Chuck and Mark Hamill, two people who were to figure prominently later on in my music career. Lucy and I did become very close friends, but she had already dedicated her life to God and eventually joined a convent and has since lived her life as a nun.
Despite the disappointment with Lucy and the neighborhood band, I still had a very active life and career in the music business. Nevertheless, I attended school and kept up with my studies. When I graduated from high school, my mother wanted me go to college. I not only thought that was a good idea, but I was also interested in studying psychiatry. My interest in the subject was no different than most students who study psychiatry or psychology: they want to figure themselves out. My mother was in seventh heaven because she was an art teacher with a psychology background and now I was going to follow in her footsteps. I attended Stony Brook University on Long Island. This was great for her until I came home one day and told her the subjects were not being approached properly. My language was not so diplomatic.
Although the subjects of psychiatry and psychology have made some progress over the years, they basically work on a paradigm of statistical analysis. In other words, they are trying to tell you that the mind of man can be statistically analyzed. The quantum model of the human mind is now beginning to come into psychiatry, but most of it is statistical and that is garbage. I soon realized that I did not want to study psychiatry.
I had now blown a year studying a subject I would not get a degree in. Consequently, I transferred to Suffolk County Community College and decided to study a subject that was already quite familiar to me: electronics. This was fun and relatively easy for me, but I decided I needed to get back in business and make some money. I spoke to one of my professors, Mr. Mayer, and told him I needed some work. He asked me what I could do, and I informed him that I had worked off and on in the recording industry for years, recording the Four Seasons out at St. Mary's Church as well as Chubby Checker and other local groups. Mr. Mayer said he had some contacts at Columbia Records and set me up for a meeting in Westchester at some sort of research facility for CBS Records.
I met with Mr. Mayer's contacts. They were very nice, but they said they had no place for me. One of the guys said he knew someone who had just purchased an old NBC studio on West 57th Street in Manhattan and wanted to rebuild it. I was told to go to the building and ask for Phil. He might be able to use me. I was not given his last name. When I arrived at the address and asked for Phil, this freaky looking fellow came out with a hairdo that extended out all over the place.
He said, "Hi, I'm Phil."
I told him that I was Preston Nichols, a friend of Charlie from CBS.
"Oh, Charlie, how's he doing?" Phil asked.
"I haven't seen him in such a while."
After we spoke for a while, Phil looked at me and said, "Why are you here?"
"Charlie said you needed someone with technical skills to rebuild some of your studio," I responded.
"Oh, yes, we do. We've got no money to pay for it though."
I told Phil we could make an arrangement. He claimed he could pay me $5 an hour. This was not horrible money in those days and was certainly well above average for a college kid, but it was not great either. Asking what else he could give me, Phil said he could hook me up with record producing and that sort of thing. I took the job and began working for Phil. His full name is Phil Spector, arguably the most famous and heralded record producer in the music business. Most of his success as a producer was in the early 1960's, but he also worked with the Beatles in their later years at Apple Records.
I began my work for Phil in Studio A on 57th Street. It was the oldest, dumpiest studio in the place. They had equipment in there from the time of Woodrow Wilson. But, it had an echo chamber, a real echo chamber. This was the famous Phil Spector "Wall of Sound" which many of you have heard of and all of you have actually heard through the radio at one time or another. It was a very reflective echo chamber.
If you would clap into it, about fifty claps came back at you. On one wall in the back, he had six big speaker cabinets. He also had a group of microphones set up in the chamber. First, he would have the performer record the regular music tracks in the standard studio. Then, he would play the tapes into Western Electric amplifiers which drove these big old Western Electric drivers in the back of the echo chamber. The performer then sang in front of the microphone as everything reverberated. That wall of speakers was the Phil Spector "Wall of Sound".
Although this might sound glamorous, I can tell you that this was no dream job. The place was a mess, and it seemed every damned capacitor in the system was leaking and making noises. We called these strange noises "anti-artifacts". It was my job to literally rebuild Studio A and the system in the echo chamber.
One day, I saw Phil standing nearby and asked him what standards he wanted this studio built to.
"I don't care. Do whatever you feel like."
That was all he said so I did whatever I felt like. I spent about three months, part time, building this facility.
Finally, it was beautiful and brand new. Phil called in his engineers and said to go in and have fun with it. When they went in, the engineers looked around at the equipment and said they had no idea how to run it. They said the kid he had hired (meaning me) had done some very strange things. Nevertheless, Studio A was THE state-of-the-art recording studio for Phil's company which was known as Bell Sound East. There was also a Bell Sound in Los Angeles and one in Memphis. Phil owned all three and all were very popular, but Bell Sound East was best and became the Mecca for the best recording industry. What I did in New York was eventually copied in Los Angeles and Memphis.
When the top rock bands came in to do a recording, their producers and audio men would ask Phil for his best studio. He would refer them to Studio A, his newly rebuilt studio, but would also tell them that there was only one engineer who could operate it. That was me. They typically viewed me as a young kid cleaning the tape heads. When they asked about my qualifications as a sound engineer, they were informed that I had literally built the studio. Obviously, if I had built the studio, I must know how to operate it. In fact, I was the only one who could. In this way, I became the technical czar of Bell Sound and got to work with more famous recording acts than you could imagine. These included the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Beach Boys, BeeGees, the Mamas and the Papas, Jim Morrison and too many more to mention.
Although no one consciously realized it at the time, when Phil Spector gave me carte blanche to build a studio, he created a circumstance that would leave a lasting impression on the recording industry as well as all of humanity itself.
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CHAPTER THREE
BUDDHA RECORDS
Although I had given up my formal study of psychiatry, I still had a profound interest in psychology and what made the mind work. As I worked at Phil Spector's studio in Manhattan and studied electronics at Suffolk Community College, I was also doing experiments at Long Island University in the area of ESP. They had an open forum with all sorts of independent study programs.
It was during this time period that one of my friends in the neighborhood band said his cousin would be very interested in my ESP research. This cousin turned out to be Mark Hamill who I was already familiar with as described earlier. At that time, Mark was a member of a recording group called the "Ohio Express." He volunteered for some of my experiments and we hit it off and became friends. He had a very deep interest in the occult, metaphysics, ESP and all types of psychic phenomena. Originally, he lived in Ohio and would visit his family on Long Island. When he did, we would get together and discuss all sorts of different subjects. I tried to develop his ESP. We pooled our information and sought out many different types of occultism. Mark was extremely mystical. He consulted astrologers and was always looking for patterns in numbers and names.
Mark was not only a metaphysician, he was a gifted and prolific lyricist. He was an extremely talented musician as well and eventually starred on Broadway as Mozart in Amadeus. One of the reasons he was chosen for the role was that his musicianship was flawless. He also had the petulant personality that fit the role of Mozart exactly. He could basically be himself. Although he was offered the role for the movie, he turned it down. Perhaps he did not realize what a big hit it would become or did not want to be typecast in the role. I do not really know what his reasons were, but I saw his performance at least two times and it was excellent.
Before I got to know Mark very well, I was already acquainted with his older brother Chuck, an even more gifted musician. Chuck had been hanging around the studio for some time because he wanted to break into the music business. He had always demonstrated a great interest in electronics, audio systems and weird technology. Chuck was more of a technician than Mark and was down-to-earth. Sometimes he thought his brother was a complete idiot with his head in the clouds. I helped Chuck understand his brother, and I think I kept them in a decent brother relationship. There were times when he would have abandoned Mark had I not stepped in.
Chuck was also very interested in time travel and used to talk to me about it. He asked me if I knew anything about time travel technology or making a time machine. Whenever this subject came up, I could only joke about it. He took it quite seriously and said I would be the one making a time machine for the private sector in the future. When I asked him how he knew this, all he said was that "he had seen it."
If I did not know him better at the time, I would have thought that he was just one of the kids in the neighborhood trying to wind up the "scientific nerd" (meaning me) in the community to see what he could get him going on. This was not the case however because he had tremendous respect for my technical abilities. After all, I was the one who made his recordings work. Since those early years, I have also spoken to quite a few people who believe Chuck to be a time traveler. He was always interested in cutting-edge technology and eventually became very involved in the intelligence community.
As I became involved with the Hamill's, I began to record their music. I had access to Studio A and Chuck was already familiar with the studio set-up from hanging around. The first record I produced for them was "Beg, Borrow and Steal" which was released by Cameo in October 1967 under the name "Ohio Express." Even though this record made the charts, it did not bring us instant success.
Chuck was not only a genius with electronics and music, he also had an acumen for business. One day, he said,
"Let's make our own (recording) label."
"Sure," I said. "Why not? Everything else we've done is ludicrous. Let's try and make a label too. "
After deciding to create our own company, the group of us sat around the kitchen table and brainstormed over what we were going to call our new record label. About this time, a young seven-year-old kid came into the room and looked around. Seeing me sitting about in a lotus position, which is the way I used to sit, he suddenly and unexpectedly blurted out "Mr. Buddha!" We all thought that "Buddha" was a great label name and decided to use it. One of the guys saw to the registration of the name, and we began to record songs under the name and spelling of "Buddha".
Once we actually had a label, I was able to use all of my contacts at Columbia. Atlantic and elsewhere to get proper distribution. Although things started to happen, we soon discovered that none of us knew the record business all that well. I basically knew how to record and that was about as far as our expertise went. Consequently, we hired a man by the name of Neil Bogart to run the company. He claimed to be the nephew of Humphrey Bogart and certainly had a fascination with him. After my involvement with him, he renovated the entire first floor of his music publishing business to look like the night club set in the movie Casablanca. In our operation, he contributed about $250,000 to get Buddha off the ground. He became the president and owned about forty-eight percent of the stock. Another group of us owned the remainder. The company began to do well under his leadership.
A lot of the recordings we did for Buddha were performed and recorded with direct participation by the Hamill brothers. Many times, they would simply arrange the music and whip a band into shape so the recording would work. If the band was not up to snuff, they would work with studio musicians in order to produce a decent sounding recording. As a sound engineer, I used them liberally because they knew their music and were consummate professionals. Not all of the work we did together was released under the Buddha label. As an engineer at Bell Sound, I recorded all different types of groups. Sometimes, I would utilize the Hamills for the work I did under Phil. Other times, we recorded at Bell Sound for our own interests.
In Chapter One, I mentioned that publicity accounts of rock stars are not always accurate. A prime example of this can be found in the book Rock On: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock N' Roll: The Modern Years: 1964-Present (Volume II). If you look under the group with the name "Ohio Express," you will discover that Mark is not listed as one of the members. However, if you read further, it will tell you that Neil Bogart, one of the executives of Cameo, became affiliated with Buddha Records and took the name "Ohio Express," as well as his association with the producers, to release "bubble gum7' music, the kind that had worked so well for the "1910 Fruitgum Company."
This listing in Rock On also states that as the records of the Ohio Express became major best sellers, the "above lineup of musicians" were recruited to make personal appearances as the Ohio Express. This book is stating that the listed members of the band were for touring purposes only. This was very typical. Names were bought and sold all the time. The producers referred to above were myself and the Hamill's.
The 1910 Fruitgum Company was also a result of my association with the Harnill's. The book Rock On even lists "Mark" as the keyboard and rhythm guitar player for this group but gives no last name for him. It further states that the recordings were made by studio musicians and featured the lead voice of "writer-producer Joey Levine." This was one of Mark's pen names, taken from Joe E. Levine, the producer of the movie The Ten Commandments.
Again, the listing in Rock On tells us that as the records began selling in the millions, a touring group was organized to make personal appearances. The first hit by the 1910 Fruit Gum Company was Simon Says. It was bubble gum music aimed at youth and was composed by Mark and Chuck. Mark wrote the lyrics and gave credit for them to my mother because he remembered her teaching him a similar song as his kindergarten teacher. The fidelity on that particular recording was phenomenal, and it is still equally good today in CD format.
The above involvement by the Hamill's is corroborated by the book Rock On, but other involvements may be a little more controversial because popular "documentation" in the way of publicity books might not show it. These include Chuck Hamill singing the song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" which was credited to Scott McKenzie and became the top hit song during the Summer of Love (1967). Chuck also penned and performed songs in the studio for Gary Puckett and the Union Gap. They outsold every other rock group for the year 1969, including the Beatles.
There were many other identities these friends of mine assumed to produce hit records along with myself. They always wanted to keep their personal lives very private nor did they have the time to do all the touring that was requested as a result of their music. Together, we were trying to build a successful company at Buddha. As the hits began to roll out of Buddha and Bell Sound, I became known as "Little Buddha." I logged about two thousand hours of studio time and about two hundred of the songs I engineered made it to the top forty. That is a very good rate. It became "the thing" to make a recording at Bell Sound East with "Little Buddha."
Buddha Records did well under Bogart's leadership until we bought Kamasutra. That turned out to be a mistake. After buying another company, Plantation Records, we realized we had to get out of the record business altogether. But, that was many years later. There was still plenty of recording and excitement to be had in the music world.
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CHAPTER FOUR
DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED
While attending college and also working at Bell Sound, my friend Chuck attended Juilliard, a prestigious musical conservatory in New York City. Looking back, I believe something strange happened to him there. One reason for this is that Peter Moon had some people do some research at Juilliard to find out if he attended the school. After looking for Chuck under different names that he has used, there was no record of him even having been at Juilliard in any capacity. I definitely remember him attending but also telling me that he became associated there with the Skull and Cross Bones society, a group that is more commonly associated with Yale University.
Chuck was apparently set up as some sort of CIA operative who was slated to work out of England. His father was already in military intelligence so the connection probably came from that quarter. Musicians are generally considered to be very good agents because they are innocuous and fade into the background. They come and go through different countries throughout the world and the governments never think anything of it. He ended up working at the London Philharmonic, and I believe it was the CIA who got him that assignment. They did not have to pull too many strings either because Chuck was a genius. You could give him a new instrument that he had never touched, and in a few hours, he would be able to play it as a virtuoso.
As Chuck worked with the Philharmonic, he also became affiliated with E.M.I., the primary music company in Great Britain. They recorded the Beatles and almost every significant group that came out of England.
The Beatles themselves had been connected with Phil Spector from their early days. If you have a chance to see the films clips of the Beatles arriving in New York for the first time, you will see Phil getting off the plane with them. Popular literature suggests that their first drug experiences were with him. Although I did not do drugs myself, they were very prevalent in the music industry and their factor with regard to mind control should not be discounted.
I became associated with the Beatles through my connection with Phil Spector at Bell Sound, a studio they utilized as it was the best money could buy. If you notice their early recordings, they are of poor quality compared to their later days. All of this changed with their album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band which has been hailed as the most revolutionary rock album of all time. Whatever its merits, it inarguably changed the direction of rock 'n roll. I was actually a participating witness to certain events which brought this new type of art form into being.
Most people will be surprised to learn that Sgt. Pepper was done by the Beatles as an answer to the then unreleased recording known as Days of Future Passed by the Moody Blues. All of the great rock groups were very competitive. They listened to each others' recordings with appreciation but also with the idea of incorporating what they could learn for use in their own work. The Beatles were no exception, and as the most hailed and successful rock band in history, it stands to reason that they were at one time the most competitive.
My memories of how they utilized the Moody Blues are as follows.
The original Moody Blues style was from the famous song "Go Now". That was their signature song and music style until Justin Hayward joined the group. I became acquainted with him during my days at Bell Sound in New York. At that time, there was a British fellow who used to hang around the studio a lot, and we played around with a lot of innovative technology and recordings. His name was Alan Parsons, and we were friends for years. He subsequently became famous as the leading member of "The Alan Parsons Project". Alan was also very strong friends with Justin Hayward and brought him to the Bell Sound studio.
The Moody Blues, mainly Hayward, wanted to do something symphonic, so I introduced him to the Hamill brothers. Chuck Hamill was the classical musician and Mark was the lyricist. They sold them a concept and wrote up a story to music entitled "Days of Future Passed". At that time, as Chuck was working with the London Philharmonic, they were able to get sections of the orchestra over to the studio. That is how we did "Days of Future Passed."
At that point, Paul McCartney was hanging around with Phil Spector at Bell Sound and heard some of the musical rushes being played in the control room as the mix down was being done. McCartney liked it and subsequently came up with the concept for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band. I was brought in to help with certain sound effects. Almost every book claims that the sound was done exclusively at Abbey Road, but this is just not true.
They did not have a proper facility at that time.
If you see a copy of Days of Future Passed, you will see that Peter Knight is the conductor of the London Festival Orchestra. This is actually Chuck as the conductor with members of the London Philharmonic in the orchestra. According to my friend and journalist, John Quinn, Peter Knight was interviewed in Rolling Stone magazine several years ago and talked about being on the run from the CIA. From what I heard, something went wrong with one of his operations and he became sought after himself. I do not know exactly what went wrong, but he never talked about it. In the early nineties, I would see him at ham fests from time to time and he would visit. He was always moving clandestinely and feared for his life. I have not seen or heard from him for many years now.
Here we had a mysterious genius who believed himself to be a time traveler and also thought that I would build a time machine myself. With his brother, he had conceived a record album that not only made major waves in the music industry, it was based on the theme of time travel with the words "Days of Future Passed." To this day, I still do not know what all these strange connections add up to, but it all has a lot to do with becoming more conscious of the principles of time itself.
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CHAPTER FIVE
BACK TO BROOKHAVEN
One day, I was doing a recording session for the Rolling Stones. I forget what recording we were doing, but I believe it was Jumping Jack Flash. Mick Jagger suddenly walked into the control room and said he wanted to talk to "Little Buddah" and see all of my recording equipment. He knew of my reputation as a recording engineer and considered me a fountain of good ideas. He said that every time I worked for the group, he learned something new. He usually knew what sound he wanted, and it was my job to produce it. On that day, he wanted to learn what secrets I had to share. Subsequently, I took him home so that he could see what I had. He talked a lot about the occult and procedures of sexual magick. He often used these techniques before recording.
As things developed, I decided it would be a good idea to introduce Mick to the acoustics of the old Montauk Pavilion. It was called Caswell's Pavilion and was at Caswell' s Beach, not too far from Dick Cavett's house and the future home of Mark Hamill. We got permission to use the pavilion in order to record a couple of songs for one of the Stones' albums. Both of the songs, "You Don't Always Get What You Want" and "Street Fighting Man," utilized a choir of young boys from Montauk who showed up at the pavilion and sang. I have no idea where they came from.
Mick became enchanted with Montauk during this period and began to live there for long stretches of time. To this day, his picture can still be found in certain bars around the town. He expressed part of his affiliation with Montauk in a song entitled "Memory Motel" which is the exact name of a motel on the main street in town. An interesting anecdote about the Memory Motel was told to me at a lecture by a woman from Montauk who said she suspected that "Room #1" of the motel was a secret entrance to the underground. She had seen military personnel there and said the room always had something weird associated with it. As I recall, this was the room just to the north side of the bar. I told her that I had tried to rent that room several times but was always refused.
I really do not know if Mick Jagger had any direct connection to the Montauk Project. My memories of him were of a regular and routine nature although his interest in the occult and his strong attraction to Montauk and the Memory Motel will cause everyone, including myself, to wonder. His song "Sympathy for the Devil" is supposed to refer to Aleister Crowley. He has also produced low budget videos which explore satanism.
What is interesting about this time period is that I had begun to work at Brookhaven Labs during my summer vacation from college. This was in 1968. As an engineer and scientist, I had signed up for a program whereby I could work with their particle accelerator. There were several other budding scientists who were similarly interested. This was a paid job, and I was sold a bill of goods that I was doing something very patriotic for the good of my country. Unfortunately for myself, I was not assigned to the particle accelerator work as I had hoped. Instead, they put me on human factor research. I was to set up electromagnetic fields of certain types and subject actual human beings to them. Behavioral scientists, including myself, would record the stress and reactions of the test subjects. Looking back, this was research carried forward from the original Philadelphia Experiment. I was being used on some level by characters and factors I knew very little about.
As my work at Brookhaven occurred during my heyday at Bell Sound, I believe they hired me so that I could put thought forms on the recordings I was doing in the rock world. I do remember literally encoding thought forms into the music in what can best be called an "electromagnetic telepathy" of subtle energies.
As the recordings were being transferred to the tapes, I concentrated on the heads of the tape recorder in order to place a thought form on the tapes. If you want to encode a thought form, all you have to do is listen to the music that is being copied and concentrate on the playback machine heavily. By "grooving along" on the music but also concentrating on the thought form, you get a parametric impression on that tape of the thought form. We put thought forms into the music mainly to make people respond.
At the recording studio, I literally compressed thought forms that people responded to in particular ways. One of the most simple thought forms projected were to make certain rock groups popular. We simply put a thought form on the recording that you would want to hear it again. Once you heard the song over a transistor radio, the thought form would go out to "buy the record and play it over and over again until it was worn out." Then, you would go out and buy another record. That is how come we sold so many records.
In Chapter One, I alluded to "The Twist" being popular due to a very esoteric principle in sound recording. There are actually two thought inputs into a sound system when a recording is made. This includes what could be termed the "psychic input" of the musicians as well as that of the performer. When the performer stands in front of the microphone and sings, he projects a thought form into the coil or the capacitative element of that microphone. That capacitative element (the capacitor), basically consists of electronic plates with an insulator designed for the purpose of storing electrical potentials which can be reproduced at a distant point, such as a speaker. There is also an amplification process which amplifies the wave forms and eventually creates loud music at the receipt point (the audience).
Sound waves are part of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is the electromagnetic function which is the key. Thought forms also make their own impingement on the electromagnetic background of the universe. For ex-ample, if you hear sound waves telling you there is a sale at a department store, you have also acquired the thought form that the managers of the store wanted you to have. Sound waves themselves are generally much more easily measurable and discernible than those wave forms produced by thought forms. In other words, the electromagnetic functions of thought forms are much more subtle and is indeed an esoteric subject in itself. But, all of you can easily perceive how thought forms are carried by sound waves when you consider the prospect of hearing some- thing you don't believe.
For example, suppose you hear a politician say something. Inside of you, you can perceive that he is not telling the truth. It is not necessarily the sound itself which tips you off. The radio or sound system is actually projecting a duplication of what emanated from the origination point. You just "pick up on it". In actual fact, the thoughts you "picked up on" were the result of electromagnetic impulses. The telepathic wave forms are subtle (less dense) in comparison to what ordinary science would refer to as wave forms, but they are nevertheless present and can be monitored within the realm of the electromagnetic spectrum.
As I said earlier, it is an esoteric science. We will go more into the technical details of how this can occur in the physical spectrum, but first it will be necessary to go into some background theory on the metaphysics and physics of music itself.
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CHAPTER SIX
THE LOST CHORD
Many of you have heard of the Moody Blues' album entitled In Search of the Lost Chord. For those of you who have not, perhaps you have heard of this "lost chord which is commonly referred to and pronounced as "om" or "ohm" in esoteric circles, particularly those of the eastern tradition. It is also known as the "mono chord."
The lost chord refers to the perfect state of creation or that state of consciousness which existed before reality existed. The idea of expressing the word om is to reunite one with the supreme consciousness. Om, in its most perfect sense, represents the complete electromagnetic spectrum. That includes all of creation. When we consider the principles of hard physics, everything in creation falls within the realm of the electromagnetic spectrum. This includes all matter and energy, including light, sound and different types of matter. When we consider the lost chord, we are talking about what Lao Tzu called "the uncarved block." In other words, it is creation undisturbed by anything. In the Qabala, the first principle of creation is known as "The Fool" and it is represented by the Tarot card of the same name.
The fool refers to a capricious or whimsical impression upon the inherent state of perfection and creates a break in the supreme state referred to as om. Ironically, the word "ohm" refers to a unit of electro-magnetic resistance. In a general sense, this is analogous to what happens when "the fool" whimsically presses upon the lost chord. He has created a unit of electromagnetic interference. Actually, the foolish impulse has created a whole series of electromagnetic waves that conform to some whimsical principle. More impulses create more waves, including light, energy, and matter. Ultimately, you have an entire universe such as the one that we live in. The search for the lost chord refers to our attempt to regain the understanding of all of this.
When we contemplate these matters in a more practical sense, we are faced with another amazing irony or synchronicity when we consider E.M.I. Thorn, the electronics and music conglomerate which figures so enigmatically in the Montauk Project book series. The initials "E.M.I." stand for Electronic Musical Industries. At least, this is what the company's name is. But, in the field of electronics, "EMI" stands for "Electromagnetic Interference" and is in common English dictionaries as well. It is as if this company is somehow directly responsible for the electromagnetic interference which has taken us away from the lost chord and attaches us to this reality. If you then throw in the concept of "thorn," you have more esoteric significance. It refers to the thorn in the "Christ Consciousness," another name for the perfect state of creation.
The above is the metaphysical background of music, for all music derives from the above. Next, we will look at some of the principles of music from a more physical perspective.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE PHYSICS OF MUSIC
As we examine the physical aspects of music, it is necessary to address the human factor and how the human mind interfaces with the entire scenario. The first step is to realize that our reality, or reference frame for consciousness, is based purely on sounds, notes, tones, or whatever you want to call them. All of these aspects are frequencies. In actual fact, every physical object or manifestation you can conceive of conforms to a frequency or can be identified as having a particular frequency. It is all frequency based.
Matter itself starts out as a wave traveling through space. Next, the wave hits a magnetic field. That magnetic field hits it, twists it and turns it into a particle. It is now matter. This immediately brings to mind an age old consideration of when does a particle become energy and when does energy become particle based, i.e. matter. This is best explained as the difference between "particle light" and "wave light."
When light is traveling in a vacuum, without a magnetic field, it's a wave. When it hits a magnetic field, that field will take the wave (or energy) and curve it. It particle. It is known as a photon. Based upon nothing else but the spin of the energy being spun into a particle, we can safely say that we are dealing with a frequency. When psychics talk of "vibes", they are referring to frequencies.
A human mind, or human being for that matter, is composed (or at least situated with) many complex frequencies. We are all a very complex group of frequencies. The (electromagnetic) signature of a human being is a complex group of frequencies.
Our reality is actually a group of frequencies or an ensemble of notes. Intelligence, or lack thereof, is dependent upon how the frequencies relate to each other. Frequencies can be related in amplitude, cycles per second and phase. Amplitude signifies how strong the frequency is, i.e. how much power is behind it. In musical terms this would be loudness. Cycles per second is the tone. But, what is phase?
Phase, not frequency, is probably the most important concept when it comes to understanding the mind. Phase refers to the relationship of the starting point of one wave to another wave. For example, if you have one cycle starting at one point in time; then another begins five seconds later or five seconds before, that is phase. Phase is primarily concerned with timing. Let us say you have one cycle starting off at Point A. Phase would refer to another cycle starting at a slightly different time, before or after the preceding cycle. Phase can become very complicated because it can refer to the same frequency or multiple frequencies. When we are dealing with phase, there is an infinite variety of relationships that can be very difficult to understand. The role of phase is better under-stood when we consider thought forms.
What exactly is a thought form? It is a group of interrelated frequencies, including amplitude, phase and every other aspect one can measure. This is illustrated very well when we consider a piano where each key on the piano strikes two strings called a doublet. Although both strings are tightened to relatively the same degree, it is theoretically impossible for them to be exactly identical in tension. Therefore, two different frequencies sound out when they are struck by the hammer. Although they are almost the same for practical purposes, the difference would be undetectable to most human ears. The reason two strings are used is that the two separate offset frequencies (again, they are only very slightly offset) created a "single" sound of their own which is more harmonious than if you just heard one of the strings by itself.
The example with the piano is also referred to as a heterodyne effect.
"Heterodyne" in the dictionary is defined as "designating or of the combination of two different radio frequencies to produce beats whose frequencies are equal to the sum or difference of the original frequencies."
In esoteric or psychotronic lingo, a hetero-dyne refers to the fact that two or more frequencies make a sum which is entirely different than its respective parts. This is an excellent way to control the masses.
By playing with certain frequencies you can induce riots or raucous behavior. Conversely, you can subdue a wild crowd by the same methods. Such manipulations were reportedly accomplished by black helicopters in Los Angeles during riots that were triggered as a result of the Rodney King verdict. The helicopters allegedly transmitted frequencies that induced peaceful behavior in the crowd. In New York, black helicopters were also observed but no significant damage occurred. Although there was plenty of rabble-rousing and protesting of the Rodney King verdict in Brooklyn and Harlem, the New York media helped any helicopter activity by judiciously conspiring with the police to play everything down. When skirmishes happened, they were not reported so as not to alarm the black population. Thus, no riots in New York.
Phase, to surnate, consists of different frequencies (sometimes the differences are very subtle) which are offset but when grouped together develop into a creation of their own. This is often considered a thought form. This thought form can combine again with human thoughts or consciousness in any number of different manifestations.
Now, let us consider the human brain. What is the whole physical human system really all about when we consider the human mind? The model that was accepted in the government projects I was involved with is that the brain is basically a very smart interface to the "real mind." The real mind is multidimensional and its "headquarters" can be found in a parallel reality that is in a reference frame 90' away from this one. In dimensional terms, this can be thought of as the 90o relation between a line (one dimension) and a cross (two dimensions). An additional projection of 90o from the cross will give a third dimension.
When I refer to the human mind in terms of phase, it is offset by 90o from the brain. In science, if you say something is offset by 90o it is considered to have zero value. This is illustrated in practical terms if you consider that two currents of voltage offset by 90o equate to no power. It does not exist in our reality. But, there is undeniably a connection between this brain and the mind. The mind is a group of frequencies which the brain represents in its frequencies, but our mind is actually 90o away from this reality, in a frame that has length, width and no height. It is a two dimensional world.
That is why most people do not think terribly effectively when you consider the wide panorama of intelligence and capability within the brain. They are not making contact to the rest of the dimensions. If they are only thinking in the reference frame 90o away from here, there are only two dimensional references. This is the mind-set of most of the population on Earth today.
The general population is beginning to rise in awareness, but there is a difference when we consider higher dimensions of existence and extraterrestrials. They think in three or more dimensions. Most humans think in only two dimensions because they are not aware of other reference frames away from the 90o point. One can also consider the proposition that spiritual beings inside of human bodies have been conditioned not to think in reference frames away from the typical 90o point. Theoretically, if you are thoroughly hooked up and your mind is totally constituted in all these other dimensions, it is continuous and integrated. It could also be said to be complete or "whole." This concept is the inspiration for the term "holy." To be "whole" is to be "holy". Therefore, if you connect the mind and all of its connections to the physical, you are whole.
The Montauk Project concerned itself with manipulating the way different sections of the mind communicate with different realities in different dimensions. In this manner, one can control what the mind is thinking and what the mind is doing (in this reality). The curative idea is that the more you can consciously get yourself into other dimensions, the more continuous you can be. Consequently, you would be less subject to anything in this three-dimensional reality. Obviously, the Montauk Project dealt with compartmentalization rather than integration.
It is the opposite of what one considers "holy."