An Interview with Ingo Swann (from Advance! 53, [Jul-Aug 78])

INGO SWANN, full OT VII, Class VI Auditor, is a soft-spoken, charming, articulate individual who has for a number of years been startling the scientific world with demonstrations of his “psychic” (OT) abilities.
Ingo is an unusual phenomenon himself in the world of psychic research. For one thing, he actually asks for strict controls (unusual for a psychic). When demonstrating his abilities, he does not go into a trance or meditate, but sits quietly, sometimes puffing on his favorite slim cigar or drinking coffee. He does not claim to be controlled by extraterrestrial beings or “spirit guides,” but takes responsibility for what he does.
Ingo first got into the field of psychic research after going Clear and OT in 1969. “I've always been interested in science and parapsychology and I started to play around with various laboratories in New York. And pretty soon we had theta interaction with mest, which has attracted the interest of official researchers all over the world.”
Ingo's first experiments were at New York City College with Dr. Gertrude Schmeidler, former president of the American Society for Psychical Research. In these experiments, Ingo caused temperature changes in small graphite targets, a demonstration of PK-ST (psychokinesis — static target) which has been more or less accepted as valid by the scientific world.
Ingo then worked with the American Society for Psychical Research in New York on a series of tests of “out of the body” perceptions, accurately describing patterns and colors of visual targets placed high above him and out of sight.
In the spring of 1972, Ingo joined Harold Puthoff (also an OT) at the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, California, for further tests.
One of the most dramatic tests of Ingo's ability was with Stanford University's “quark” detector. (Physicists theorize that the proton is composed of three subparticles called “quarks,” and this complex machine was built in an effort to capture one.)
Ingo informed SRI scientists that he did not want to waste his time with any experiment that had critical loopholes. Puthoff responded by challenging Ingo to affect the quark detector, a device buried in five feet of concrete under the basement of Stanford's Varian Hall of Physics, and heavily shielded against all outside influences. Exhaustive testing had confirmed that no magnetic signals could penetrate the complex shielding. Even superpsychic Uri Geller had refused to test his powers against this formidable apparatus.
“Frankly, the urge to retreat was paramount,” recalls Ingo, “but I quickly understood that here was an opportunity that should not be flummoxed by a panty waist attitude.” Ingo accepted the challenge.
After a few minutes of concentration, the frequency of the output signal, incredibly, doubled. There was an astonished silence, then pandemonium broke loose.
One of the scientists giggled, and suggested that this output variation was possibly some sort of system noise. What, then, asked Ingo, would be an unequivocal test?
“Stop the trace.”
Zonk!
For about 45 seconds, the output recorder penned a flat trace. Then Ingo “let go.” The room was in an uproar.
Thus began a long series of experiments at SRI, which included a number of tests of “out of the body” perceptions.
In 1973, Ingo gave a presentation on Scientology to an international congress of psychical researchers in Prague, which was very well received.
As well as being a renowned psychic, Ingo is also a talented artist and writer. His paintings, which hang in many public and private collections, reflect his unique view of the universe and man. His books include To Kiss Earth Goodbye (Hawthorn, 1975), Cosmic Art edited by Ingo (Hawthorn, 1976), and a novel, Star Fire, just released by Dell in March.

ADVANCE!: Ingo, we've heard a lot about your new book. Could you tell us a bit about it?
INGO: Well, it's a novel. You might say my first substantial fiction. Several years ago, in 1973, I got interested in what would happen if there emerged a real psychic. Not just the fortune-teller types, the crystal-gazers, the showmen types we are all so familiar with; but a real psychic, someone with vast powers of clairvoyance and psychokinesis. I thought then that the world both awaits and fears the emergence of such a man. It seemed to me that such a man would not be satisfied with the status quo, with the mundane sort of haphazard way the world manages along. Out of these thoughts came the novel Star Fire, which is being published this month by Dell. I don't want to say too much more, since it might spoil the book for the reader.
ADVANCE!: What are you currently working on?
INGO: I've been involved in the production of Star Fire, just finishing a publicity tour for it in England. This month there is a large American tour. Many TV and radio appearances, and of course hopes for a little success for the book. I have a new novel planned, a new collection of paintings to do. Last autumn the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum took three of my paintings, and this has encouraged me to work harder along this line. Then there is the research in parapsychology.
ADVANCE!: How did you first get into psychic research?
INGO: I guess I have always been interested in the miraculous nature of man. I read the most turgid, thick and endless books about the so-called “higher abilities” of mankind. It all seemed very beautiful — and unfruitful.

Then came Scientology, and L. Ron Hubbard's astonishing thoughts on man as a spirit; the living, existing spirit; the living, creative possible aptitudes of spirit trying to conquer matter, energy, space and time. But conquest was only possible after the spirit got rid of its reactive banks, those dreadful counter-postulates by which the individual cuts himself down to nothing.

Well, after years of auditing and studying in Scientology, I finally arrived at a place where I could level out somewhat. I got interested in something to do in society. For some reason — which escapes me now — I thought it would be a good idea to go and volunteer as a subject in parapsychology experimentation. And thereby lies the long tale. That was almost eight years ago.
ADVANCE!: How did your psychic abilities develop in relationship to your auditing on the Advanced Courses?
INGO: They are totally the result of auditing. The point of going Clear and attaining the OT Sections is to rid oneself of reactivity and to enable one to confront life better, more completely, more productively. And I view psychic abilities as only a part of that. I feel that the best achievement of OT awareness is to make whatever it is one wants to do, go right; to succeed at the goal, to accomplish, to build, to create, to participate in life and to guide it towards a sane future. OT abilities or psychic abilities are only tools towards all these things. Like anything else, you can develop them by finding out that they exist, by clearing misunderstoods about them and by utilizing them. Many people who are not Clear have substantial psychic gifts, but the bank aborts their proper creative usage.

Being Clear is definitely preferable to being psychic, but they can go together. It is the spirit, the thetan, who possesses all abilities, and he must familiarize himself with himself. He does this through training, and especially, for me, the Briefing Course, studying the dynamics of the reactive mind. This is one of Ron's greatest gifts to any OT who would truly become operational in the psychic sense.
ADVANCE!: What reactions have you had from the scientific establishment to your demonstrations of theta abilities?
INGO: At first, it was difficult, and probably I should say that it still is difficult. But, too, the years have made a difference. Hundreds and hundreds of scientists have come and looked into our work, and left impressed, if not convinced. We encourage other groups to undertake repeating our own results. This has gained fast in respectability.

At Stanford Research Institute, we developed the now world-famous remote viewing techniques, where one person goes to a distant target unknown to the subject, and the subject describes — often very well — what the distant place looks like. This particular experiment is now being tested in hundreds of schools. People are amazed at how often it works. This has been one of my goals: to rehabilitate the understanding that everyone has these abilities, no matter how suppressed, no matter how misunderstood.

A long time ago I realized that hardly anyone really cared what I could do myself. What they really wanted was to find something in themselves. The ripples in the lake widen accordingly, whereas if I insisted on being the only superpsychic around, well, what would that accomplish?

At any rate, through the years, the general scientific attitude has shifted in the direction of acknowledging that man has — I can't help but laugh a little — “higher abilities.”
ADVANCE!: Where do you feel that current research in parapsychology is leading?
INGO: It's leading to a place most people don't realize — into the educational system itself. Most schools now teach classes in parapsychology, although a lot of garbage goes down, of course. There are some 170 colleges and universities that give classes. Thus the upcoming generations will have a reality on the fact that psi exists — as opposed to the foregoing generations for whom it was all edited out and suppressed.

The time will come — and coming it is — when science will have to open the doors to the spirit/matter hypothesis. And I expect then that Ron's writings will become standard texts there, as they are already for us.
ADVANCE!: What are your biggest wins as an OT?
INGO: Gosh, there have been so many! For one thing, right now I think a lot of the future, and that I can exist in it as well as in present time. Another thing is that, while life is tough, I am tougher still. And it's also a win that I am interested in so many things — too many, in fact! All these are wins.

As I said earlier, it's my reality now that being OT is to make things go right, to grow, to create saner surroundings, or at least to try for that and to get audited and persist until you finally succeed. I can't see OT as being a superstar thing — it's just being good and excellent at what you want to do, and hard as nails in getting it done.
ADVANCE!: What do you feel is the role of an OT in society?
INGO: It depends on what area of the society the OT wants to get involved in. Different social areas and strata demand different understandings and knowledge. Yet there is one thing all OTs working in the society should have in common: Find and validate the upstat wherever you find it, and ignore the downstat. Too many waste time fighting the downstat, trying to change that. You can make miles and miles in seconds by supporting the upstat in any society or social level. I think right now that is a prime role for the OT who wants to work in the field.
ADVANCE!: Do you have any advice for Scientologists who are not yet Clear and OT?
INGO: Yes. Get trained too. The Dianetics Course and the Briefing Course are so very, very important, not just for auditors, but for understanding and comprehension of the world around us. It is a reactive world around us, and it is through training that you will surmount that reactive world the fastest.

And, too, since one must confront the world, don't be fearful of going back into session to get repaired for all the knocking about you might get.

I am so glad you are all here, ever so glad. It seems less lonely in theta space now that there are so many people on the Bridge. As it is said: the Force is improving ...