Trip Report: SSE / IRVA Conference 2018

Trip Report: SSE / IRVA Conference 2018

by Bob Peterson

About a month ago, in early May, Kathy and I were in Las Vegas. We had been invited by her parents to stay at their timeshare, and it wasn't too far out of the way for us as we drove home from Arizona.

At one point I was standing in the middle of South Point Casino, waiting for her parents to arrive, and decided to check my Facebook. That's when I found out one of my friends, Nelson Abreu, was planning to attend a conference that looked very interesting: Right up my alley. It was hosted jointly by the SSE (Society for Scientific Exploration) and IRVA (International Remote Viewing Association). So I checked out the invited speakers. When I read that Hal Puthoff would be speaking, I said something like, "Wow" and Kathy asked why. I told her about the conference. She hasn't read many books on parapsychology, so she wasn't familiar with Dr. Puthoff or his work.

Kathy asked, "Where is the conference?" I looked it up. "South Point Casino. The same casino we're standing in right now." She asked, "When is it?" "About a month from now."

When I read further down the conference schedule, I said "Wow, Stanley Krippner is speaking there too!" Then, like a one-two punch, I said "Oh my God, Janet Mitchell is going to be there too!"

For those of you who don't know, Dr. Mitchell is a pioneer of the scientific study of psi phenomena, including OBEs. She's done scientific laboratory work on famous OBErs like the late great Ingo Swann. Her classic OBE book, "Out of Body Experiences: How science is helping us to understand the experience of living beyond the body" was one of the first OBE books I read (along with Monroe's), that wasn't occult in its approach. It made a big impact on my life because it immediately appealed to my logical/scientific mind. Back in the early 1980s, when I was first learning to do OBEs, I couldn't find a copy of her book, so I had written to her publisher. Many weeks later, I received a copy, signed by Dr. Mitchell herself. Her inscription read:

"To Bob Peterson, Realize your potential; express your abilities. Thanks for your support. Dr. Mitchell."

I was beyond thrilled. The only thing that ever came close again is when I found out that Charles Tart (Yes, THE Charles Tart) had written the introduction to my (first) book. I just about died. But I digress...

Kathy said, "I think we should go!" So we purchased a week from her mom and dad's timeshare for June, and went to the conference. It was outstanding. I just returned from Las Vegas yesterday, and I wanted to give my report.

The conference started on Wednesday June 6 and ran through Sunday, June 10, 2018.

I had just finished reading Susan Blackmore's latest book, "Seeing Myself: The New Science of OOBES" and I was a bit disheartened by her skepticism (I'll publish a book report on that in my next blog article). Blackmore was trying to explain away all OBE phenomena as strange anomalies of the physical brain. But suddenly I found myself at this conference, surrounded by nearly 400 engaged people, most of whom are dedicated scientists, and they're discussing OBEs, Remote Viewing, UFOs, Remote Healing and such like it's a given. For me it was like the Universe countered Blackmore's negativity with a huge 100X positive response. I've never before been in a room with such a large group of scientists and authors who are rationally discussing things like Chakras, Qi, and Remote Viewing. Not just discussing, but presenting scientific papers, data and statistics, methodologies, and analysis to back up their claims. Just unbelievable.

As you can imagine, many of the talks were related to remote viewing, but several others stand out in my mind. I didn't record any of this, so forgive me if I screw up some of the minor details:

1. Gail Husick gave a presentation about a set of twin boys who had severe autism. What was shocking is the suspected (but unproven) link between dairy milk and autism. It turns out that today's dairy milk contains enormous amounts of female hormones like estrogen, and that may be confusing boys' physical bodies when they're developing. Some of this information was received through remote perception, but Gail's talk was mostly about how we can use tools like RV to gain insights like this.
2. Hal Puthoff's talk was about how the United States Government kept researching UFOs long after the official termination of Project Blue Book. They didn't shutter the doors; they just went underground. In the name of national security, of course: "Are UFOs or their advanced technology a potential threat?" And of course, the Federal Government can't be publicly seen as dabbling in such things, so they funded private companies to do a lot of the work, which Puthoff has been deeply involved in. Lots of information has recently been declassified, and will be published soon. But some of the stuff already brought to light even in the past year is pretty amazing. Puthoff presented new evidence during his talk.
3. Nelson Abreu's talk was about using biological sensors to quantify biofield strength. He measured the decay/decline of white carnation flowers to measure the effects of energy techniques. This is fascinating stuff, and very straightforward. He also showed some slides of brain waves during the "Vibrational State". He's apparently involved in a new company called I-ACT which apparently has ties to Nanci Trivellato, Wagner Alegretti and others from the IAC (International Academy of Consciousness) as well.
4. Sean McNamera and a couple other people talked about psychokinesis (PK) both micro-effects (e.g. changing the values of true random number generators) and macro-effects (e.g. moving physical objects) with your mind. He had videos of PK that were awesome. I wanted to buy his book, because it's 100% teachable, but unfortunately, they didn't have any of his books to sell. I guess I'll go to amazon.
5. Probably the most fascinating talk was given by SSE President Bill Bengston. He talked about laboratory experiments on healing mice of cancer. It turns out that when you inject a mouse with a certain type of cancer, they get cancer and die around 122 days, give or take 2 days. This is very reliable, predictable, and well documented. But Bengston and his team invented a very teachable technique of remote healing, and when applied, the mice are literally cured of the cancer, even quite late in the stages. This is all very well documented and done scientifically. Not only that, but the cure is permanent: If the healed mouse is injected with the same cancer again years later, they successfully fight it off. We're talking 100% success rate. The healing ability can be transferred to other mice too. Not only that, but they can actually "store" the healing intention and transfer it to a mouse remotely with objects, for example, a piece of cotton. This is really amazing stuff.
6. And, of course, Dr. Janet Mitchell covered her long career of research with people like Alex Tanous, "Blue" Harary, and Ingo Swann. If you've never heard of Ingo Swann, look him up. Besides his OBEs, he had some amazing abilities, such as being able to heat up or cool down a thermistor (electric thermometer component) in a sealed and electromagnetically shielded chamber, from kilometers away.

Before the conference, I had posted a photo of Dr. Mitchell's inscription on my Facebook page, and author Graham Nicholls posted this:

"If you see her please give my regards, that book changed my life. I would love to connect with her actually."

I relayed Graham's message as well as my own thanks for her long and amazing career. After her talk, Kathy took the above photo of Nelson Abreu (left), Dr. Janet Mitchell (center) and me (right). Looks like I'm in heaven, right?

I enjoyed everyone's talks and, with few exceptions, was never bored, despite the highly technical scientific data.

Amazingly, probably half the talks referenced Ingo Swann. Several mentioned the work of another one of my heroes, Dean Radin. Several mentioned The Monroe Institute and their work. Several of the talks mentioned OBEs in general. Oh, and I met several people who actually read my blog! Now my head is spinning in so many directions. I want to go out and research so many of these findings. But where can I find the time?

Unfortunately, the conference was expensive. The airfare was expensive. The room was expensive (although much cheaper than a hotel). Membership to the SSE was expensive. The conference itself was expensive. But man, it was worth it. I definitely want to go back next year.

Bob Peterson
12 June 2018