Let me make a few things Very Clear right off the bat here before we go any further. This was sent to me in a email. There was no link to the source. I am posting it here because it points to military testing, and I thought it was kind of interesting if true. Has anyone heard of this at all? Anyone know of these tests? Think it is possible?

As I stated above there is no link, I am only going to post the story I received. It makes sense to me and I wouldn't doubt the IDEA OF IT could hold water. What say you? I am not changing anything to what I received. This is exactly how it came to me.

The Story:
"This information about hair has been hidden from the public since the Viet Nam War .

Our culture leads people to believe that hair style is a matter of personal preference, that hair style is a matter of fashion and/or convenience, and that how people wear their hair is simply a cosmetic issue. Back in the Viet Nam war however, an entirely different picture emerged, one that has been carefully covered up and hidden from public view.

In the early nineties, Sally [name changed to protect privacy] was married to a licensed psychologist who worked at a VA Medical hospital. He worked with combat veterans with PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder. Most of them had served in Viet Nam.

Sally said, " I remember clearly an evening when he came back to our apartment on Doctor's Circle carrying a thick official looking folder in his hands. Inside were hundreds of pages of certain studies commissioned by the government. He was in shock from the contents. What he read in those documents completely changed his life. From that moment on my conservative middle of the road husband grew his hair and beard and never cut them again. What is more, the VA Medical center let him do it, and other very conservative men in the staff followed his example. As I read the documents, I learned why. It seems that during the Viet Nam War special forces in the war department had sent undercover experts to comb American Indian Reservations looking for talented scouts, for tough young men trained to move stealthily through rough terrain. They were especially looking for men with outstanding, almost supernatural, tracking abilities. Before being approached, these carefully selected men were extensively documented as experts in tracking and survival.

With the usual enticements, the well proven smooth phrases used to enroll new recruits, some of these indian trackers were then enlisted. Once enlisted, an amazing thing happened. Whatever talents and skills they had possessed on the reservation seemed to mysteriously disappear, as recruit after recruit failed to perform as expected in the field.

Serious casualities and failures of performance led the government to contract expensive testing of these recruits, and this is what was found.

When questioned about their failure to perform as expected, the older recruits replied consistantly that when they received their required military haircuts, they could no longer 'sense' the enemy, they could no longer access a 'sixth sense' , their 'intuition' no longer was reliable, they couldn't 'read' subtle signs as well or access subtle extrasensory information.

So the testing institute recruited more indian trackers, let them keep their long hair, and tested them in multiple areas. Then they would pair two men together who had received the same scores on all the tests. They would let one man in the pair keep his hair long, and gave the other man a military haircut. Then the two men retook the tests.

Time after time the man with long hair kept making high scores. Time after time, the man with the short hair failed the tests in which he had previously scored high scores.

Here is a typical test:

The recruit is sleeping out in the woods. An armed 'enemy' approaches the sleeping man. The long haired man is awakened out of his sleep by a strong sense of danger and gets away long before the enemy is close, long before any sounds from the approaching enemy are audible.

In another version of this test the long haired man senses an approach and somehow intuits that the enemy will perform a physical attack. He follows his 'sixth sense' and stays still, pretending to be sleeping, but quickly grabs the attacker and 'kills' him as the attacker reaches down to strangle him.

This same man, after having passed these and other tests, then received a military haircut and consistantly failed these tests, and many other tests that he had previously passed.

So the document recommended that all Indian trackers be exempt from military haircuts. In fact, it required that trackers keep their hair long. "

Comment:

The mammalian body has evolved over millions of years. Survival skills of human and animal at times seem almost supernatural. Science is constantly coming up with more discoveries about the amazing abilities of man and animal to survive. Each part of the body has highly sensitive work to perform for the survival and well being of the body as a whole.The body has a reason for every part of itself.

Hair is an extension of the nervous system, it can be correctly seen as exteriorized nerves, a type of highly evolved 'feelers' or 'antennae' that transmit vast amounts of important information to the brainstem, the limbic system, and the neocortex.

Not only does hair in people, including facial hair in men, provide an information highway reaching the brain, hair also emits energy, the electromagnetic energy emitted by the brain into the outer environment. This has been seen in Kirlian photography when a person is photographed with long hair and then rephotographed after the hair is cut.

When hair is cut, receiving and sending transmissions to and from the environment are greatly hampered. This results in numbing-out .

Cutting of hair is a contributing factor to unawareness of environmental distress in local ecosystems. It is also a contributing factor to insensitivity in relationships of all kinds. It contributes to sexual frustration.


Conclusion:

In searching for solutions for the distress in our world, it may be time for us to consider that many of our most basic assumptions about reality are in error. It may be that a major part of the solution is looking at us in the face each morning when we see ourselves in the mirror.

The story of Sampson and Delilah from the Bible has a lot of encoded truth to tell us. When Delilah cut Sampson's hair, the once undefeatable Sampson was defeated."

It is an interesting angle.

Of course we have the story of Samson losing his strength when his hair is cut.

Chinese Royal guards apparently grew their hair long for these reasons.

Many believe hair catches the spiritual power coming out of the crown chakra (Wizard hats and Yiddish skull caps have the same theory behind them, along with Turbans and dunce caps etc...).

Strange though that Buddhist and Christian and Eygptian monks shaved their heads for the connectedness idea.

It may be physiological or psychological though. Good post, I wish there were a more definative answer.

I felt this was obligatory
2nd

Originally posted by onehuman
The story of Sampson and Delilah from the Bible has a lot of encoded truth to tell us. When Delilah cut Sampson's hair, the once undefeatable Sampson was defeated."

You had my interest until the Holy Roller reference at the end. How is it some people always seem to find a way to say "See... the bible tells us so." I'm not trying to judge you, I respect your beliefs. But seriously... what credible evidence is there to any of it? Faith, eh!?

Originally posted by PsychNurse

Originally posted by onehuman
The story of Sampson and Delilah from the Bible has a lot of encoded truth to tell us. When Delilah cut Sampson's hair, the once undefeatable Sampson was defeated."

You had my interest until the Holy Roller reference at the end. How is it some people always seem to find a way to say "See... the bible tells us so." I'm not trying to judge you, I respect your beliefs. But seriously... what credible evidence is there to any of it? Faith, eh!?

Uhhhhhh.......you dont consider the bible to have encoded information?

The evidence is that ancient cultures used to consider hair to have some higher significance then we presume. Their evidence was presumably based on observable occourances.

It's documented, across the globe, that there is cultural and spiritual significance attached to hair (past and present cultures) ... As with many things that are considered as part of the "whole" or the "balance" these things have relevance and meaning.

Whether the military study/experiments are true or myth - that's a good question...

ETA:
Another thought: these experiments were conducted on young men therefore it's reasonable to presume that their hair was virgin hair (i.e. not bleached, dyed, etc.) So another consideration would be whether these "connections" would be diminished or not when the hair was uncut, but otherwise altered (i.e. bleached, dyed with chemicals) vs (dyed with natural things like plants or berries) not to mention gender influences, as well ... there must be individual experiences out there. Anyone?

Ive had long hair since i was a child and i have very sensitive ESP, especially when it involves danger. now whether this has anything to do with my long hair? i have no idea. i could see the correlation as with cats and other animals, who use their hair as feeler devices so there probably is merit to this phenomenon.

now i have a bonified excuse.

I am very superstitious about my hair and believe it's bad luck to cut it. The few periods in my life when I have worn my hair short typically led to some kind of eventual disaster or another. When I don't cut it at all, life tends to always workout well.

If you have ever been in a situation where you felt the hair on your arms or back of your neck stand on end, then there really may be something to hair having some purpose.

Many ultra religious people too are adverse to cutting their hair and or beards.

There may be something to this.

Thanks for such an interesting read, although there is no conformation of this story actually being true I firmly believe that it holds some truth.

I have long hair nearly down to my waist, have grown it since I was 15 and haven't had it cut in ten years. I shave (now and then) but have no intention of EVER having these long wavy brown locks cut or trimmed again.

I would seriously hurt anyone who tried, and that nearly happened a while ago when someone saw fit to suggest it while we were on a road trip with the lads and had downed a few beers.

I think he got the verbal message before he made a mistake. Take a piece of me and I take a piece of you!

Follicle jelousy is a pitiful thing.

Long hair is cool, no doubt about it, and who knows, maybe it can grow power all of it's own.

Cheers my dear hippy friends. Big star and flag for this thread.

Originally posted by PsychNurseYou had my interest until the Holy Roller reference at the end. How is it some people always seem to find a way to say "See... the bible tells us so." I'm not trying to judge you, I respect your beliefs. But seriously... what credible evidence is there to any of it? Faith, eh!?

Someone mentioning a biblical story, from the Old testament, no less, and you call THAT "Holy Roller"???? My aren't we sensitive!

Oh my GOD! That is all I am going to say! I'm kidding. You have no idea how much this story relates. I have a lot of premonition, and all week i had been thinking about this. I get insight from time to time and i thought it was rather silly yet i understood the possible science behind it. Now you come on here with this thread and completely confirm my insight. THANK YOU.

Also, i recently cut my hair, not giving it up again. I am now a believer of the insight and have even stronger faith in GOD because of this.

I wasn't going to say anything, but, hell with it.

I have had "sensitivity" to things on and off for most of my life. I've noticed that my sensitivity for seeing things (like shadow people etc) increased dramatically when my hair was longer. I now keep my head shaved and have rarely had the interruptions that I had before.

Originally posted by RicketyCricket
I wasn't going to say anything, but, hell with it.

I have had "sensitivity" to things on and off for most of my life. I've noticed that my sensitivity for seeing things (like shadow people etc) increased dramatically when my hair was longer. I now keep my head shaved and have rarely had the interruptions that I had before.

Thats what im saying! I usually lose my abilities, not all the way, but they weaken when my hair is cut. Now i remember hearing something in the bible about a character that became weak once his hair was cut. <--- I think that story might relate to this. I hate bringing the bible into subjects because i think religion is just... eh, but this is on the ball.

I wonder if this is why women are allegedly more in tune with their surroundings and with other people's emotions? I wonder if female soldiers have been documented to sense danger at a level significantly higher than their male counterparts?

Neat thread and very interesting. It's like the hair acts as a cat's whiskers or something. I have long hair and noticed a few things. One is that if I'm at a store with someone and we get separated, I can track them down very easily, even if it's a big store. Another involves my job. I clean offices. If I'm in a room, I'll get a feeling that I should check behind something or lift something up. When I do, I always find something there that I would have otherwise missed. I don't know how to describe the feeling. It's kind of like a nudge. Anywho, I'm not sure if it has anything to do with my hair or if it's something else entirely. It's just something I noticed.

I would not be surprised if hair acted as some type of "feeler" for ESP-type things. Like the hair is able to make the extra connection that the rest of your body cannot.

I've lost all of my hair in the past due to chemotherapy. As a then 15 year old girl with hair down to the middle of my back, it was almost more devastating than the cancer itself (I could have died, but I was more worried about my hair ). I'd say that not having hair definitely messed with my senses, but I'd think that would be more related to the chemotherapy being pumped into my body than something like this. I've felt like a completely different person since my hair grew back, but again, that's probably a result of not having toxins constantly in my system.