About MRU & MRF

INTRODUCTION:

Mankind Research Unlimited, Inc. (MRU, and the later nonprofit Foundation, MRF) was a much less publicized eastcoast thinktank like Stanford Research Institute (SRI). MRU was purchased from parent company SCI on August 13, 1973 to become an independent company with its own Board operating through the Director's lifetime. Located in the Washington, D.C. area, it operated from the early 1970s to 1999. Like SRI, many strange phenomena were investigated and developed there, often at government expense.

MRU’s Director, Carl W. Schleicher, Ph.D. has been accused, along with Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, of being the mind control mad-genius behind MK Ultra and the ‘Manchurian Candidate’ in both Feral Press (Constantine, 1995) and by A.J. Weberman (1) online. Called the “Father of the Cyborg,” in CIA Mind Control Operations in the USA, Schleicher heartily denied it to his death in 1999. He was preparing to sue Weberman for theft of MRU files and false allegations, according to close associates.

All research was conducted on a “need to know” basis. No one seems able to make a coherent story of it, though rumors about connections of Director Schleicher to MK Ultra run rampant. What is known is he had ten active years of military service (1955-1966) for the Navy as a “war games expert,” and spy in Europe.

Sources say he was stationed for a time on the electronic intelligence ship,USS Liberty.  He retired shortly before the SigInt ship was mysteriously attacked in the 1967 Six-Day War. He then went into “exotic areas of knowledge” with a mandate to “peek discretely into the unknown”. He avoided marriage, saying, “My mission is different.” He always claimed his mission was “humanitarian.”

Schleicher attended the Naval Academy, worked overseas in operations research, and spoke six languages, then went into war games, publishing in The Journal of Electronic Warfare. An interest in dowsing got him into the paranormal - but not dowsing for water – dowsing for Vietcong in tunnels in Khe Sanh for the Marines. This led to a meeting with Ostrander and Schroeder, authors of Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain, and the game was afoot. He accepted their unfiltered pile of Soviet research and paid $5000 for translations.

Schleicher had a gruff military personality. His cohorts included former OSS, CIA and military intelligence officers, physicians, psychologists, scientists, anti-gravity investigators, healers, chemists, psychics, dowsers, and remote viewers. MRU developed a low-frequency electronic device that “interferes with insects’ antennae.”  But, in typical Schleicher fashion, he tersely declined explanation with a pat answer, “I can say no more.”

He did say, “I consider myself an optimistic skeptic. Just because there’s no supporting data doesn’t mean it’s bad – why, there was no supporting data for alternating current. I’ve patiently listened to and been tolerant of everything anybody’s said.  If I weren’t, I might close out some golden gem.”

He considered the term “occult” an unprofessional, unscientific “put-down word” that turns off highly qualified people. He admits his own “paranoid” psychics accused him of “feeding information to the CIA” and that “consultants have ‘dark forces’ surrounding them.” He also claimed healers, “are able to focus energy . . . on a spot where it’s needed, through his mind control, and it flows out of his hand . . .A healer can sense where there’s an imbalance of energy.”

What’s in a name? Draw your own conclusions: Did MKU[ltra] give birth to MRU, then MRF, or not?  Is there plausible denial as the Director claimed?  Schleicher’s own name, as he liked to point out, means “stealth.”  The German translation is “Sneaker”, related to “creep, skulk, and slink,” (odge.info). His MRU colleague, Christopher Bird certainly worked for the CIA, specializing in psychological warfare, biocommunications and Russian translation. Do ‘birds of a feather flock together’? They did with Eldon Byrd. They did at the U.S. Psychotronics Assn. (USPA) from 1978 forward.

DEEP BACKGROUND:

Mind control is the ever-elusive Holy Grail of the spy game, with roots in the early 1950s. MK Ultra’s mission was complete control of the human mind, including overt and covert techniques of mind and behavior control, brainwashing, truth drugs, and mass psychological warfare or disinformation.

MK Ultra, officially disbanded in 1963 in the wake of Kennedy’s assassination, became public when revealed to the Rockefeller Commission investigating the CIA in the mid-1970s. Did post-MK Ultra research continue decentralized as underground front organizations, as has been suggested?

Much MKU evidence was burned and shredded by Sid Gottlieb. Once television became popular, there was less perceived need for other mass hypnotic mind control techniques. No pop culture phenomenon since has been accidental. We know SRI in Palo Alto carried on, and does so to this day. Many of their old players, like Targ and McMoneagle are now lecturing celebrities. Remote Viewing has become a workshop fad, like firewalking.

Carl, himself, claimed he supervised cryptography in Turkey during his military duty, which is likely true in any event. He joined the AFIO (Assn. of Former Intelligence Officers). Unfortunately, those closest to him are least likely to know the real story for national security reasons. Former associates of MRU confirm that he worked for NSA through his Navy position.

Elsewhere, Carl admits to a background in mind control and blue-sky studies for Naval Intelligence. His military service dates do place him in the proper timeline, but did he really have time for building the perfect assassin?

We know now, for example, that LSD and hypnotism are unreliable tools for most directive purposes. Newer approaches include brain implants, directed electronic weapons, and heterodyned messages that seem to come from your own thoughts. What was tested as a mental ability of one human to influence another has now been successfully accomplished with electronics. Next come quantum dots that fuse with nerves and direct computer/brain interface.

INSIDE MRU

MRU's capability and experience is divided into four fields, including biophysics -- Biological Effects of Magnetic Fields," "Research in Magneto-fluid Dynamics," "Planetary Electro-Hydro-Dynamics" and "Geo-pathic Efforts on Living Organisms." The latter focuses on the induction of illness by altering the magnetic nature of the geography. MRU first researched the area of Biological Effects of Magnetic Fields focusing on the induction of illness by altering the magnetic nature of the geography

Mankind Research Unlimited distributed a CIA directive, summarized in a brochure on the “Cybernetic Technique”. It discussed the Agency's development of a “means by which information in modest rate can be fed to humans utilizing other senses than sight or hearing.  “The Cybernetic Technique,” based on Eastern European research," involves beaming information to individual nerve cells. The purpose, the directive states, is the enhancement of mental and physical performance. To protect MK Ultra, the CIA subcontracted research and development to universities, prisons, private laboratories and hospitals.

A former counter-intelligence “spook”, a “watcher of the watchers”, characterizes his friend Schleicher as “black”, meaning  “plugged in to clandestine services…Nearly all the famous names were just to provide legal and other "legitimacy" for work done entirely by others.” This source, who remains publically anonymous, claims to be an original member of MAG (Monday Afternoon Group), classified 36-40 levels above Top Secret.

This inside source discredits accusations of  Schleicher working for either the CIA or The Aviary, infamous UFO debukers.He says MRF was associated with Rockefeller Foundation and NSA, producing several books for them. Recent admissions (2) about covert mind control experiments have come from Naval Intelligence.  Approval authority is now required for all “severe or unusual intrusions, either physical or psychological, on human subjects (such as consciousness-altering drugs or mind control techniques),” implying they had done so in the past.

In the drug-riddled mid-70s, Journal of Rehabilitation, 41, 2, 12-8,44, Mar/Apr 75 published a Schleicher interview on biofeedback and rehabilitation (4): “A question-answer interview with Carl Schleicher, cofounder and technical director of the Center for Preventive Therapy and Rehabilitation, Inc. (CEPTAR) and president and research/development director of Mankind Research Unlimited, Inc. (MRU), Washington, D. C., provides explicit information on recent developments in the rehabilitation field and poses questions for further investigation.”

Insiders say MRU/MRF projects that “worked” include “selenoenzymes, correcting color blindness, medical and other uses of cesium, spinal chord injury partial reversal, a once a week pill that heals old brain injuries, but nothing much on ESP related things.”

PSYCHIC DISCOVERIES BEHIND THE MRU CURTAIN

MRU obtained several modest government research contracts for feasibility studies in certain human engineering and psychosomatic evaluations. As cache, it offered leading scientists as principle investigators in the fields of biocybernetics, biophysics, bionics, biocommunications, psychophysics, psychology, neuropsychiatry, health and welfare research, human systems engineering, and related scientific disciplines.

Thinktank Director, Schleicher, was a specialist in biocybernetics research, experienced in the analysis and evaluation of foreign scientific developments. After graduating from the U. S. Naval Academy (B.S. Electrical Engineering) in 1956, he served as a Naval line officer specializing in operations research and linguistics until 1966. He received his M.A. in political Economics from the University of Cologne, West Germany, where he was engaged in advanced study at the Universities of Bonn, West Germany and Lund, Sweden. He was a Ph.D. candidate in the Technology of Management at American University.

Before joining the staff of SCI, he was an Operations Research Analyst and R&D Engineer at the Marine Corps Development Center in Quantico, Virginia. His later work included design and development of a management system for assessing R&D projects to determine priorities, and in bionics, biocommunications, and cybernetic software systems. Schleicher had considerable management experience in both the military and industry, and also served as a management sciences consultant.

The MRU mission statement was basically to provide an organization for scientific research, development and application of biocommunications, biocybernetics, bionics, biophysics, superlearning, and other activities impacting the welfare of mankind. MRU claimed unique capabilities for collection, analyzing and evaluating scientific and technological developmental data (both U.S. and foreign). It offered customers assistance in determining the impact of biocommunication and behavioral science applications in their area of control, interest or responsibility.

WARMING UP TO THE COLD WAR

Schleicher founded MRU in response to learning of Soviet psychotronic investigations from Ostrander and Schroeder.  “. . .Acting on this message, we in MRU were inspired to attempt to inquire into this. We have found that the government can, and will, support research in these areas, if such research is properly communicated to them, provides a beneficial use of tax-payers' funds, and is conducted by responsible organizations. MRU stands ready to assist any other group to obtain funds for their programs, should they so request it from us.”

Carl said he wanted to further and develop the works of suppressed, maligned or unappreciated researchers on the "frontiers of science", such as Tesla, Reich, Hieronymus, and Buckminster Fuller. Much of this research relates to the energetic nature of deep Reality and the electromagnetic field body of the human being.

MRU’s own brochure claimed to validate foreign research, define methodology, prepare assessments and forecasts, define environmental systems, identify educational and user requirements and tasking areas, including the following:

superlearning,
man-machine cybernetic interactions,
special sensory biophysical activities,
brain and mind control,
telepathic communications or bioinformation transceiving,
bioluminescent and bioenergetic emissions,
effects of altered states of consciousness on the human psyche,
improvement of human performance via bio-feedback techniques,
innovative therapy/prosthetic/diagnostic techniques,
environmental effects upon biological (human) systems,
infrasonic and ultrasonic effects upon biological systems,
geopathogenic factors which induce illness.

MRU explored the interaction of mind and body, or energy and matter. Among the first groups to investigate the human energy body, MRU brought together many of the leading scientists and experimenters in the multidisciplinary field of biocommunications which includes the sciences of bionics, biophysics, psychophysics, psychology, physiology, neuropsychiatry, cybernetics and systems engineering. MRU recruited notables such as Eldon Byrd, Christopher Bird, ESP expert hypnotist Milan Ryzl, and remote viewer Ingo Swann, among others.

PARAPHYSICS

In the early 1970s, physicist Richard Alan Miller also worked for Schleicher under the Mankind Research Unlimited umbrella, closing the gap between the physical and the metaphysical. Physicist Miller was the Northwest Regional Director of MRU. His task was looking at anomalous phenomena, such as Kirlian photography, bioluminescence, psychotronics, biofeedback, electrophotography, distance healing, acupuncture and psychic surgery to determine if there was merit for future strategic studies or product development. They also tried to create an MRU biofeedback package with Seattle manufacturer J&J  Enterprises, but that deal never consummated.

According to Stan Krippner and Daniel Rubin's (1972) Galaxies of Life, researchers are divided in their evaluation of the Kirlian phenomena. Some call the manifestation "corona discharge," believing that the technique only reveals commonplace electrical occurrences while others conceive of radiation field photography as revealing the "bioplasma body" or aura. According to Viktor Adamenko, a Russian scientist (c 1970s), the discharge is the cold emission of electrons, though it has been romanticized by new age interpretations.

THE WILD BLUE YONDER

Scientific progress is achieved not only by linear accumulation of knowledge but also by nonlinear paradigm shifts. These shifts are often forced by anomalous findings that cannot be incorporated in accepted models.  A current example comes from complementary medicine which emphasizes the fields of the energy body.

Two complementary methodological principles regulate paradigm shift: 1) Ockham’s Razor as the principle of parsimony and 2) Plato’s Life Boat as the principle of the necessity to ‘save the appearances’ and thus incorporate conflicting phenomenological data into extant theories. We have to review empirical data which are in conflict with some presuppositions of accepted mainstream science: Clinical and experimental effects of prayer and healing intention, affirmations, the law of attraction were studied. MRU collected data on telepathy, psychokinesis experiments, precognition, and anecdotal reports of macro-psychokinesis.

Collectively, this subject matter is called BLUE SKY RESEARCH. The now well-documented phenomena are anomalies that challenge some widely held beliefs in mainstream science. Scientists often fear that by accepting the reality of these phenomena they also have to subscribe to world-models invoking ontological dualism or idealism. We suggest accepting the phenomena as real, but without questionable ontologies commonly associated with them.

ROLL AWAY THE STONE

Charles Stone began working for Carl (1987-1992), as Deputy Director of MRF seven years after he was publically exposed in 1980 by a D.C. magazine. MRU was a front for the most advanced mind control technology at that time. Stone has an MS an microbiology and  public health, but has investigated, for example, atomic cover ups, academic and judicial corruption, Tavistock Institute, the pioneer MI 6 Agency which led to MK Ultra (“Mind Kontrol”) and much more.

MRF experimented with Blood Irradiation, tried to promote Electronic Drug and Alcohol treatment, earthquake prediction technology, a German based technique for AIDS therapy using hydrogen peroxide, and alternative cures of Dr. Emanuel Revici through Bioimmunex. There was a project for using poultry waste to produce a high protein powder for food. Emphasis was on bringing all this to the attention of the Federal Government.

HEART OF STONE

Stone claims, “It is almost certain that the Unabomber was associated with a key mind control expert at Harvard when he was identified as a 16-year-old mathematical genius. It is believed that something was done to him that led to his madness. That is just one of the examples of the damage caused. Not the least of these was turning universities into huge drug and alcohol dens!”

Stone alleges, “Carl was a pretty strange man,” whose bizarre personality sabotaged his own efforts. He had file drawers full of old reports. Carl mentioned his previous lab and much bigger operation on Kalorama Rd. in D.C., but provided no details. He claimed his earlier work was as a Naval Intel Officer working on intercepts and codes in Turkey. “He was a classic Dr. Strangelove,” Stone says.

His way of dealing with people turned everybody off. He was especially bad with women. Carl was constantly sending information to people about psychotronics and being a Johnny Appleseed in that way. After Carl was exposed in 1980 he never recovered his "glory days". It does appear that he contributed to or was given credit for a number of important findings. The truth is irresolvably muddied, though he is a link in the chain of many biomedical advances and psychotechnology. Stone still feels Schleicher was attempting to move humanity forward.

MRU fostered interest in energy medicine, hypnotherapy, magnetic healing, acupuncture, radionics or radiesthesia, remote healing and viewing, EVP, and psychophysical control of internal states. The MRU researchers were pathfinders, carving broad highways through the mindscape. The cross-disciplinary synergy between physics, biology, psychiatry, religion, etc., continues to be explored, as well as the relationship of intent and belief.

MRU explored the whole spectrum of approaches from philosophy of mind and dream research, to neuropsychology, pharmacology, and molecular dynamics, to neural networks, phenomenological accounts, and even the quantum physics of reality. The aim is to lay a sound scientific foundation for future research while also reaching consensus on many scattered areas of inquiry.

There has been a major surge of interest recently in studying consciousness as more and more people have experiences that cannot be explained by traditional scientific approaches. Also there is wide popular interest in new physics as fadsof Indy films, such as “What the BLEEP Do We Know” and “The Secret” show.  Zero-Point Energy is the new lecture circuit darling.

We are living and working in the midst of extraordinary changes in our concepts of the nature of humankind. Enough has been written in recent years about the seeming inadequacy of the scientific method to grapple with the enigma of the strange experiences related by the pioneers. Now anyone can take a course in remote viewing and other psi abilities.

Russell Targ (1994) claims, "[P]si is no longer elusive; it can be demonstrated when needed for study and investigation." Even though psychic training to strengthen the signal line is possible, unpredictability has been the hallmark of this emergent gift. To overcome this problem in both the theoretical and experimental arenas requires a marriage of the disciplines of physics, biophysics, biology, medicine, psychology, and hypnosis.

As the ideas of quantum mechanics, relativity and parapsychology slowly make their way into our collective consciousness, our common-sense views on time and causality find themselves more strained than they've ever been in the course of human history. Researchers are probing the interface between matter, spacetime and mind with increasing precision.

Like electricity, no one knows how psi works. However, to foster and practice psi we don't need to know how it works, anymore than we need to know the mechanics of internal combustion to drive a car.

EULOGY FOR AN ARCH-SPOOK

Shrouded in mystery to the very end, friends and family characterize Schleicher’s death as “untimely and highly suspicious”, despite his transplant. Carl believed for years that certain domestic agents had targeted him for unknown personal reasons dating back to the mid-60s and his NSA days. No cause of death was forthcoming, so the truth may never be known.

Perhaps one of Schleicher’s greatest contributions came in the field of superlearning. Volume. 25, Journal of Accelerating Learning & Teaching (Kelly & Morrissey, 2000)) eulogizes his pivotal role in accelerated learning, popularizing the research of Dr. Georgi Lozanov of Bulgaria.  Even in this arena, Carl remained controversial for his control and anger issues. He threatened to sue anyone employing his franchised technique, purchased in 1975.

Penny Kelly and Brian Morrissey characterize Carl as a military establishment player with early spy experience in Europe, which led to his discovery of Lozanov. Carl wanted to commercialize everything he came up with but you cannot copyright a method. From 1976-1988, he opened schools for stress-free learning of language, memory, creativity. The musical whole brain approach to learning, retention and motivation used hypnotic techniques, not foreign to Schleicher.

Psychologist Stanley Krippner described European classes::  “I have observed the suggestopedia classes in Bulgaria and Hungary. Classes had a relaxed comfortable learning environment. Rather than individual learning, it was group learning. It included preliminary exercises, new material, and a review of what was learned. The first stage used 2/3 of the time. Then suggestions were given by the teacher to promote learning. The presentation phase took one third of the time. The method encourages students to make mental images of the material. In foreign language classes, people take on new roles.”

But his greatest contribution is probably in alternative cancer treatments such as blood irradiation and nostrums like the Revici cure and the Native American recipe, Essiac, made from four dried herbs.  MRF obtained rights from Resperin in 1991. The Canadian Trademark "Essiac" is still held by Mankind of Maryland, USA. (Flor*Essence).

No stranger to pain, Carl was on dialysis in the early 90s before his kidney transplant. Shortly before his death by heart attack on Thanksgiving eve 1999, he was in Brazil setting up more sites in his string of clinics for ultra violet radiation. Carl had staying power in his arena, dealing with flakes, visionaries, governments, industry experts, and scientists alike. Despite his commercial goals, many say he did leave the planet a good man (3), working for the benefit of all. If so, his heartful side and humanitarian mission was fulfilled.