This 2016 Second Edition of MindWar revises and expands the original 2013 book.
In 1980 an obscure internal U.S. Army concept paper, "From PSYOP to MindWar", accidentally became public. Though only a brief, theoretical speculation, it exploded into the focus of alarmist rumors and debates for the next three decades. Is the government involved in invasion of the mind beyond the blundering, haphazard legacy of the infamous MKULTRA experiments? Even more unsettling, do such efforts extend beyond conventional scientific research to dark and arcane arts whose very existence is the stuff of legend?
The answers are here, in this book by one of that 1980 paper's co-authors, Lt. Colonel Michael Aquino. Originally intended for the eyes of government policymakers alone, it is now openly available. Ironically MindWar is unclassified only because a level high enough to embrace it has never been anticipated or even conceptualized. What it is capable of setting in motion is simply beyond all previous human interactive experience.
For millennia violent warfare has been the scourge of humanity, and all attempts to end it through negotiated or imposed peace have brought only temporary respite. On the premise that war is endemic to the human disposition, MindWar proposes to eliminate its killing and destruction by replacing it with a far more powerful kind of war - one which focuses on the human mind both individually and collectively. The persons and property of people are removed as targets, replaced by the divisive situations and problems originating in their consciousness. These are then controlled, adjusted, and reformed to produce a harmonious and cooperative total environment.
The price for this solution is that, for the first time in practical history, the actual machinery of human thought is accessed, by the methodical application of science, psychology, and esoteric arts of antiquity. MindWar assumes, as did the ancients, that the ultimate aspiration of mankind is to the Good. But, like the Manhattan Project which rashly opened an earlier genie's bottle, MindWar could be misused with even more ominous consequences. Devised to save humanity, it could also supersede it. Hence this genie must be examined and evaluated while its bottle is still sealed.
This book extrapolation and evolution of the original 1980 concept is not merely theoretical. It proposes "laboratory" implementation through the structural redesign of the U.S. Army's three "Special Operations" branches: Psychological Operations, Special Forces, and Civil Affairs. A multiphase sequence of their interaction in a MindWar campaign is outlined, with the international crisis resolution procedures of the United States modified to facilitate it. In a forthcoming second volume, the structures and programs to implement this will be discussed in detail.
Not merely a "military book", MindWar extends its application to human political and social interaction generally, identifying and refining what were previously only vague or unknown mental processes into a new science of "thought architecture". It opens the door to a standard of rationality and precision in human affairs in which the experience and exercise of thought are finally, fully mature.
Non-fictional books by Dr. Aquino generally fall into three categories: historical, practical, and initiatory.
Historical works include The Neutron Bomb (a study of the domestic and foreign politics surrounding the proposed NATO introduction of that weapon in 1977-8) and Extreme Prejudice (a documentary exposé of the 1986-7 "Satanic ritual abuse" scam at the Presidio of San Francisco.
Two other [2-volume] books - The Church of Satan and The Temple of Set - are not only histories but initiatory analyses as well, examining the philosophical and metaphysical concepts which define and energize those religious institutions.
As one of the U.S. Army's extremely rare Political-Military Affairs Officers [with credentials in Strategic & Space Intelligence, Psychological Operations, Special Forces, Civil Affairs, Defense Attaché, and Foreign Area Officer], Dr. Aquino has also introduced the practical application of "MindWar" as a methodology for reducing, if not eliminating contemporary humanity's obsession with and reliance upon murderous, destructive conventional war (PhysWar"). His 2013 book MindWar introduces this solution and outlines its successive stages of implementation.
Finally a purely-initiatory work, MindStar, addresses the purely-metaphysical "soul" of human thought which MindWar [as a practical curriculum] omits, confronting the elusive questions of human divinity and immortality.
Unsurprisingly Dr. Aquino's fictional ventures - We Break the Sword, FireForce, and Morlindalë ("authored" by The One Ring) - all draw upon extensive political and philosophical principles in their telling. Both FireForce and Morlindalë utilize the literary technique of parody in a serious, rather than humorous exploration and extrapolation of the original source.
Additionally Dr. Aquino has recovered and Edited a collection of childhood poems by his mother, Betty Ford: Pegasus in Pinfeathers.
All of these books are available on Amazon in both printed paperback and Kindle ebook editions.
