Remote viewing

[Gerard]

I came across this information accidentally:

 

Remote Viewing (RV), refers to the attempt to gather information about a distant or unseen target using paranormal means or extra-sensory perception. Typically a remote viewer is expected to give information about an object that is hidden from physical view and separated at some distance. The term was introduced by parapsychologists Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff in 1974.

 

Remote viewing was popularized in the 1990s, following the declassification of documents related to the Stargate Project, a 20 million dollar research program sponsored by the U.S. Federal Government to determine any potential military application of psychic phenomena. The program was terminated in 1995, citing a lack of documented evidence that the program had any value to the intelligence community.

 

One of the early experiments was lauded by proponents as having improved the methodology of remote viewing testing and as raising future experimental standards, but also criticized as leaking information to the participants by inadvertently leaving clues. Some later experiments had negative results when these clues were eliminated.

 

Remote viewing, like other forms of extra-sensory perception, is generally considered as pseudoscience due to the lack of replicable results, and of a positive theory that explains the outcomes of experiments.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_viewing)

 

 

More background info:

 

Stargate Project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project)

 

It was the umbrella code name of one of several sub-projects established by the U.S. Federal Government to investigate the reality, and potential military and domestic applications, of psychic phenomena, particularly "remote viewing:" the purported ability to psychically "see" events, sites, or information from a great distance. These projects were active from the 1970s through 1995, and followed up early psychic research done at The Stanford Research Institute (SRI), The American Society for Psychical Research, and other psychical research labs.

 

I am aware that even John Chang was approached by the CIA as part of this project but he refused to get involved.

 

I find this research very interesting but highly controversial since it would be classified as a siddhi from the Eastern perspective, and as we all know siddhis cannot be forced or cultivated independently as they are a by-product of spiritual practice.

 

Knowing that certain Governments (US, the former USSR and China during the cold war) have been involved and funded this research gives me the impression that this psychic power can be isolated and put into effect in a controlled environment. Very bizarre.

 

What do you think of all of this?

[Sloppy Zhang]

I got a couple books on remote viewing, one of them by someone who apparently was attached to the Stargate Project.

 

The method is sound and scientific. In fact, the progressive stages are actually well thought out, for example level 1 remote viewers would give general info, like, "tall and narrow", then as they'd get better they'd give a height estimate, then number of floors, then number of people in the building at any given time, etc etc, revealing, say, the location of some skyscraper that could be of value to intelligence.

 

The book actually heavily warns AGAINST leaving info for people, and especially against "front loading" subjects, meaning that a subject should have as LITTLE info as possible about the target, because that could skew the results and lead them to give info they "think" rather than they "know" via remote viewing. So it's somewhat sad to hear that one of the reasons that it was scrapped was because of poor protocol.

 

In the end though, I think this generally sums it up best:

 

and as we all know siddhis cannot be forced or cultivated independently as they are a by-product of spiritual practice.

 

You can't have the fruit without the tree.

Edited July 19, 2009 by Sloppy Zhang

[mouse]

 

I find this research very interesting but highly controversial since it would be classified as a siddhi from the Eastern perspective, and as we all know siddhis cannot be forced or cultivated independently as they are a by-product of spiritual practice.

 

 

 

Of course siddhis can be cultivated without spiritual/morality as a guide. Is merely concentration practice.

 

mouse

[Josh Young]

There is something to it.

That is what I think.

 

However people with the skill are not common.

Also the results are never 100%, but they are still impressive in many cases.

 

Some shamans insist that the Nazca lines were used to train such a thing, they would take students to the area and have them go through some things and then draw the symbols they saw, if they saw the Nazca symbols they would be trained for remote view type things, if not they would be trained as healers. This is still done in Peru by some shamanic groups.

 

Needless to say that this explanation of the purpose of the Nazca lines is not well known or widely believed,

[topflight]

It works and it is the real deal. I regularly got 60-80% accuracy when I was practicing. Check out http://www.crviewer.com for more information on training.

[Zhuo Ming-Dao]

I know a man who is former Air Force and was a part of the project back in the 80's. They recruited him because he occasionally had prophetic dreams. They trained him to increase the frequency and duration of these dreams and recorded all of the results. They also had him working on a project to achieve lucid awareness while in the prophetic dream state. The idea was for him (and the others in the project) to try and consciously alter the outcome of the prophetic dream and see if the alteration effected the real world outcome. He never learned the results of the experiments as the funding was cut before the study was finished.

[rain]

I came across this information accidentally:

 

Remote Viewing (RV), refers to the attempt to gather information about a distant or unseen target using paranormal means or extra-sensory perception. Typically a remote viewer is expected to give information about an object that is hidden from physical view and separated at some distance. The term was introduced by parapsychologists Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff in 1974.

 

Remote viewing was popularized in the 1990s, following the declassification of documents related to the Stargate Project, a 20 million dollar research program sponsored by the U.S. Federal Government to determine any potential military application of psychic phenomena. The program was terminated in 1995, citing a lack of documented evidence that the program had any value to the intelligence community.

 

One of the early experiments was lauded by proponents as having improved the methodology of remote viewing testing and as raising future experimental standards, but also criticized as leaking information to the participants by inadvertently leaving clues. Some later experiments had negative results when these clues were eliminated.

 

Remote viewing, like other forms of extra-sensory perception, is generally considered as pseudoscience due to the lack of replicable results, and of a positive theory that explains the outcomes of experiments.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_viewing)

More background info:

 

Stargate Project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project)

 

It was the umbrella code name of one of several sub-projects established by the U.S. Federal Government to investigate the reality, and potential military and domestic applications, of psychic phenomena, particularly "remote viewing:" the purported ability to psychically "see" events, sites, or information from a great distance. These projects were active from the 1970s through 1995, and followed up early psychic research done at The Stanford Research Institute (SRI), The American Society for Psychical Research, and other psychical research labs.

 

I am aware that even John Chang was approached by the CIA as part of this project but he refused to get involved.

 

I find this research very interesting but highly controversial since it would be classified as a siddhi from the Eastern perspective, and as we all know siddhis cannot be forced or cultivated independently as they are a by-product of spiritual practice.

 

Knowing that certain Governments (US, the former USSR and China during the cold war) have been involved and funded this research gives me the impression that this psychic power can be isolated and put into effect in a controlled environment. Very bizarre.

 

What do you think of all of this?

 

 

u soo remind me of mwright..

[goldisheavy]

I find this research very interesting but highly controversial since it would be classified as a siddhi from the Eastern perspective, and as we all know siddhis cannot be forced or cultivated independently as they are a by-product of spiritual practice.

 

I don't understand you here. What do you mean "independently"? You can cultivate any effect. For example, weight lifters cultivate strength without the slightest idea of spiritual practice all the time. A spiritual weight lifter can probably have more success and a better understanding of the lifting process, but this doesn't stop anyone from going after the effect itself for its own sake.

 

Now if you open your mind just a little, you can see that all effects are like this. You can go after any effects for that effects sake without being spiritual. Why should there be a limit to this? Of course there is not!

 

What spirituality offers is a holistic view. It offers an all-embracing view, a way to easily and naturally relate all appearances/phenomena. It's very useful, perhaps priceless. But it is silly to say that some effects are side-effects of spiritual-practice and are only caused by spiritual practice and nothing else. If you understand emptiness than you can understand how there is no way to determine the cause from just the effect alone. That's because conditions are important.

 

For example, if I strike a match, is the effect a fire? Well, not always! If I strike it in "good" conditions, it lights. If I strike it underwater, it doesn't light. Vice versa now. If you see a fire, can you conclude that someone was playing with matches? Is fire a side-effect of matches? Not exactly! A fire can be caused in many many ways. Infinite ways. Further, matches might fail to produce fire. So one shouldn't say that fire is a side effect of playing with matches in a kind of firmly-tied sense, where you firmly associate the two phenomena together (like the phenomenon of playing with matches and the phenomenon of the fire).

 

This is why it is said that unlike other siddhas, Buddha has a siddhi of Dharma. Meaning that Buddha can explain the true nature of reality and guide a person toward the release froim suffering. The reason it is said like that is because in India pretty much every siddhi Buddha did was done by some other siddha, so none of the Buddha's siddhis were "Special" only to Buddha except certain ones, like the siddhi of being able to teach Dharma.

 

Knowing that certain Governments (US, the former USSR and China during the cold war) have been involved and funded this research gives me the impression that this psychic power can be isolated and put into effect in a controlled environment. Very bizarre.

 

What do you think of all of this?

 

The possibilities are endless. Is it possible that there is a realm where some government succeeds in controlling and exploiting psychic phenomena? It is. Is it possible there is a realm where the government tries to do so, in good faith, and fails and is never able to gain control and exploit psychic phenomena? It is. It is wide open. The possibilities are limitless. It doesn't have to be only this way or only that way.

[CarsonZi]

Remote viewing is real and easily verifiable.

 

I used to do RV when I was younger using high doses of IM Ketamine.

 

I actually lost several friends over this. I used to spy on them and then freak them out with knowledge about what they were doing when there was no way I could know this....scared a few friends into refusing to have any communication with me ever again.

 

I wasn't able to do it without the use of drugs back then, but occasionally now during meditation I will have the experience of no longer having my consciousness be bound to the body, but I don't usually do any "astral traveling" when this happens anymore....just keep meditating. Can't induce it either. Just happens on it's own every once in a while.

 

Read a book once by one of the guys in the Stargate Project....can't remember his name though.....Joe something I think...no maybe it was Dave. Anyways, interesting book.

 

Love,

Carson

Edited July 20, 2009 by CarsonZi

[enouch]

Remote viewing is real and easily verifiable.

 

I used to do RV when I was younger using high doses of IM Ketamine.

 

I actually lost several friends over this. I used to spy on them and then freak them out with knowledge about what they were doing when there was no way I could know this....scared a few friends into refusing to have any communication with me ever again.

 

I wasn't able to do it without the use of drugs back then, but occasionally now during meditation I will have the experience of no longer having my consciousness be bound to the body, but I don't usually do any "astral traveling" when this happens anymore....just keep meditating. Can't induce it either. Just happens on it's own every once in a while.

 

Read a book once by one of the guys in the Stargate Project....can't remember his name though.....Joe something I think...no maybe it was Dave. Anyways, interesting book.

 

Love,

Carson

 

 

Joe Mckmonaeagle

[CarsonZi]

Actually, did a little digging and the book I read was called Psychic Warrior by Dr. David Morehouse. 90% sure.

 

Love,

Carson

[Magitek]

What interests me about remote viewing is not if people can do the Derren Brown style remote viewing, or the magickal ritual style remote viewing....

 

But if people can do the kind of remote viewing where you can close your eyes and see anywhere you want to as if seeing with your physical eyes.

 

This to me is very practical.

 

Any takers?

[hyok]

What interests me about remote viewing is not if people can do the Derren Brown style remote viewing, or the magickal ritual style remote viewing....

 

But if people can do the kind of remote viewing where you can close your eyes and see anywhere you want to as if seeing with your physical eyes.

 

This to me is very practical.

 

Any takers?

 

Certainly would make things a lot easier! lol.

 

What I would find interesting is reading a detailed description of what one sees. Not just images, but the texture of the images. The mixture of color as well as appearance and disappearance of imagery.

[enouch]

I know a man who is former Air Force and was a part of the project back in the 80's. They recruited him because he occasionally had prophetic dreams. They trained him to increase the frequency and duration of these dreams and recorded all of the results. They also had him working on a project to achieve lucid awareness while in the prophetic dream state. The idea was for him (and the others in the project) to try and consciously alter the outcome of the prophetic dream and see if the alteration effected the real world outcome. He never learned the results of the experiments as the funding was cut before the study was finished.

 

 

I have the gateway series,brainwave mind voyages astral travel series,Dick Sutphen's astral projection series, Ed Dames course with Lynn Buchann,plus Silva's remote viewing course.I just haven't found the time or willpower to devise a systematic regimen.I guess, I feel autogenics,lucid dreaming,nlp,hypnosis,accelerated learning,qi gung, working out,memory techniques are all more compelling than remote viewing.More practical, involving real world applications.I find the concept of travelling with projection more compelling than remote viewing since it is more immersive.At the Monroe institute the pioneers of the remote viewing travelled and communicated with one another without the body or through telepathy with Bob lisening to their individual communications.I mean to say[write] each was isolated in a room while Bob recorded their descriptions.So either true transportation with a friend or telepathy which is just as fascinationg.You can go to youtube and type in my big toe or theory of everything to hear an interview from Coast to Coast.

 

These things are so fascinating! Have you wondered about the implications? For example John Chang claims he travelled outside his body,if true, then it's possible.What about his spirit teacher being able to manifest? What does this say about islam or christian faith? If he had a conversation with God...then God must exist! IF it wasn't solely in his mind.How much does belief play into the universe giving us what we believe? Are there different dimensions we go to based on our faith? Or lack thereof? Fascinating!

[Gerard]

A friend of mine gave passed onto me this blog which discusses this topic:

 

http://cattanga.typepad.com/tabby_cat_game.../not-again.html

 

 

Dreams, as a topic of discussion, are a huge bore. I don't just mean some idiot telling your their fascinating dream of last night, though lordy only knows that's bad enough, but I mean the whole topic of dreams is inherently dull. Mainly because they don't go anywhere. The problem boils down to this: dreams lack teeth. And we humans can only care about stuff with teeth.

 

It's such a boring cliche to assert that waking life is actually a dream simply not recognized as such. That was already done and dusted back in the ancient BCE time of Zhuang Zi (man v. butterfly). Yet there is something to the concept.

 

The most interesting stuff I ever heard about dreams was at the Monroe Institute (out of body and remote viewing training venue). Skip Atwater, one of the RV coaches there, told us that one avenue of Remote Viewing explored by the (then) classified Stargate military RV program of the 70's and 80's was to have the viewers attempt to wake up inside their dreams (now called Lucid Dreaming) and then mentally shift the focus or locale of the dream to the target location of interest (some known USA location for training and testing or a Soviet missile base or what have you in a real session).

 

As I recall Atwater's comments on it, there was only one guy who was really super good at this. Atwater showed us RV session sketches done (just after waking) by this guy, and compared them to actual target verification photos. The accuracy and detail this guy achieved was phenomenal, off the charts, far superior to the regular CRV stuff (which I learned and did with great success at the Institute, see my other posts on that topic). So then? What's the problem?

 

Well aside from the fact that nobody else could really achieve anything close to this one guy's level using the Lucid Dreaming technique, the other issue was more serious. See, this dream-viewer guy completely lost the boundary between dream vs. real. He would be dressing in the morning to go to work, sun shining merrily through the window, wife had the coffee started downstairs, birds chirping on the trees outside, neighbors starting their cars for the daily commute - everything fine and dandy. Then he'd open his closet to get a shirt and a pink crocodile would walk out into the bedroom. And he'd think OH SHIT IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN - see, he was still caught in a dream. He literally became UNABLE to tell the difference.

 

So he truly felt his sanity was under threat and he quit the RV program cold turkey. Atwater attributed this guy's success to both extreme inborn natural talent, coupled with rigorous application of the main LD-RV priming technique: Over a period of months: every x minutes (set a timer if necessary) stop whatever you are doing and ask yourself seriously - is it possible that I am dreaming right now? Am I absolutely SURE I'm awake?

 

Pero. Cuidado! You have been warned (pink croc thing above). You are playing with fire here.

 

Another interesting highpoint of the program was an invited talk given to us (RV or OBE students) by a world famous dream researcher from the nearby University of Virginia, Robert Van De Castle. The main thing I remember that this egghead had to say was just "Life is hard. It's mostly bad stuff. Similarly, the content of dreams when systematically tabulated, is mostly negative stuff." He wasn't talking nightmares mind you, just ordinary "dreams". It's mostly shit because it's reflective of real life. Such an obvious point! But I hadn't ever exactly consciously noticed that, later I realized - he's right. Your average nightly dream is rarely anything pleasant. It's mostly generalized anxiety or futile search or evasion of some threat, etc.

 

 

Am I a man dreaming I am a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming I am a man?

 

 

We are just here reflecting our true selves in the Yang side of reality working towards (ones fast, others slow and majority in a limbo state) the final awakening.

[CarsonZi]

The problem boils down to this: dreams lack teeth.

 

Hahaha.....especially mine! I have had a reoccuring dream since childhood in which I am standing in front of the bathroom sink/mirror brushing my teeth when I realize I have a loose front tooth. I wiggle it and can't stop.....I end up pulling it out. Then I realize I have another loose tooth...the same happens....can't stop wiggling it and eventually pull it out. By the end of the dream I have no teeth left and am left staring into the sink which is filled with blood, teeth and hair. I am usually fairly distraught.

 

And we humans can only care about stuff with teeth.

 

Love,

Carson

[lino]

 

I find this research very interesting but highly controversial since it would be classified as a siddhi from the Eastern perspective, and as we all know siddhis cannot be forced or cultivated independently as they are a by-product of spiritual practice.

 

Not true, since Master Nan expressed, thru Bill Bodri, that demons and ghosts can cultivate powers. Also look up the history of Angulimala the Arhat. His prior incarnation was a Yaksha, which is supposed to be a demon. I'm still trying to find the web page that stated that he was well versed in the darker aspects of enlightenment as a Yaksha.

 

Just think, he probably practiced three parts of the Eightfold Path:

 

http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/eightfoldpath.html

[Li TaoRen]

Easy to cultivate with the correct technique, But we have different aptitudes and will all see differently

[Magitek]

Easy to cultivate with the correct technique, But we have different aptitudes and will all see differently

 

What kind of techniques?

[Sloppy Zhang]

I find this research very interesting but highly controversial since it would be classified as a siddhi from the Eastern perspective, and as we all know siddhis cannot be forced or cultivated independently as they are a by-product of spiritual practice.

 

Of course siddhis can be cultivated without spiritual/morality as a guide. Is merely concentration practice.

 

What spirituality offers is a holistic view. It offers an all-embracing view, a way to easily and naturally relate all appearances/phenomena. It's very useful, perhaps priceless.

 

Well aside from the fact that nobody else could really achieve anything close to this one guy's level using the Lucid Dreaming technique, the other issue was more serious. See, this dream-viewer guy completely lost the boundary between dream vs. real. He would be dressing in the morning to go to work, sun shining merrily through the window, wife had the coffee started downstairs, birds chirping on the trees outside, neighbors starting their cars for the daily commute - everything fine and dandy. Then he'd open his closet to get a shirt and a pink crocodile would walk out into the bedroom. And he'd think OH SHIT IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN - see, he was still caught in a dream. He literally became UNABLE to tell the difference.

 

Well one of the things that spirituality gives is a "support system" and way of dealing with stuff like this.

 

So, for dream testing, you stop what you are doing and ask yourself seriously if you are dreaming. Now, this is good, and does give results, though from this it's clear it can lead to problems. (though if you ask me, he had other deep seated issues, pink crocodile "coming out of the closet"? Sounds like he had some homosexuality issues..... were there any women in the stargate project? )

 

Now what I've found in systems of spirituality, like Buddhism and Taoism, is not just "stop what you are doing and think, then keep going with life." It's "be aware of your thoughts CONSTANTLY, moment to moment, be able to observe them." So it's not just a one or two time thing you do throughout the day, but something you do continuously. It's much harder to do, IMHO, but so far I haven't had anything coming out of any closets

 

So I wonder if this man had learned to become constantly aware of this thoughts, whether he would have realized he was dreaming a little bit sooner.

[Li TaoRen]

Shengong(spirit skill) meditations that awaken energy centers and actually parts of the brain. A word of caution though... Have a strong foundation in tranquility meditation and make sure your qi is balanced and unobstructed. The tranquility of mind empowers the mind which allows visualization to be effective. Without a foundation vipassana and visualization techniques do not have much efficacy. It is also why many practitioners give up, or go crazy.

What kind of techniques?