A fascinating study by US Army Intelligence has suggested that reincarnation might be real.
The research titled 'Analysis and Assessment of The Gateway Process,' proposes a new idea that consciousness 'never dies.'
The 29-page report was drafted by US Army Lieutenant Colonel Wayne M McDonnell in 1983. Though it stayed under wraps for years, the CIA declassified it in 2003.
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Social media has taken a liking to it after Chicago-based comedian Sara Holcomb summarised the findings on TikTok.
"We're pretty sure reincarnation is real," she said.
"Consciousness is energy and it exists outside of our understanding of reality."
Paraphrasing page 19 of McDonnell's Army intel report, she added: "And energy... never dies."
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The study itself is as mind-bending as it sounds too. It was originally commissioned to figure out why some Army intelligence officers were being sent to a small institute in Charlottesville, Virginia for something called the 'Gateway Experience.'
The secretive project was in fact a 'training system designed to bring enhanced strength, focus and coherence... to alter consciousness.'
Doing so was supposed to help people shift their consciousness to 'outside the physical sphere' and beyond the limitations of time and space.
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At least according to McDonnell, the Monroe Institute's discoveries that wound up bolstering the case for reincarnation were profound.
Distilling the Institute's findings, he read: "When consciousness returns to the Absolute [Monroe jargon for a realm outside spacetime] it brings with it all the memories it has accumulated through experience in reality."
But the Gateway study explored more than answering questions about the afterlife.
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It also explored how these altered states of consciousness could be used practically.
The US Army wanted to know if the techniques developed by the Virginia Institute could be applied to intelligence work. Essentially, they were interested in using "out-of-body" experiences for spying.
The man leading this effort at the time was Major General Albert Stubblebine III, a big believer in psychic warfare.
One of his most notable team members was Joe McMoneagle, also known as Remote Viewer No. 1. McMoneagle spent over 20 years trying to gather intelligence on places like Russian military bases using remote viewing - a technique that involves 'seeing' distant locations through altered consciousness.
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"My success rate was around 28 percent," McMoneagle said. "That may not sound very good, but we were brought in to deal with the hopeless cases."
In his final take on the study, McDonnell concluded: "There is a sound and rational basis in terms of physical science parameters for considering Gateway to be plausible in terms of its essential objectives.
"Intuitional insights of not only personal but of a practical and professional nature would seem to be within the bounds of reasonable expectations."