Jim Channon

James B. Channon (born ca. 1940) — known as Jim Channon — is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, New Age futurologist, and business consultant. He is primarily known for authoring the First Earth Battalion Operations Manual (1979, and later editions), a popular book pointing the way toward a New Age transformation in the U.S. military. Heavy on graphics, it was partly inspired by the Whole Earth Catalog counterculture magazine.

The character "Bill Django" in the 2009 film The Men Who Stare at Goats, played by Jeff Bridges, is a fictionalized version of Channon.

Channon served in the U.S. Army as an infantry officer from 1962 to 1982 and had two tours in Vietnam (1965–66 and 1970–71). His work and philosophy during his last years on active duty were documented by journalist Jon Ronson in his 2004 book The Men Who Stare at Goats. According to Ronson's book, Channon spent time between 1977 and 1979 with many of the people in California credited with starting the human potential movement — such as the Esalen Institute — and in 1979 wrote a 125-page "operations manual" for a proposed "First Earth Battalion". His concept was that a new generation of "warrior monks" would utilize paranormal abilities and counterculture principles to better prevail in future conflicts with the nation's adversaries. At a subsequent 1979 briefing at the Fort Knox, Kentucky, officer's club, Channon presented his concepts to "commanders", who (he claims) immediately made him the first commander of the First Earth Battalion. (Channon has also told a slightly different version of this story which takes place during a meeting of the "think tank" Task Force Delta, which first convened in 1983 and occurred at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.)

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