Book Review | Psychic Literacy & The Coming Psychic Renaissance by Ingo Swann

Posthumously published tome muses on the grand scale of our psychic heritage & future

Published in

Remote Viewing Community Magazine

8 min readMay 25, 2022

Remote Viewing legend Ingo Swann died in 2013. He bequeathed his personal archives to Library Special Collections at the University of West Georgia. The manuscript for this book, along with several others, was found while cataloging his archive. His estate has been publishing them ever since; (see others below).

Originally written in 1989, this book details the hindrance to mainstream acceptance of psychic ability. Ingo believed a psychically literate society can only flourish once the psychic terrain is understood with as wide an angle as possible, and when we can feel truly open to discuss these topics freely.

What I like about this book is that, at the end of each chapter, Ingo offers practical exercises to bust our limiting beliefs and help us develop our own psychic curiosity and skills.

I must confess this was the first Ingo book I’ve read. But it certainly won’t be the last.

The road to SRI

I appreciated learning more about Ingo’s personal story from this book. For all those readers feeling wanting as to their psychic skills, it was interesting to learn that Ingo was not very confident in his skills early on:

“Despite the many psychic-type events I experienced as a child, and youngish adult, I was a dysfunctioning psychic illiterate, until my fortieth year.”

Ingo provides a much-appreciated personal overview of his providential movements towards becoming a professional psychic researcher at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), later known as SRI International.

Ingo entered Westminster College in Salt Lake City in 1950 to study art. One day, while sitting on the college steps, he had a premonition that he would one day do something “big” in parapsychology. After a 3-year military deployment in Asia, he returned to New York City and took a job at the United Nations, in order to support his art career.

In 1969, Ingo had a chance meeting with the controversial Cleve Backster who was famous for connecting plants to lie-detectors in order to watch people interact with their consciousness. Turns out Ingo was able to think thoughts to the plants and have them respond. When researchers at the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) heard about this, they sought Ingo out. At the ASPR, Ingo tried out-of-body, clairvoyant, and psychokinesis experiments all with great success. By 1973 big media was starting to find out. Through Time, Newsweek, Horizon, and The Smithsonian articles, Ingo became well known for his psychic abilities. He then came to the attention of Hal Puthoff who was putting together the research program at SRI.

A psychic Cold War arms race heats up

What I’m keen on about Ingo’s writing is his deep knowledge of context on a matter. I’ve known the general history of Project STARGATE and the SRI research program for some time, but I really appreciate the deep dive Ingo takes into the historical context in this tome.

In 1923, Alexander Vassilievitch Leontivich picked up on a mental “goodbye” from a dying friend. This sparked a great interest in psychic ability in the normally skeptical scientist. However, the Soviet Union, being an officially atheist, read rational, Communist state frowned on all things psychic and mystical.

However, Dr. Leontivich was able to frame his research as exploring the bio-electric nature of human physiology and the publication of his Thought Transference ushered in a great up-swell in related Soviet research. His seminal Biological Radio Communication was published in 1967, just in time to be discovered by Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder and described in their book Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain.

From Psychic Literacy:

“The Soviet research indicated the existence of a ‘biological mind’ which possesses characteristics quite different from our ‘mental mind,’ and, further that this biological mind is electromagnetic in nature.”

As an aside, see these fascinating reads for more about what the CIA knew about Soviet and Czech psychic research programs.

The fact that the Soviets were so far ahead sparked “Washington’s psychic dilemma.” The psychic arms race had begun.

The challenge of American psychic literacy

The American mainstream has had a rich interest in science fiction and fantasy throughout most of the 20th century. But when challenged to accept actual psychic abilities, Ingo noted, it balked. Besides the giggle factor, there was the difficulty of defining what “psychic” even means.

When challenged by one of the military decision-makers to define “psychic,” Ingo promised to get back to the general. But when writing a reply, Ingo was aghast at his lack of ability to define the subject. Doesn’t everyone already know what “psychic” means? Maybe, maybe not.

Predicting the future: are we creating the future, perceiving it, or does it create us?

Ingo had a serious penchant for predicting the future. Many of his writings revolve around the subject, such as Your Nostradamus Factor as well as his own testimonial-collecting website, The Prophecy Project. This book is no different.

Ingo wonders aloud about how we interact with the future. He provides some cases from history.

In 1833, a young Adrian Christian dreamed he was captain of a ship, rescuing his family from another sinking vessel. He recounted the dream to his brothers and it was duly noted in family lore.

Forty-seven years later, he had become captain of his own ship, the British India. While sailing in the south pacific, he had a dream about a sinking ship in which the word “family” prominently appeared. After having the same dream twice, on instinct, without maps, he charted a course due north, and two days later, he rescued 269 people from a sinking hull of a ship. One of the survivors was his brother. Ingo makes the point that the odds of this being mere chance, that the sheer number of circumstances being required to line up, would be astronomical.

Ingo leaves the future as an open discussion. He argues that it has not been solved to anyone’s satisfaction, with the most scholarly work perhaps being J. W. Dunne’s Experiment with Time from 1927.

Ingo’s working hypothesis is that the future is already formed somewhere, otherwise predictions couldn’t be possible. The future feeds back into our psychic awareness, allowing us to decide whether or not we want to choose it. To do this, we must not only pay attention, but take action when the time is right, which can take a tremendous about of courage, if it goes against what people expect of us.

The wisdom of crowds

Back on the prophecy topic, Ingo presents a chapter on psychic prediction through mass societal awareness. The most compelling example he presents is that of the sinking of the Titanic. The disaster itself had seemingly been emitting psychic warning signals for years.

J.P. Morgan, who was known to regularly use the services of famous astrologer Evangeline Evans, was supposed to be on board but canceled at the last minute.

As the high-profile maiden voyage approached, the ship’s owners, The White Star Line, began to notice an unusual spike in cancellations which they could not explain.

At least three seamen jumped ship when the Titanic made its final European docking in Southampton.

And finally, there were numerous reports of cables from family members pleading with relatives not to board the doomed ship.

Ingo muses that what is really needed is a central clearinghouse for psychic “early warnings.” And, since the book’s original writing in 1989, there are at least two of which I am aware: Ingo’s own Prophecy Project, geared towards collecting dreams and visions, and The Global Consciousness Project which picks up human consciousness’ ability to affect real-time random number generators. During, and perhaps preceding large events, such as the September 11th attacks in New York, the random number generators tend to skew in a statistically significant manner.

The electromagnetic future

Ingo believes that the electromagnetic nature of the universe interacts with all things, including humans. He argues that planetary positioning should be taken seriously as to how it affects not only psychic functioning but human nature itself. Ingo was a strong proponent of astrology, which I had not previously known about him.

Ingo cites several researchers who point to the electromagnetic nature of the human body. He reminds us of the original psychic research published by the Soviets in which they recognize the electromagnetic nature of psychic functioning. One such publication was Electromagnetic Bio-Information edited by Dr. Fritz Albert Popp. Dr. Popp is well known for rediscovering and making the first extensive physical analysis of biophotons (they were originally discovered in 1922).

For more information on Fritz Albert Popp, and a fantastic treatise on how we are connected to everything else in the universe and not separate from it, I recommend The Field by Lynne McTaggart.

In this chapter, Ingo makes reference to yet another book, The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundations of Life by Dr. Robert Becker.

In this book, Dr. Becker makes the point that all species are capable of sensing one another’s bio-electric field and that this leads to a myriad of possible conclusions about psychic research. Based on his studies of how salamanders regrow limbs, Dr. Becker identified an electrically-based healing force that may one day regrow damaged limbs, spinal tissue, and organs in the human body.

As yet another aside, for those interested in the electric nature of the body for healing purposes, and a healing device based on electrons, I recommend Dr. Jerry Tennant’s Healing is Voltage, and any of his talks, such as this one.

Ultimately, Ingo believes the bioelectric nature of the human body to be a bridge between 3D reality and psychic otherworlds.

Dean Radin’s afterword

Dean Radin of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) was given the last word on how things have evolved since Ingo scribed this book in 1989. Did the psychic renaissance come after all?

Dean believes we have made progress in getting psychic realities accepted by the mainstream. He cites the fact that, in 2018, an article appeared in American Psychological Associated (APA) magazine entitled The Experimental Evidence for Parapsychological Phenomena: A Review with an unequivocal conclusion:

“The evidence for psi is comparable to that for established phenomena in psychology and other disciplines.”

Mr. Radin cites several other examples of recent mainstream scientific acceptance.

However, anecdotally, Mr. Radin has found it much easier to get high-brow scientific endorsements for his recent book, Real Magic.

Reading list

Psychic Literacy & The Coming Psychic Renaissance by Ingo Swann

Ingoswann.com: a fresh website

The last time I searched for Ingo-related information, his personal website, Superpowers of the Human Biomind, was still in effect. This has now been replaced by the contemporary ingoswann.com, run by his estate.

The new website contains Ingo’s artwork, writing, Remote Viewing research, interviews, and The Prophecy Project. Several free writings and memoirs are available as free PDF downloads, such as The Real Story of Remote Viewing.

I should mention to researchers and fans alike, that the full Superpower of the Human Biomind is archived on this new website and available for download as a PDF.

Quotations and cover art are included with the publisher’s permission.

By Brian Lightfoot, Director of Standard Remote Viewing where he offers training, services, and publishes a newsletter containing Remote Viewing project research and future predictions.