Esse livro tem tanta coisa bizarra que parece mentira, mas o pior é que é verdade, pelo menos em grande parte. Um relato sobre as várias tentativas do exército e da CIA americanos de fazer soldados com habilidades além das normais. Como atravessar paredes, fazer projeção astral (eles chamam de visão remota) e matar cabras com o poder da mente (daí o título). O que realmente aconteceu. O que não parece ser verdade é que a cabra morreu. Mas o ponto todo do livro não é de longe se dava certo ou não (Ron Jonson não parece dar muita atenção para o quão plausíveis são os poderes), mas sim o que e como tentaram, o que só reforça o tom bizarro da situação. Rápido de ler (ouvir pelo menos) e bem curioso. Só preciso ver o filme para saber o quão bem adaptado foi.

Foarte interesant subiectul si foarte fain documentat, mi-a placut mult mai mult decat ma asteptam.

In dragoste si in razboi totul e permis - autorul ne arata concret cum se poate aplica si in realitate aceasta expresie.

Recomand si filmul, desi sunt cateva abateri de la actiunea din carte :).

This started out as a hilarious read but soon degenerated into an unfocused ramble. Did not finish it.

After watching the movie version of The Men Who Stare At Goats, I figured that there must be a kernel of truth to it coated with several layers of Hollywood bullshit so I read the book to get an idea of what the real story was. I thought I’d get a funny story about some stupid things the military did once upon a time. Instead, the book turns into a template for starting conspiracy theories that really pissed me off.

Oddly enough, the really weird stuff that happened in the film version is the stuff that probably actually happened, but I understand why Hollywood had to wrap that in a fictional storyline because the book wanders around and becomes just a series of odd anecdotes and wild speculation about weird things that the U.S. military and intelligence communities may or may not have done.

An army officer named Jim Channon went to Vietnam and realized that most soldiers really don’t want to kill anyone. On returning home after the war, he somehow talked the army into financing a research project where he experimented with several new age movements and techniques. He wrote a manual based on his experience calling for a new type of unit, the First Earth Battalion.

Channon’s manual called for incorporating several flower child ideas into the army. For example, when approaching natives in occupied territory the soldiers would have speakers hanging around their necks that played peaceful music, and hold flowers and small animals to show good intentions. Channon also theorized that the FEB could become a class of Warrior Monks, complete with psychic powers like remote viewing, walking through walls, and invisibility.

Amazingly, Channon was taken somewhat seriously and offered a small command to implement his ideas. Channon refused because he now claims that he didn’t actual believe any of the psychic power ideas were really possible, that he was just trying to get the army to open its collective mind to some new ways of doing business. (I think that Channon may have conned the army into funding an extended vacation and then turned in something he never dreamed would be taken seriously.)

However, the FEB manual eventually found it’s way into the hands of General Stubbelbine, the head of army intelligence in the early 80’s and a believer in the paranormal. Stubbelbine was a proponent of it and tried to interest the Special Forces in it, but they were already aware of it and trying to adapt some of the techniques without all the hippie crap. One of their big experiments was trying to stop the hearts of goats by staring at them. Stubbelbine had to settle for setting up a small office with several soldiers trying to develop remote viewing and other psychic powers.

The author interviewed Channon, Stubbelbine and several other folks who participated in several programs related to the FEB manual, and all of them freely admit that this happened and provided a lot of the material in the early chapters. That’s a pretty amusing story, but it comes across that these were just some loopy ideas that the military tried on a very small scale but were eventually phased out.

Where the book goes off the rails is when the author tries to say that Channon’s FEB ideas were possibly more widely adopted and in use today. That’s where it turns into a collection of oddball stories related by a variety of unreliable sources, with no other research done that is documented in the book.

The author gets obsessed with the notion that Channon’s idea of using music as part of the FEB was modified and used as torture techniques in Iraq on prisoners by playing songs from the Barney kids show over and over at high levels or that the military/intelligence community is experimenting with subliminal messaging. He also notes how the government has used loud music at other times to try and drive people out of siege situations and ties that back to the FEB. Then he theorizes that the FBI bombarded the Branch Davidians in Waco with subliminal messages based on pure speculation.

First, I don’t think that the idea of playing really loud music is an offshoot of the original FEB manual. I think the military and government, like most of us, realize that playing annoying music at really loud levels makes people crazy. You just have to live in an apartment with thin walls and have a heavy metal fan for a neighbor to figure that one out. And I’m more than willing to believe that the government has fooled around with subliminal messaging, but saying that it was used at Waco without a shred of proof is the kind of reckless speculation that starts a lot of the conspiracy theory nonsense that floats around today.

It isn’t the only things in the book that seem like blue-sky bullshitting. There’s a section where the author outlines how one of the former recruits in Stubbelbine psychic program started going on the Art Bell show after retirement, blabbed about the whole thing and then became a regular guest by making a series of wild predictions about the end of the world.

The author ties some of the comments that this guy made to comments that other guests made regarding the Hale-Bopp comet that were then linked to the Heaven’s Gate suicide cult. Uh….why? Just because one nutjob who used to be in a military program went on a radio show hosted by a nutjob who interviewed some other nutjobs that might have influenced some other nutjobs isn’t really a link to anything. It’s ironic that the author mocks Art Bell and then uses Art Bell methodology for the rest of the book.

There’s a lot of this kind of crap with various people making claims about how some of the old psychic spy programs are still being used, but again, there isn’t a shred of proof. The only thing close to a fact is that he notes how much Bush increased the intelligence budget. Duh. I’m not a Bush fan but a country that suffered a devastating terror attack and then got into two wars is going to increase its intelligence budget. It doesn’t mean the money is going to psychic spy programs.

Adding to the conspiracy theory vibe, there’s a long story at the end of the book that tries to tie the documented MK-ULTRA program the CIA ran where it doped unsuspecting people with LSD in 1950-60s to even darker claims about murder and potential torture techniques used by the military/intelligence community today. It’s certainly within the realm of possibility, but again, there’s no real proof presented, just interviews and theories of a couple of people who claim to have researched it.

This whole book left me baffled. I wouldn’t be surprised if the U.S. does look into using new age or psychic spy ideas in military or intelligence programs today, but trying to tie it all back to the FEB is a stretch. Especially since he doesn't prove that anything like it does actually exist today. Here you’ve got a story about the military doing something kind of crazy, but then the author went off on these even crazier and unsubstantiated tangents that make trying to kill goats by staring at them seem rational by comparison.

Dijelom zabavna, dijelom dosadna, dijelom zanimljiva, dijelom skroz bizarna. A zbog činjenice da je pisana prema istinitom događaju ne znam je li mi cijela priča više smiješna ili zastrašujuća. :/

Wow - this was a weird one! It certainly kept my attention so I'm giving it 4 stars. If even only half of this stuff is true it is still a crazy story!

Como ferviente fan de Ron Jonson la cantidad de estrellas estaba puesta antes de comenzarlo, pero eso no quita a la misma calidad del libro.

Se notan los años de diferencia, este libro lo noto mas tosco en el tema del lenguaje, pero es divertido verlo desde ese punto y ver como a cambiado a lo largo del tiempo.

El libro en si es fascinante, mucho mas al saber de cuanta credibilidad cuenta Jonson, aquí lo mas importante es la forma en que se muestra que la linea entre la locura y la consideración es casi imperceptible en altas esferas, como lo es el área militar, personas que tienen literalmente nuestras vidas en sus manos, y que simplemente deciden poner recursos para que hombres hagan explotar cabras con su mente. y quizás esto no es lo peor, ya que si bien puede verse chistoso por un lado, puede volverse muy peligroso y dar lugar a situaciones horribles sin ningún tipo de castigo.

La irracionalidad y el manto de misterio que ni siquiera al final de libro es levantado, nos da a conocer el alcance de estas situaciones y solo nos deja especular hasta donde llego todo eso.

I have no idea why I like this guy so much.

I started this book because I knew of the film which was based on it. Nothing could have prepared me for the world that I entered when I started the audiobook. Think about the craziest ideas you got when you were drunk or high (like why doesn’t sheep’s wool behave like a wool sweater when wet, and shrink while they’re wearing it) and you're not even going to come close to the First Earth Battalion and the Human Potential Movement. However, in contrast to your wool thought experiment, these guys actually received funding to find out why. And this guy just goes on doing his journalistic duty to report what people like Jim Channon say they did, then he finds corroborating evidence and gathers more and more testimonies which all point to the same story. If there weren’t people swearing by these things, this would have probably made one of the worst cold war themed science fiction plots.

And Jon Ronson goes about collecting everything, getting people to trust him and tell him their stories, writing down everything and questioning almost nothing with what I would attempt to characterize as utter serenity. I mean I would have been less mesmerized if you told me the story of the end times and how the four horsemen are coming. But this guy’s writing makes him look like he had already gone through the end times a dozen times over and what he’s reporting in this book is just a normal thing. A de-bleated goat being stared to death in a fort Bragg barn feels like just a normal day’s reporting, something like the stock markets going up and down on a Monday morning.

So yeah, I’m now a Jon Ronson fan. And I think I’ll check out every one of his books from now on. So stay tuned for more fanboy stuff.

Um livro-reportagem sobre como o movimento new age entrou no exército e como boas intenções (ou não) aliadas à ignorância e ingenuidade (novamente, ou não) podem ser perversas.

Um oficial volta da guerra do Vietnã perturbado e buscando uma maneira pacífica de vencer batalhas -- nascia aí o Primeiro Batalhão da Terra, onde supersoldados tinham o poder de encarar uma cabra até matá-la, tornarem-se invisíveis, prever acontecimentos, manipular mentes, atravessar paredes e por aí vai. Alguns deles se autointitulavam guerreiros Jedi.

É hilário ver como o pessoal supostamente sério e misterioso do exército, CIA e até FBI, acreditava que essa maluquice toda realmente podia ser possível. Mas também é assustador e trágico ver como muito dessas ideias foram levadas não só ao pé da letra, como também evoluíram para torturas, assassinatos e sabe-se lá mais o quê.

Vale destacar que muitas das teorias expostas não possuem provas concretas e são especulações do autor ou baseadas em evidências encontradas somente neste livro.

Gosto muito do trabalho do Jon Ronson-- ele escreve de maneira simples e fácil de entender, juntando uma penca de informações em uma cronologia interessante e divertida.

Sobre a violência do governo, o depoimento de um entrevistado -- cujo pai, cientista da CIA, aparentemente foi assassinado pela Agência por estar perturbado demais com o trabalho e querer revelar informações ao público -- me chamou a atenção:

— As pessoas têm sofrido tanta lavagem cerebral por meio da ficção [...], por meio daquela coisa de Tom Clancy, que pensam: "Nós conhecemos isso. Sabemos que a CIA faz isso." De fato, não sabemos nada sobre isso. Não há nenhum caso disso, e toda essa coisa fictícia é como uma imunização contra a realidade. Faz as pessoas pensarem que sabem de coisas que não sabem e permite que elas tenham [...] um cinismo que é apenas uma fina camada além da qual não são nem um pouco cínicas.

I really found it hard to go through this book. Not only it is disjointed with too many unrelated characters, it also does terribly at attempting to be humorous. The topic covered is really interesting, and I understand it is extremely difficult to get any real information due to the nature of how this works, but the author seemed more concerned about highlighting how many wacky people he talked to rather than presenting a coherent story. If this is meant to be a silly "fun" book, it tragically failed in that regard for me.

And for people thinking of still getting this book on Audible, don't! What truly made it unbearable for me was the narration, I recommend you have a listen to a sample clip before purchasing to decide if you're able to listen to 6 hours of that (forgetting about the content). Luckily, Audible accepts returns which I definitely took advantage of for this purchase.

2,5 ⭐

. . . America, the great superpower, needed to be defended by people who actually had superpowers . . .

When it comes to cockamamie plots and plans to make America great again, nothing our government and the US military cooks up should surprise you. Experiments in mind control, and yes, even "psychic assassins" seem pretty much par for the course. Ronson, a British journalist who has made his name exposing the weird and the wacky, here presents several of the more hare-brained schemes once considered, and/or implemented in the war against our enemies.

Warrior Monks, brown notes, the horrors of Celine Dion and Barney are all covered here.



My favorite line?
I couldn't decide if Jim was being delightfully naive, infuriatingly naive, or sophisticatedly evasive.

One side note: Fort Bragg's Goat Lab is no more - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/artic...

At least that's the official story . . .

My four-star review should in no way be taken as a recommendation. It seems as though plenty of people actively hate this book. And, indeed, much of the information presented exists in a purely believe-it-or-not realm; evidence is scant, eyewitnesses shadowy. (Well, would you admit to participating in any of this crap?) I, however, found it to be an entertaining read that left me shaking my head while reaching for a bottle of gin, mumbling aloud something along the lines of "Our tax dollars at work . . ."