I have been reading The Cardinal of the Kremlin by Tom Clancy. When I first read it decades ago, much of the technical information about lasers and interrogation techniques went over my head. The laser details still mostly go over my head!
This read-through, I realized that Tom Clancy portrayed a KGB "interrogation" that used telepathy and brainwave reading to "read" thoughts. But he portrayed it without saying outright what was happening.
If you have a copy of the book handy, turn to the last part of chapter ten, where Svetlana is put into a sensory deprivation saltwater tank and cannot even hear her own screams. She has divers in the tank with her to keep her from touching her air hose and realizing where she is. Otherwise, she is only wearing a wetsuit. In preparation for the tank session, she was coated with oil and given an injection.
Yet with no other wires, transmitters, or receivers mentioned--other than her own body--she is able to hear the interrogating doctor gently whisper into a microphone in another room. Then, somehow, despite having an air hose in, she talks back to the interrogator and tells him everything.
The interrogation facilities are described as the "most secret part of Lefortovo's interrogation wing."
Both "mind reading" and translation of sounds into electrical signals that the brain can perceive as speech are now publicly acknowledged to be possible. As to the first, the Chinese can use computer brain interface technology to interpret brainwave activity and accurately output unspoken thoughts as written Mandarin. As to the second, we have had cochlear implants available for many years.
Just because something was not publicly known to be possible decades ago is no indication of whether it was possible back then. Physics principles are the same yesterday, today, and into the future. Science--which means knowledge--increases or decreases, but physics stays the same.
It looks like Tom Clancy or one of his editors knew classified information about telepathy-enabling technology almost forty years ago. Who else knew, and how else was it used?
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