What Remote Viewing Is
What defines remote viewing is sometimes difficult for the layman or beginning remote viewer to understand. In fact, at times things can become so complex that a scientist would have difficulty ensuring that remote viewing and not something else is actually taking place, because remote viewing is so similar to other things like psychic functioning. Psychics function in myriad ways. Some do what is called a "cold reading," where they sit in front of someone and describe things that are going on in their lives. While this takes a great deal of sensitivity to other people, it does not necessarily guarantee that an actual transfer of information is taking place in a psychic way.
We know, for instance, that just being in the room with someone who knows the answer to something and being allowed to study them for a short period of time is sometimes sufficient to obtain information they possess without ever addressing it directly. They don't have to pass it to us verbally and they don't have to write it down. Through observation alone, they will eventually generate sufficient information to tell us what we need to know.
People do this in a lot of different ways. Remember when you were a child and you played that game where you would hide something and then give hints to someone looking for it, as they moved around a room, "You're getting warmer, you're getting warmer, you're hot, uh-oh you're on fire!"
Well, I'm talking about the same kind of thing. For instance, the way a person shifts in a chair might tell us when we are getting close to a correct answer. How people fold their arms during a conversation or what they do with their hands transfer information as well. Even where and how a person moves his eyes while answering a question can tell us whether we are right or wrong, or if they are inventing a response to throw us off the track, or if they simply don't know.
Psychics who sometimes use different tools in order to practice their trade further complicate these situations. They might be scrying from a crystal ball or interpreting the cards in a Tarot deck. Some psychics get their information spontaneously, in a natural or untrained way. My point is that most psychics generally operate within the boundaries of their own rules. They do not follow specifically developed or designed and tested remote viewing protocols. Being a remote viewer requires a lot more than is required of a psychic.
This doesn't mean that psychics operating on their own are less capable than remote viewers; it just means their techniques are different, and different techniques or methods operating outside of an appropriate protocol, do have a direct affect on whether or not someone is actually remote viewing.
Therefore: remote viewing is the ability to produce information that is correct about a place, event, person, object, or concept which is located somewhere else in time/space, and which is completely blind to the remote viewer and others taking part in the process of collecting the information.
Two other requirements are:
A: All persons present during a remote viewing should essentially be blind to the target.
This is almost always true, except for very specific or very restricted forms of targeting material that can sometimes be used. This type of targeting material is addressed later on within this handbook. By necessity, these more complex methods of targeting and the materials required are only used by those who clearly understand how, where, why, and when they should be used.
B: There should be some form or means of validating the material after the remote viewing has been accomplished.
In other words, there should be feedback of some kind. There should also be some way of checking it for accuracy, or validating that the information is correct.
These requirements certainly set remote viewing apart from other forms of paranormal information collection, and there is a reason for this. Currently about sixty people, and eight or nine laboratories, have spent more than twenty-five years of work, sweat, thought, and a considerable amount of money, establishing the veracity of remote viewing through very extensive study. During this time, these people were very clear in defining the ground rules and protocols that were necessary in order to call it remote viewing. They did not do this just to separate remote viewing from other forms of the paranormal. They did it so that remote viewing would not be viewed like any other form of paranormal functioning. They did it so that their new research techniques could bring some validity and credibility to the study of paranormal functioning vis-à-vis remote viewing. And, to a certain extent they did it just to be different.
Those who throw something together and call it remote viewing do a disservice to these people, these labs, and dilute the very value and significance that these studies have brought to the paranormal field. They also dilute the entire concept of looking at remote viewing as a martial art—RV'do.
Definitions
The primary differences between the words protocol and method lie within the word origins and the specific circumstances in which they are usually used. Since understanding these differences are fundamental to understanding the rest of this book, I present them here:
A Protocol
A remote viewing protocol is a detailed plan of a scientific experiment, treatment, or procedure. It is the first step and a necessary one in the design of an application.
Since it is scientific, it is usually designed and tested within a lab, usually through consensus of researchers. Once tested, it is open to review, evaluation, and publication in an already established and respected forum to determine its validity. As a result it may be changed a number of times before it becomes acceptable to the majority who pass judgment on it. It is then often tested again at other labs with other subjects and replicated before it is used in an application format. Designing and testing a protocol is necessary in order to validate the technique or method subsequently designed from or based upon it.
In remote viewing, a protocol can have many different methods or techniques based on it, but the protocol itself is never altered.
Method or Technique
A method or technique is a systematic procedure or mode of inquiry employed by or proper to a particular discipline or art. In remote viewing, these are always applied within the framework of a protocol.
This primarily has to do with consistency of form. A method is how you decide to approach a problem to produce a solution. In most cases, it is designed to be repetitive and it can in some cases be used to teach or learn a skill. It determines structure through which you progress to an end result. It does not have to be particularly scientific or approved by anyone except the person who designs it or decides to use it. The reason for using a specific method is to accomplish a task or to impart specific knowledge from one individual to another. In remote viewing, using a method without concern for protocol can quickly lead to exaggerated, artificial, or misleading results.
For example: Ignoring the requirement that a monitor also be blind to a target and inappropriately front loading that individual with too much knowledge about the target will inevitably result in the possibility of inappropriate actions or statements occurring inside the room during the remote viewing. These create a possibility that the remote viewer will be led to certain conclusions, invalidating the rest of the process.
While some people claim they can control this, experience and studies suggest otherwise. The smallest possibility that such an action will result in a "cooked" result is sufficient to damage the reputation of remote viewing, and it most certainly taints the results.
Application
A remote viewing application is the production of information through the use of a technique or method based on a tested protocol.
All techniques and methods used in remote viewing should be based on or designed around properly tested and validated protocols. The reason for such a strict measure is to guarantee that what is thought to be happening actually is. It is to insure that those participating in collecting the information are not deluding themselves into thinking something is happening that isn't.
Differences in Protocols
There are sometimes differences in protocols. The following are examples of some of the different protocols that have been used in the past. These are addressed in more detail in the appendix of this book:
–Outbounder Remote Viewing. Requires a person to act as a beacon and to be present at the targeted site or event.
–Associative Remote Viewing. Uses proxy targets to obtain binary (e.g., yes/no/other) responses.
–Coordinate Remote Viewing. Uses numeric or Alpha/numeric series to identify the specific target.
–Precognitive Remote Viewing. Provides information that is predictive in nature, or provides information on a target before it has been selected.
Differences in Methods
Methods of remote viewing are the forms or styles of viewing which remote viewers choose to use while remote viewing. In some cases these are used within a remote viewing protocol, but in some cases they are not. When they are, it is remote viewing; when they are not, then it is not remote viewing.
Examples for some of these are: ERV (Extended Remote Viewing), CRV (first known as Coordinate Remote Viewing, now known as Controlled Remote Viewing), SRV (Scientific Remote Viewing) that is scientific in name only, and TRV (Technical Remote Viewing)[4] a variation on CRV.
There are others, but this gives an idea how remote viewing methodologies have evolved, either for better or worse. Some of these are used within approved protocols, some are not, and some have been used both ways because people using them did not or do not understand the basic differences between protocols and the methods they are wedded to. Many of these were used within Project STARGATE but some were not.
This training handbook is not designed to provide detailed explanations for all of the methods currently being used, or to validate them in any way. It is designed to help you understand the differences between a method that is being used properly and one that isn't. By the end of this book you should have a clear idea of which is which.
What Remote Viewing is Best Used For
Remote viewing always operates best when it is used for producing information on something that is known to exist. In other words, one should be assured that the target is real.
Elements of the target should be relatively easy to verify. There is a very good reason for this. For instance, if you are trying to determine the best location in which to proceed with an archeological dig, you should know enough about the surroundings of the dig to ascertain whether or not the remote viewer is generally in the right area to begin with. You should be able to do this without giving too much information to the viewer.
As an example: perhaps you want to do an excavation of an old grave complex, and it's located adjacent to some ruins. This would make an ideal remote viewing target.
Because it is located next to ruins, it permits considerable leeway in the kind of targeting material you can provide to the remote viewer.
In this case, the remote viewer can be asked directly to: "Describe the most important object I am (should be) interested in and draw a ground plan for the best place for me to dig in order to find it."
By keeping the viewer blind to the entire target, you can compare his ground plan to the real thing. If s/he says the most important thing you should be looking for is a mummy wrapped in gold ornaments and located at a specific spot, and you see "ruins" in their drawing, there is a very good chance s/he is on the right target. This makes the rest of what is said more likely to be true as well.
In other words, if what is known matches, then there is a better than even chance that the location and the mummy are probably real as well. If there are no similarities, something isn't working. Try again later using a different targeting approach.
If you had provided the remote viewer knowledge of the ruins in the first place, you would have given up knowledge about the target which might have provided verification on the veracity of the remote viewing. It could also have steered the viewer to a specific time period, based on knowledge of the area in which the dig is taking place. At the very least, this will cloud the target issues with assumptions the viewer may or may not be able to work through. When you know absolutely nothing about a target in the beginning, it puts everybody in the dark and makes it nearly impossible to evaluate the quality of the remote viewing before you use the product. This is why UFOs and similar kinds of targets usually make lousy remote viewing targets. What should be understood here is that the remote viewer is always given the least amount of information necessary to put them on the target location, and it should never be directly pertinent to what you are looking for answers to. In most cases, this is simply an envelope or perhaps a photograph of someone who is actually there.
Unknown targets are filled with problems. As an example, a totally unknown target, like a UFO sighting, makes a very poor target. Even if you have a perfect description of the area in which the sighting has taken place, you are still left without any information that can validate specifics about the actual target—the UFOs. In my experience, the chances of stating UFO material obtained through remote viewing is correct are very close to zero.
Likewise, the existence of a totally unknown target is almost never checked out on the ground. In other words, almost no one ever expends the energy or money necessary to determine ground truth about the targeted area.
Another problem is there is almost never any feedback that can be provided to the remote viewer. This does nothing in assisting them to improve their product, or their remote viewing capability.
Therefore, I would say that remote viewing is very good for:
DESCRIBING PEOPLE, EVENTS, THINGS, CONCEPTS, PLACES, ETC., WHICH ARE REAL.
It is very good when a partial description is already available or where someone is willing to actually go to the target site to validate or collect material. This means targets should exist in real time and space, should be things you can hold in your hands, or experience, or visit, or in some way establish or verify. You don't have to be able to do that right away, but you should be able to produce some verifiable data within a reasonable period of time. And at some point the viewer should be given hard and factual feedback.
PRODUCING NEW LEADS.
This involves assisting in targeting other technologies. No one should be expected to trust remote viewing as a stand-alone source of information, but you should be able to use remote viewing information to align, target, point, or use other technologies. We have equipment that can locate three specific microns amongst trillions, or iron ore from a hundred miles away. Remote viewing is good for pointing this equipment in the right direction. This saves time and in some cases quite a bit of money.
RECONSTRUCTING EVENTS.
Remote viewing is very good at filling in the details for events. Very few of us have a memory at our disposal that retains the kinds of detail we would like to have about an event. Where a lot of information has been collected relevant to an event (say a crime), remote viewing is very good at gluing it all together, putting it into a cohesive and understandable pattern, or pointing out the missing pieces.
MAKING DECISIONS.
There are unique targeting mechanisms that can be used to aid or assist in decision-making. This is especially true regarding binary problems, e.g., yes or no, go or don't go, buy or don't buy, left or right, up or down, etc.
MAKING PROJECTIONS.
When used within a very strict protocol, remote viewing can produce some amazing detail about things that have not yet happened, as long as they are descriptive. However, great caution has to be exercised when it comes to timing. Timing, or projecting when something is going to happen or happened, is something remote viewing is generally not very good at.
Remote Viewing Cannot be Relied upon To:
While remote viewing can be relied upon for many things, there are a number of things that it can't be relied on for.
Targeting a series of numbers, specific words, or statements are examples of less than optimum targets for remote viewing. The way remote viewing works does not currently permit this degree of detail. It is probably because of the way the information is transferred. General ideas and concepts that can be formed based on many different (usually fractured) elements that are received from the target generally only permit gross conclusions or assumptions about the target.
Series of numbers, or specific words or phrases do occur, but only rarely, and then only when a collection of data bits permits. An example would be the name of a city that has a sufficient degree of uniqueness about it or perhaps the name of an important individual about whom quite a bit is known historically.
Remote viewing is generally not very good for providing information on mythical creatures, hypothetical events, non-physical properties, or phenomenological types of targets. In other words, it's generally not good for UFOs, the Lock Ness Monster, Sasquatch, or descriptions of heaven and hell (although I hope I stand corrected at some point about Sasquatch, and at least the data I've provided about UFOs to date.)
In determining if it can be used for any of these issues, one has to exercise a great deal of caution. In some cases, some things, that on the surface may seem to be over the edge when properly targeted, could actually produce a result.
As an example, up until the turn of the century, no westerner had ever seen a gorilla. Remote viewing, applied properly, could have reduced the search area considerably in the attempt to find one. However, I should also state that even though none had been seen, there was significant and abundant evidence that gorillas did exist. There were bones, hair samples, and other items available to western science that almost guaranteed they existed prior to one physically being located.
UFOs are another example. It would be one thing to target a specific location on the planet, one to which you could travel and properly check out. But using remote viewing to identify a UFO base on Jupiter or the dark side of the Moon is totally useless and probably a waste of time.
Contrary to general opinion, using remote viewing to produce a location is also not a good idea. This is probably one of the least accurate ways of using this capability. While very precise descriptions of locations can generally be provided, remote viewing will usually not work very well unless there is something very unique about the location, or a general area is already known to exist. I know this will be sad news to those who are looking for a missing child, but unfortunately it is true. Finding something or someone works only where superior police or detective work has been married to the remote viewing ahead of time. This usually occurs when local law enforcement officials have spent a considerable amount of time in a crime area, and the object or person has not been moved a long distance from that location. In the case of a kidnapping resulting in a missing person, this usually means the victim is dead.
It is not difficult to understand that when it comes to search problems, finding a dead person is a lot easier than finding a live one. A missing person who keeps moving automatically compounds the problem every time they do.
Unreasonable Expectations
False expectations about what remote viewing can and can't do are generally born out of the re-mystification of remote viewing and its capabilities, usually by the media, but sometimes by people who claim to be remote viewers but who clearly do not understand what it really is.
These unreasonable expectations can be defined under the following major topics:
1. END USERS OF REMOTE VIEWING DATA.
Because they have no background in remote viewing, it is really not their fault if they expect too much from it. It is the viewer's responsibility to establish the boundaries or limits within which it can operate. If remote viewers over-sell their capability, they will never meet expectations. One of the easiest ways to oversell anything is to start telling people how good it is—even when it isn't.
Except for perhaps five occasions I know about in twenty-five years, I've never seen remote viewing exceed sixty-five percent reliability. These five occasions had to do with only two viewers, both of whom worked in the Cognitive Sciences Lab. In all five cases, time was not a factor, and the degree of excruciating detail, time and effort, to which these two viewers went to guarantee a 90 percent result, no one but a lab could afford. The old adage holds here. If it sounds too good to be true, it is.
It is the responsibility of the viewer to be honest about the remote viewing capability even if it hurts. If you do better than you've projected, then everyone will benefit. Being honest about the capability also gives the users of the information sufficient knowledge up front to appropriately plan for its use. This way, if additional technology needs to be brought on board, they don't find that out when it is too late.
2. THE REMOTE VIEWER.
The effectiveness of remote viewing has to be objectified. Therefore, people cannot evaluate their own material, because they are too close to it. When trying to determine just how good remote viewing is, there are many elements that come into play.
How much of what was said was correct? How much of what could have been said was actually said? How much of what was said was wrong?
In a lab there are long and tedious procedures for evaluating remote viewing. But in applications there are none. If remote viewers produce a minimal amount of information, but also provide the one thing the customer happens to be interested in, then it's considered highly successful. If the remote viewer produces volumes of correct information about the target, but fails to produce that single necessary element of data, it's a failure. During most application types of targeting, data is lost, destroyed, abandoned, or ignored. At best, it is squeezed into some form of report, which generally calls for a conclusion.
So, unless very specific targeting is done, to establish accuracy data on a viewer, it is almost impossible to make more than a general claim.
3. THE MEDIA.
If I were to pick the least authoritative source for details on accuracy it would be the media. The media is interested in one thing—sound bites. The more profound and sensational the sound bite, the better. They will quote something out of context in a heartbeat.
I remember one notable statement that exemplifies this capacity for inaccuracy. Dr. Edwin May appeared on the ABC Special, "Put to the Test", where he gave an interview and referred to some of my remote viewing. Somewhere in that interview he was commenting on the near-perfect match between some of my drawings and the target. His statement was something like, "Joe provides this kind of spectacular detail about twenty percent of the time. Scientists don't like to say this, but that's about as close to a miracle as one can get."
This statement was made along with other statements that reflected a target hit rate of about sixty to sixty-five percent. But in this statement, he was specifically referring to near perfect drawings, something that rarely happens in remote viewing.
Unfortunately, when it was edited, it was taken completely out of context. This resulted in a huge negative reaction from other viewers, which was grossly unfair to both Ed and me. My recommendation is to never rely on the media for statements of accuracy.
The Weakness of Statistics
What can be expected from the average remote viewer is probably something about three times better than chance. Most good viewers will be able to make contact with a target about 50 to 60 percent of the time. When they do make contact, about 30 to 80 percent of what they say about the target could be correct. Notice, I said "could be." There is usually no way to know until the information has been used, checked, and verified against what can be known about the target. In applications, this process can sometimes take years.
Statistics don't really mean a thing to the customer who is in need of help and they most certainly don't mean a thing to the viewers who know that every remote viewing they do could either be near perfect, or a complete bust.
Statistics should only be developed within a lab, or during the post hoc analysis of research targets, when all of the variables are being controlled. The method of evaluation should be one that has been accepted.
The methods of evaluation are almost as prone to criticism as the remote viewing itself, so the method used should be one that has withstood the test of fire; that is, it should be one that has been accepted by a majority of the scientific community.