I saw the movie, "The Men Who Stare at Goats with interest."  I enjoyed the movie for what it was - a satirical look at the US military's attempt to develop more of the full potential of their warriors using so-called paranormal approaches. 

Unfortunately, words like "paranormal" and "supernatural" are loaded terms which carry negative connotations. For this reason, scientists are hesitant to associate themselves with people who profess interest in such things. However, since I have already been associated with one of the real-life characters of the book and movie, I would like to discuss the real-life military possibility of using more of the potential of the human mind through my area of expertise - Invincible Defense Technology (IDT), a technique that includes Yogic Flying. 

I would also like to recommend a book by Craig Pearson, Ph.D. titled: The Complete Book of Yogic Flying http://www.mum.edu/achievements/2008_11_08.html  which discusses this approach in great detail. (Full disclosure: Dr. Pearson is the Executive Vice-President of Maharishi University of Management. I am employed at the Center for Advanced Military Science (CAMS) which is affiliated with this institution.)

In The Men Who Stare at Goats, the character General Hopgood (played by Stephen Lang) is based on Major General Albert Stubblebine, US Army (Retired), a former commander of the US Army Intelligence & Security Command (INSCOM). He is satirically portrayed as attempting to walk through walls without success. 

In both the book and movie, a soldier under his command allegedly killed a goat by staring at it. In real life, Stubblebine served as a consultant on my Consciousness-Based Military Defense doctoral committee at The Union Institute & University. He was an intelligent pioneer in the development of human resource technologies for the US Army. Stubblebine understood the latent potential of the human mind, and, that warriors would eventually be trained to harness it. Jon Ronson wrote in his book, The Men Who Stare at Goats, "General Stubblebine passionately believes the First Earth Battalion http://firstearthbattalion.com doctrine that every human being alive was capable of performing supernatural miracles."

While serving on my doctoral committee, Stubblebine helped organize my lecture series about Invincible Defense Technology in Moscow. Thanks to him, and the late Brig. Gen. Clarence E. Beck, U.S. Army (Ret.), I recruited another distinguished general (retired Soviet Army General-Major Leonid Shershnev, who fought in Afghanistan) as well as other military-related leaders to participate in my doctoral program in Consciousness-Based Military Defense which is now known as Invincible Defense Technology in military circles.
 
Shershnev was a key figure in the Soviet's war in Afghanistan. His reflections on the futility of war were similar to Stubblebine's and those of many of our own military personnel after the Vietnam War. Shershnev regretted the inappropriate waste of lives, and has vowed to spend his life working to create world peace. Probably due to his efforts, many generals and other military-related leaders from Russia and other former Soviet-block countries attended the Third International Conference on Invincible Defense in The Netherlands in the 1990's. Senior leaders wrote encouraging assessments of the potential of Invincible Defense Technology to prevent war and terrorism and apparently reported back to their governmental leaders, urging implementation. See "The Need for a Prevention Wing of the Military by the Conference Participants" http://istpp.org/military_science/third_invincible_defense_p13.html  and "The Race for 'Inner Space'" http://www.davidleffler.com/enewsletter/20080411_IDT_News.html#LETTER.BLOCK8 for related information.
The goal of Invincible Defense Technology is to enhance the peace-keeping capabilities of the military, adding a "non-lethal weapon," a kind of national armor (called "rastri kavach" in ancient Vedic literature) that would ensure the security and invincibility of their nation. The founder and chief proponent of this approach is the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a renowned scientist of consciousness and Vedic scholar. Maharishi stated that so-called supernatural abilities are normal to a stress-free nervous system, which can be achieved through the Transcendental Meditation program and its advanced practices, if people are properly trained in the correct manner to harness them. 

In 1997, studying this non-religious approach, I completed my Ph.D. under the auspices of the doctoral program at The Union Institute & University. Invincible Defense Technology was labeled such because Maharishi recognized its potential to prevent the birth of an enemy, a principle he abbreviated with the phrase "victory before war." His vision was that any country taking full advantage of this technology could become invincible. He asserted that invincibility can never be attained through conventional weapons, but can be attained if a nation is incapable of creating enemies. If a nation has no collective stress, it becomes "friends" with everyone.

Prevention Wings of the Military consisting of about 3% of the military could ideally achieve this goal. These special units would be trained in the Transcendental Meditation (TM) and TM-Sidhi programs. They would practice them in large groups, twice a day. Extensive scientific research shows these programs not only reduce stress on the individual level, but also reduce the collective societal stress that is ultimately responsible for social problems, like war, terrorism and crime. For instance, a peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution http://invinciblemilitary.org/articles/sapratableii.html#b41 (32: 776-812, 1988) found that a group of only two hundred people practicing IDT in Israel during the Lebanon war were able to reduce war deaths there by seventy-six percent. A follow-up study of seven different TM-Sidhi assemblies published in the Journal of Social Behavior and Personality http://invinciblemilitary.org/articles/sapratableii.html#b13 (17: 1, 285-338, 2005) showed similar results as well as a 68% reduction of war injuries.

These "effects at a distance" have been studied in other ways, such as research showing changes in EEG (brainwave) coherence. During the practice of Transcendental Meditation, an individual experiences "transcendental consciousness," a proposed fourth state of consciousness. This state is characterized by increased coherence of the EEG where different parts of the brain are working together more coherently. Increased EEG coherence during the TM program correlates with increased creativity and achievement outside the TM program, in activity. When many people practice this technique (or the more advanced TM-Sidhi program) together in one place, the coherence-generating effect is enhanced. Also, when meditating groups are large, similar increases in coherence are produced in subjects far removed from the group.