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What is remote viewing?
How does remote viewing differ from other forms of
telepathy? What kind of research is being carried on
regarding this phenomenon, and by whom?
"Remote viewing" is a term popularized by two physicists
at Stanford Research Institute (now SRI, International)
in California —Russell Targ and Hal Puthoff. They use
the term to describe experiments in which persons
attempt to psychically describe distant geographical or
architectural targets. It’s really a special form of
clairvoyance. Instead of simply trying to describe
natural hidden objects (such as cards, pictures,
numbers, and so on), the volunteer in a remote viewing
experiment describes buildings, landscapes, and other
natural or man—made structures that have been around for
a long time.
Targ and Puthoff believed that such target sites with
long and interesting histories might be more readily
described than newer, less meaningful targets. They’ve
done a number of remote viewing experiments thus far,
with quite impressive results.
The experiment goes something like this: First, the
experimenters select as subjects (let’s call them
"percipients") people who are very interested in the
experiment and whose lives contain few distractions —
people who are "settled," who are comfortable with
themselves and who have "found themselves," so to speak.
Then, the experimenters help the percipients gain
confidence that remote viewing is a natural, widespread
ability and that very good results are likely to occur
in the experiment. Sharing reports of past successes
with the percipient is helpful at this point. Then a
sort of "contract" is made in which it is agreed that at
a certain specific time, one or a number of
experimenters will drive to a randomly selected target
site and remain there for 15 minutes or so, interacting
with the target — viewing it, thinking about it,
touching it and so on. The percipient agrees to attempt
of physically trace this outgoing experimenter, to "tune
in" on where he is and what he’s seeing and doing at the
target site. Another experimenter remains in the
laboratory with the percipient and tape records his
psychic impressions. Neither the experimenter nor the
percipient, of course, knows the identity of the target
site at this time - the target could be just about
anything within a 20—30 minute driving time radius.
After he’s returned from the target site, the outgoing
experimenter takes the percipient to visit the site so
that he can gain information about the accuracy of his
impressions. Independent judges later evaluate the
results.
What is "associative remote viewing" and how is
it used?
Researchers at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo
Park, California had observed for a long time that
persons doing remote viewing of distant sites were able
to describe the more "right-hemispheric" aspects of the
targets (shapes, forms, textures, colors, etc.) quite
accurately; however, the viewers found it extremely
difficult to describe more "left-hemispheric" target
aspects (such as words, numbers, and functions). Since
it is apparently very difficult to "read" numbers and
letters psychically, but relatively easy to describe
objects psychically, a technique was developed in which
numbers or letters were represented or encoded by
objects. In this associative remote viewing (ARV)
procedure, objects are associated randomly with various
numbers, letters, or outcomes to be predicted. It is
agreed that the object associated with a particular
future outcome will be shown to the viewer after the
outcome has occurred. The task of the viewer is simply
to describe, precognitively, the object that he or she
will later be shown. Accurate descriptions of objects
are translated into predictions of likely outcomes by
the nonviewing members of the research team.
Theoretically, the ARV procedure could be used to
predict which of several locations contains some hidden
object or person, the outcome of political elections,
gambling outcomes, stock market fluctuations, etc. Some
of these possibilities have already been successfully
explored. |
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