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{{Short description|Pseudoscientific concept}} | |||
'''Remote viewing (RV)''' is a form of ] by which a ''viewer'' is said to use his or her clairvoyant abilities to "view", i.e. gather information on a ''target'' consisting of an object, place, person, etc, which is hidden from physical view of the viewer and typically separated from the viewer in space by some distance, and sometimes separated in time (future or past) as well. | |||
{{distinguish|remote sensing|remote access software}} | |||
{{ infobox | |||
| title = Remote viewing | |||
| image = | |||
| caption = | |||
| label1 = Claims | |||
| data1 = The alleged paranormal ability to perceive a remote or hidden subject without support of the ]s.<ref name="Blom">Blom, Jan. (2009). ''A Dictionary of Hallucinations''. Springer. p. 451. {{ISBN|978-1441912220}}</ref> | |||
| label2 = Related scientific disciplines | |||
| data2 = | |||
| label3 = Year proposed | |||
| data3 = 1970 | |||
| label4 = Original proponents | |||
| data4 = ] and ] | |||
| label5 = Subsequent proponents | |||
| data5 = ], ], ] | |||
| label6 = Notable proponents | |||
| data6 = | |||
}} | |||
{{New Age beliefs sidebar}} | |||
{{Paranormal}} | |||
'''Remote viewing''' ('''RV''') is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen subject, purportedly sensing with the mind.<ref name="Blom"/> A remote viewer is expected to give information about an object, event, person, or location hidden from physical view and separated at some distance.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Zusne, Leonard |title=Anomalistic psychology: a study of magical thinking |author2=Jones, Warren |publisher=Lawrence Erlbaum Associates |year=1989 |isbn=0805805087 |pages=167}}</ref> Physicists ] and ], ] researchers at ] (SRI), are generally credited with coining the term "remote viewing" to distinguish it from the closely related concept of ].<ref name="Frazier">Kendrick Frazier. ''''. Prometheus Books, Publishers; {{ISBN|978-1615926190}}. pp. 94–.</ref><ref name="jordan">{{citation |title= Remotely Viewed? The Charlie Jordan Case|author=Joe Nickell|author-link=Joe Nickell|date=March 2001|work=]|url=http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/remotely_viewed_the_charlie_jordan_case/}}</ref> According to Targ, the term was first suggested by ] in December 1971 during an experiment at the ] in New York City.<ref>{{cite book |last=Targ |first=Russell |date=2012 |title=The Reality of ESP: A Physicist's Proof of Psychic Abilities |publisher=Quest Books |pages=4, 14, 23 |isbn=978-0835608848 }}</ref> | |||
Those who are skeptical of psi abilities and ] in general do not find the evidence at all convincing and consider remote viewing to be ] at best and fraud at worst. Detractors claim that "many scientists" consider it to be a fictitious phenomenon with studies into it to be ] at best, and they frequently allege ]. | |||
Remote viewing experiments have historically lacked proper controls and repeatability. There is no scientific evidence that remote viewing exists, and the topic of remote viewing is generally regarded as ].<ref name="Alcock 1981">]. (1981). ''Parapsychology-Science Or Magic?: A Psychological Perspective''. Pergamon Press. pp. 164–179. {{ISBN|978-0080257730}}</ref><ref name="Gilovich 19932">] (1993). ''How We Know What Isn't So: Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life''. Free Press. pp. 166–173. {{ISBN|978-0029117064}}</ref><ref name="Marks 2000">]; Kammann, Richard. (2000). '']''. Prometheus Books. {{ISBN|1573927988}}</ref><ref name="wiseman_one2">{{cite journal |last1=Wiseman |first1=R |last2=Milton |first2=J |year=1999 |title=Experiment One of the SAIC Remote Viewing Program: A critical reevaluation |url=http://www.richardwiseman.com/resources/SAICcrit.pdf |journal=] |volume=62 |issue=4 |pages=297–308 |access-date=2008-06-26}}* Obtained from </ref><ref name="Gardner20002">{{cite book |last=Gardner |first=Martin |title=Did Adam and Eve Have Navels?: Debunking Pseudoscience |publisher=W.W. Norton |year=2000 |isbn=978-0393322385 |location=New York |pages=60–67 |author-link=Martin Gardner}}</ref><ref name="Paranormal. Prometheus Books p. 1362">{{cite book |last=Hines |first=Terence |title=Pseudoscience and the Paranormal |date=2003 |publisher=Prometheus Books |isbn=1573929794 |page=136 |author-link=Terence Hines}}</ref> | |||
Remote viewing is distinguished from other forms of clairvoyance in that it follows a specific protocol (or some variant of it) as developed in a US government-sponsored program at the ] (SRI) in ], which was begun in the early ] and continued until ]. | |||
The idea of remote viewing received renewed attention in the 1990s upon the ] of documents related to the ], a $20 million research program sponsored by the ] that attempted to determine potential military applications of psychic phenomena. The program ran from 1975 to 1995 and ended after evaluators concluded that remote viewers consistently failed to produce actionable intelligence information.{{refn|group=n|name="Eval of RV"}}<ref name="Time" /> | |||
Over time the program had a series of names (or perhaps sub-projects which had specific names) of which the most recent and perhaps most well-known was '''STAR GATE'''. | |||
Since the government-funding of the program was ended in 1995 there has been an increase in publicly available RV services and trainings offered by several of the principals who were involved over time in the program (as well as by others). | |||
==History== | |||
Under the remote viewing family of protocols, the viewer is not explicitly told what the target is; rather it is specified in one of several ways. | |||
One common method is that the target is described either in writing or by a photograph or by some set of coordinates (e.g. latitude & longitude), the latter of which may be encrypted. | |||
The description is then placed in a double-set of opaque envelopes which may be shown to the viewer, but which the viewer is not allowed to open during the viewing session. | |||
The viewer then writes down whatever information he can gather about the target, typically including drawings and gestalt impressions as well as visual details (and sometimes auditory or kinesthetic details as well). | |||
The viewing session is administered by a second person called the ''monitor'', who typically also is not given any information about the target. | |||
The viewer is typically given information about the target after the viewing session, especially during training sessions. | |||
Remote viewing is a skill that typically improves with training, and certain variations of the protocol are used during training. | |||
===Early background=== | |||
Some variations on the remote viewing protocol have adjectives, such as Controlled Remote Viewing (CRV), which is the stem protocol developed during the first part of the program; Technical Remote Viewing (TRV), which is a trademarked term of one company's offered training; Associative Remote Viewing (ARV), a variant used by Greg Kolodziejzyk to answer binary (yes/no) questions, particularly those about future events. | |||
In early ] and ] literature, remote viewing was known as ] and traveling clairvoyance. ] described it as "seeing remote or hidden objects clairvoyantly with the inner eye, or in alleged out-of-body travel."<ref>{{cite book |author-link= Rosemary Ellen Guiley |last= Guiley |first= Rosemary |date= 1991 |title= Harper's Encyclopedia of Mystical and Paranormal Experience |publisher= Harper |location= San Francisco |page= |isbn= 978-0062503664 |url= https://archive.org/details/harpersencyclope00guil/page/507 }}</ref> | |||
The study of psychic phenomena by major scientists started in the mid-nineteenth century. Early researchers included ], ], ], and ]. Their work predominantly involved carrying out focused experimental tests on individuals thought to be psychically gifted. Reports of apparently successful tests were met with much skepticism from the scientific community.<ref>{{cite book |author-link= Ray Hyman |last= Hyman |first= Ray |date= 1985 |chapter= A Critical Historical Overview of Parapsychology |editor-link= Paul Kurtz |editor-last= Kurtz |editor-first= Paul |title= A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology |publisher= Prometheus Books |pages= 3–96 |isbn= 0879753005}}</ref> | |||
== History == | |||
In the 1930s, ] expanded the study of paranormal performance into larger populations by using standard experimental protocols with unselected human subjects. But, as with the earlier studies, Rhine was reluctant to publicize this work too early because of the fear of criticism from mainstream scientists.<ref name=hyman86>{{cite journal |last= Hyman |first= R |title= Parapsychological research: A tutorial review and critical appraisal |journal= Proceedings of the IEEE |volume= 74 |issue= 6 |pages= 823–849 |date= June 1986 |doi=10.1109/proc.1986.13557|s2cid= 39889367 }}</ref> | |||
For some unknown number of decades in the 20th century the CIA monitored science programs in the USSR, particularly those related to intelligence and military applications. | |||
When they learned that the USSR had serious programs pursuing the development and application of psi abilities, they eventually decided to fund research to evaluate the potential threat from this direction. | |||
This continuing skepticism, with its consequences for peer review and research funding, ensured that paranormal studies remained a fringe area of scientific exploration. However, by the 1960s, the prevailing counterculture attitudes muted some prior hostility. The emergence of what is termed "]" thinking and the popularity of the ] provoked a mini-renaissance that renewed public interest in ] studies and psychic phenomena. It also helped to make financial support more available for research into such topics.<ref name=sci181>{{cite journal |last= Wade |first=N |title= Psychical research: The incredible in search of credibility |journal= Science |volume= 181 |date= July 13, 1973 |issue=4095 |pages= 138–143 |doi=10.1126/science.181.4095.138 |pmid= 17746612|bibcode=1973Sci...181..138W }}</ref> | |||
As a result, in the early 1970s the US government contracted with the Stanford Research Institute to investigate these questions. | |||
Dr. Hal Puthoff, one of the physicists there, who had already established a name for himself in laser physics, worked on the project and, in reviewing information made available to him regarding projects behind the iron curtain, wrote that there seemed to be sufficient evidence to warrant scientific investigation into psi abilities. | |||
In the early 1970s, ] and ] joined the Electronics and Bioengineering Laboratory at Stanford Research Institute (SRI, now ]), where they initiated ] that were, at first, supported with private funding from the ] and the ].<ref>{{cite book|title=How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival|first1=David|last1=Kaiser|year=2011|publisher=W.W. Norton & Company|pages= 69–71|isbn=978-0393076363}}</ref> | |||
Around that time, on the east coast of the US, Ingo Swann had attained some note as the subject of a series of experiments designed and conducted by Dr. Karlis Osis of the ] which had produced positive, reasonably repeatable results, and which were precursors to the remote viewing protocols. | |||
In 1972, Swann was put into contact with Hal Puthoff by Cleve Backster (father of modern polygraph testing), and they arranged a meeting at SRI. | |||
As a result of their meeting, Puthoff hired Swann to work on the program. | |||
In the late 1970s, the physicists ] and Eduardo Balanovski tested the psychic ] in remote viewing, and the results proved "completely unsuccessful".<ref>{{cite book |author-link= John G. Taylor |last= Taylor |first= John |date=1980 |title= Science and the Supernatural: An Investigation of Paranormal Phenomena Including Psychic Healing, Clairvoyance, Telepathy, and Precognition by a Distinguished Physicist and Mathematician |publisher= Temple Smith |page= 83 |isbn= 0851171915}}</ref> | |||
Very early on (even from their first visit) they believed that they had sufficiently convincing evidence of psi phenomenon. | |||
The continued funding of the program therefore was not concerned with establishing the existence of psi phenomenon, but rather with characterizing it and determining to what extent psi abilities could be controlled or reduced to practice, i.e. whether psi abilities could be developed or trained in individuals and used to gather information remotely on a practical basis. | |||
One of the early experiments, lauded by proponents as having improved the methodology of remote viewing testing and raising future experimental standards, was criticized as leaking information to the participants by inadvertently leaving clues.<ref name="wiseman_may">{{cite journal | journal = ] | url = http://www.richardwiseman.com/resources/SAICreply.pdf | title = Experiment one of the SAIC remote viewing program: A critical re-evaluation. A reply to May. |last1=Wiseman |first1= R |last2=Milton |first2= J | pages = 3–14 | issue = 1 | volume = 63 | year = 1999 | access-date = 2008-06-26 }}<br />* Obtained from </ref> Some later experiments had negative results when these clues were eliminated.{{refn|group=n|name="Randi Encyclopedia"|From '']'' by ]: "The data of Puthoff and Targ were reexamined by the other researchers, and it was found that their students were able to solve the locations without use of any psychic powers, using only the clues that had inadvertently been included in the Puthoff and Targ transcripts."<ref name="randi_encyclopedia">{{cite Encyclopedia of Claims |title=Remote Viewing |first-letter=R |access-date=26 January 2022 }}</ref>}} | |||
Projects were carried on in two subdomains, with some overlapping of personnel. | |||
One subdomain was research oriented and resulted in refinements to the remote viewing protocol, some of which increased the efficacy of the protocol and training methods, and others of which addressed the scientific concerns of avoiding confounds in experimental design. | |||
The other subdomain was application oriented, the actual gathering of information on real targets that government clients were interested in. | |||
The viewers' advice in the "]" was always so unclear and non-detailed that it has never been used in any intelligence operation.<ref name="jordan"/>{{refn|group=n|name="Eval of RV"}}<ref name="Time" /> | |||
After nearly two decades of activity the program moved from SRI to Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in 1989, which was actually more a splitting of a new entity off of SRI. | |||
In 1995 the justification for further government funding of the program was put under review, conflicting reports were issued by Drs. Jessica Utts (who believed) and Ray Hyman (who didn't), and the decision was made to close (de-fund) the program. | |||
===Decline and termination=== | |||
Afterwards, many of the principals who had been involved with the program at various times in the program went into "private practice", offering remote viewing services and trainings as well as publishing more information on the history and current state of the art of RV. | |||
In the early 1990s, the ], chaired by ] chief ], appointed Army Colonel William Johnson to manage the remote viewing unit and evaluate its objective usefulness. Funding dissipated in late 1994, and the program declined. The project was transferred from DIA to the ] in 1995. | |||
Many organizations today practice RV or offer training in RV. | |||
According to some of the self-described RV experts, some of these offerings and activities bear little resemblance to "true" RV protocols and therefore should not be named as such, but there is little to be done about it since the term "remote viewing" is not legally protected. | |||
One might consult the International Remote Viewing Association (IRVA) (see link below) to see if there is any consensus on current definition. | |||
In 1995, the CIA hired the ] (AIR) to perform a retrospective evaluation of the results generated by the ]. Reviewers included ] and ]. Utts maintained that there had been a ] positive effect,<ref>{{citation |mode= cs1 |url= http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/air2.html |title= An assessment of the evidence for psychic functioning |first= Jessica |last= Utts |date= 1995 |archive-date= 13 May 2008 |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080513174112/http://anson.ucdavis.edu/~utts/air2.html }}</ref> with some subjects scoring 5–15% above chance.{{refn|group=n|name="Eval of RV"}} Hyman argued that Utts' conclusion that ESP had been proven to exist "is premature, to say the least."<ref name=HymanAbstract>{{cite journal |last=Hyman |first=Ray |title=Evaluation of a program on anomalous mental phenomena |journal= Journal of Society for Scientific Exploration |volume= 10 |issue= 1 |page= Article 2 |publisher=Society for Scientific Exploration |url=http://www.scientificexploration.org/jse/abstracts/v10n1a2.php |access-date=2008-06-24 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080603202608/http://www.scientificexploration.org/jse/abstracts/v10n1a2.php |archive-date = June 3, 2008}}</ref> Hyman said the findings had yet to be replicated independently, and that more investigation would be necessary to "legitimately claim the existence of paranormal functioning".<ref name=HymanAbstract /> Based upon both of their studies, which recommended a higher level of critical research and tighter controls, the CIA terminated the $20 million project in 1995.<ref name="Time">{{cite news |magazine= Time |date= 11 December 1995 |page= 45 |url= http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,983829,00.html |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070209085903/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,983829,00.html |url-status= dead |archive-date= February 9, 2007 |title= The vision thing |first= Douglas |last= Waller |url-access=subscription }}</ref> '']'' magazine stated in 1995 that three full-time psychics were still working on a $500,000-a-year budget at ], ], which would soon be closed.<ref name="Time" /> | |||
== Applications == | |||
The AIR report concluded that no usable intelligence data was produced in the program.{{refn|group=n|name="Eval of RV"}} David Goslin of the American Institute for Research said, "There's no documented evidence it had any value to the intelligence community".<ref name="Time" /> | |||
Remote viewing was originally developed under a US government-sponsored program, with an eye toward intelligence-gathering applications for the CIA and military clients. | |||
Some RV proponents state that they suspect that some US government agencies still make ongoing use of RV activities. | |||
RV proponents also claim that a number of foreign states engage in RV activities. | |||
===PEAR's Remote Perception program=== | |||
RV proponents also claim that RV has found applications outside the government. | |||
It has been claimed to have been used in marine archeology (see papers at the IRVA site), criminal investigations, and commercial information gathering (not to say corporate espionage). | |||
Beginning in the late 1970s, the ] (PEAR) carried out extensive research on remote viewing. By 1989, it had conducted 336 formal trials, reporting a composite ] of 6.355, with a corresponding ] of {{val|1.04e-10}}.<ref name=hansen>{{cite journal |last1=Hansen |first1=George P. |last2=Utts |first2=Jessica |last3=Markwick |first3=Betty |date=June 1992 |title=Critique of the PEAR remote-viewing experiments |url=http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOnline/PEARCritique.pdf |journal=Journal of Parapsychology |volume=56}}</ref> In a 1992 critique of these results, Hansen, Utts and Markwick concluded "The PEAR remote-viewing experiments depart from commonly accepted criteria for formal research in science. In fact, they are undoubtedly some of the poorest quality ESP experiments published in many years."<ref name=hansen/> The lab responded that "none of the stated complaints compromises the PEAR experimental protocols or analytical methods" and reaffirmed their results.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dobyns |first1=Y.H. |last2=Dunne |first2=B.J. |last3=Jahn |first3=R.G. |last4=Nelson |first4=R.D. |date=June 1992 |title=Response to Hansen, Utts, and Markwick |url=http://icrl.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/1992-response-hansen-utts-markwick.pdf |journal=Journal of Parapsychology |volume=56}}</ref> | |||
Following Utts' emphasis on replication and Hyman's challenge on interlaboratory consistency in the AIR report, PEAR conducted several hundred trials to see if they could replicate the ] and SRI experiments. They created an analytical judgment methodology to replace the human judging process criticized in past experiments, and they released a report in 1996. They felt the results of the experiments were consistent with the SRI experiments.<ref>{{cite journal |url= http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_10_1_nelson.pdf |journal= ] |publisher= ] |volume= 10 |issue= 1 |pages= 109–110 |year= 1996 |title= Precognitive remote perception: Replication of remote viewing |first1= RD |last1= Nelson |first2= BJ |last2= Dunne |first3= YH |last3= Dobyns |first4= RG |last4= Jahn |access-date= 2008-06-02 |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100107161704/http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_10_1_nelson.pdf |archive-date= 2010-01-07 }}</ref>{{unreliable source?|date=February 2020}} However, statistical flaws have been proposed by others in the parapsychological community and within the general scientific community.<ref name="Jeffers2006">{{cite journal |url= http://www.csicop.org/si/show/pear_proposition_fact_or_fallacy/ |title= The PEAR proposition: Fact or fallacy? |publisher= ] |journal= ] |first= Stanley |last= Jeffers |date= May–June 2006 |access-date= 2014-01-24 |volume= 30 |issue= 3 |archive-date= 2014-02-01 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140201122738/http://www.csicop.org/si/show/pear_proposition_fact_or_fallacy/ |url-status= dead }}</ref> | |||
== Names of Note == | |||
==Scientific reception== | |||
* ], viewer. | |||
A variety of scientific studies on remote viewing have been conducted. Early experiments produced positive results, but they had invalidating flaws.<ref name="Marks 2000"/> None of the more recent experiments have shown positive results when conducted under ].<ref name="jordan" />{{refn|group=n|name="Eval of RV"}}<ref name="Time" />{{refn|group=n|name="Randi Encyclopedia"}}<ref name="uk_research">{{cite web |title= Remote Viewing |publisher= UK's Ministry of Defence |page= 94 (page 50 in second pdf) |orig-year=June 2002, disclosed in 2007|date=23 February 2007 |url= http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/FreedomOfInformation/DisclosureLog/SearchDisclosureLog/RemoteViewing.htm |archive-url= http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20121026065214/http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/FreedomOfInformation/DisclosureLog/SearchDisclosureLog/RemoteViewing.htm |url-status= dead |archive-date= 26 October 2012 }}</ref> This lack of successful experiments has led the mainstream scientific community to reject remote viewing, based upon the absence of an evidence base, the lack of a theory which would explain remote viewing, and the lack of experimental techniques which can provide reliably positive results.<ref name="Alcock 1981"/><ref name="Gilovich 1993">] (1993). ''How We Know What Isn't So: Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life''. Free Press. pp. 166–173. {{ISBN|978-0029117064}}</ref><ref name="Marks 2000"/><ref name="wiseman_one">{{cite journal | journal = ] | url = http://www.richardwiseman.com/resources/SAICcrit.pdf | title = Experiment One of the SAIC Remote Viewing Program: A critical reevaluation |last1=Wiseman |first1= R |last2= Milton |first2= J | pages = 297–308 | issue = 4 | volume = 62 | year = 1999 | access-date = 2008-06-26 }}<br />* Obtained from </ref> | |||
* ], viewer. | |||
* ], program member since mid-1970s and STAR GATE program director from 1986 until the close of the program. | |||
* ], one of the early viewers. | |||
* ], physicist and original program director. | |||
* ], viewer credited with authoring/editing the original CRV training manual. | |||
* ], artist and primary subject (not to say "psychic") and co-developer with Puthoff & company of the original RV protocol(s). | |||
* ], physicist and program member. | |||
Science writers ], ], ] and professor of neurology ] describe the topic of remote viewing as ].<ref name="Gardner2000">{{cite book|last=Gardner|first=Martin|author-link=Martin Gardner|title=Did Adam and Eve Have Navels?: Debunking Pseudoscience|pages=60–67|year=2000|publisher=W.W. Norton|location=New York|isbn=978-0393322385}}</ref><ref name="Paranormal. Prometheus Books p. 136">{{cite book |author-link= Terence Hines |last= Hines |first= Terence |date=2003 |title= Pseudoscience and the Paranormal |publisher= Prometheus Books |page= 136 |isbn= 1573929794}}</ref><ref name="heretical">{{cite book |chapter-url = http://pdf.aiaa.org/preview/1994/PV1994_4003.pdf |chapter = Heretical science – Beyond the boundaries of pathological science |title = Intersociety Energy Conversion Engineering Conference, 29th, Monterey, CA, Aug 7–11, 1994, Technical Papers. Pt. 3 (A94-31838 10–44) |last = Bennett |first = Gary L. |publisher = American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics |location = Washington, DC |year = 1994 |pages = 1207–1212 |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20111213192032/http://pdf.aiaa.org/preview/1994/PV1994_4003.pdf |archive-date = 2011-12-13 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author-link= Michael Shermer |last= Shermer |first= Michael |chapter= Science and Pseudoscience |editor1-link= Massimo Pigliucci |editor1-last= Pigliucci |editor1-first= Massimo |editor2-link= Maarten Boudry |editor2-last= Boudry |editor2-first= Maarten |date= 2013 |title= Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem |publisher= University Of Chicago Press |page= 206 |isbn= 978-0226051963}}</ref> | |||
== External Links == | |||
* | |||
* is nominally the private organization that carries on the spirit of the STAR GATE program. | |||
For the opposing Point of View | |||
* | |||
*Ray Hyman's report | |||
], who evaluated the remote viewing experiments of parapsychologists such as Puthoff, Targ, John B. Bisha, and Brenda J. Dunne, noted that there was a lack of controls, and precautions were not taken to rule out the possibility of fraud. He concluded the experimental design was inadequately reported and "too loosely controlled to serve any useful function."<ref>{{cite book |author-link= C. E. M. Hansel |last= Hansel |first= C. E. M |date= 1989 |title= The Search for Psychic Power |publisher= Prometheus Books |pages= 160–166 |isbn= 0879755164}}</ref> | |||
=== Historical: === | |||
* contains his own account of events leading up to his involvement with Hal Puthoff and the program at SRI. | |||
The psychologist ] says that, even if the results from remote viewing experiments were reproduced under specified conditions, they would still not be a conclusive demonstration of the existence of psychic functioning. He blames this on the reliance on a negative outcome—the claims on ESP are based on the results of experiments not being explained by normal means. He says that the experiments lack a positive theory that guides as to what to control on them and what to ignore, and that "Parapsychologists have not come close to (having a positive theory) as yet".{{refn|group=n|] wrote in an article in '']'': "Because even if Utts and her colleagues are correct and we were to find that we could reproduce the findings under specified conditions, this would still be a far cry from concluding that psychic functioning has been demonstrated. This is because the current claim is based entirely upon a negative outcome—the sole basis for arguing for ESP is that extra-chance results can be obtained that apparently cannot be explained by normal means. But an infinite variety of normal possibilities exist and it is not clear than one can control for all of them in a single experiment. You need a positive theory to guide you as to what needs to be controlled, and what can be ignored. Parapsychologists have not come close to this as yet."<ref name="hyman claims v reality">{{cite news |last= Hyman |first= Ray |author-link= Ray Hyman |url= http://www.csicop.org/si/show/evidence_for_psychic_functioning_claims_vs._reality |title= The evidence for psychic functioning: Claims vs. reality |magazine= ] |date= March–April 1996}}</ref>}} | |||
*http://www.firedocs.com/remoteviewing is no longer being updated but contains a number of links and documents, including a copy of the controlled remote viewing training manual. | |||
Hyman also says that the amount and quality of the experiments on RV are far too low to convince the scientific community to "abandon its fundamental ideas about causality, time, and other principles" due to its findings still not being replicated successfully under scrutiny.{{refn|group=n|] also says in the '']'' article: "What seems clear is that the scientific community is not going to abandon its fundamental ideas about causality, time, and other principles on the basis of a handful of experiments whose findings have yet to be shown to be replicable and lawful."<ref name="hyman claims v reality"/>}} | |||
] has written that the founding researcher Harold Puthoff was an active Scientologist before his work at Stanford University, which influenced his research at SRI. In 1970, the ] published a ] letter that Puthoff had written while he was conducting research on remote viewing at Stanford. The letter read, in part: "Although critics viewing the system ] from the outside may form the impression that Scientology is just another of many quasi-educational quasi-religious 'schemes,' it is in fact a highly sophistical and highly technological system more characteristic of modern corporate planning and applied technology".<ref name="Gardner2000"/> Among some of the ideas that Puthoff supported regarding remote viewing was the claim in the book '']'' that two followers of ], founder of ], were able to remote-view the inner structure of ]s.<ref name="Gardner2000"/> | |||
] investigated remote viewing experiments and discovered a problem with the target selection list. According to Shermer, with the ], only a handful of designs are usually used, such as lines and curves, which could depict any object and be interpreted as a "hit". Shermer has also written about ] and ]es that have occurred in remote viewing experiments.<ref>]. (2001). ''The Borderlands of Science: Where Sense Meets Nonsense''. Oxford University Press. pp. 8–10. {{ISBN|978-0198032724}}.</ref> | |||
Various ]s have conducted experiments for remote viewing and other alleged paranormal abilities, with no positive results under properly controlled conditions.<ref name="Marks 2000"/> | |||
===Sensory cues=== | |||
The psychologists ] and Richard Kammann attempted to replicate Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff's remote viewing experiments<ref name=":0" /> that were carried out in the 1970s at the ]. In a series of 35 studies, they could not replicate the results, so they investigated the procedure of the original experiments. Marks and Kammann discovered that the notes given to the judges in Targ and Puthoff's experiments contained clues as to which order they were carried out, such as referring to yesterday's two targets or having the session date written at the top of the page. They concluded that these clues were the reason for the experiment's high hit rates.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Marks | first1 = David | author-link = David Marks (psychologist) | last2 = Kammann | first2 = Richard | year = 1978 | title = Information transmission in remote viewing experiments | journal = Nature | volume = 274 | issue = 5672 | pages = 680–681 | doi=10.1038/274680a0 | bibcode = 1978Natur.274..680M| s2cid = 4249968 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Marks | first1 = David | author-link = David Marks (psychologist) | year = 1981 | title = Sensory cues invalidate remote viewing experiments | journal = Nature | volume = 292 | issue = 5819 | page = 177 | doi=10.1038/292177a0 | pmid = 7242682 | bibcode = 1981Natur.292..177M| s2cid = 4326382 | doi-access = free }}</ref> According to ]: | |||
{{blockquote|Examination of the few actual transcripts published by Targ and Puthoff show that just such clues were present. To find out if the unpublished transcripts contained cues, Marks and Kammann wrote to Targ and Puthoff requesting copies. It is almost unheard of for a scientist to refuse to provide his data for independent examination when asked, but Targ and Puthoff consistently refused to allow Marks and Kammann to see copies of the transcripts. Marks and Kammann were, however, able to obtain copies of the transcripts from the judge who used them. The transcripts were found to contain a wealth of cues.<ref>]. (2003). ''Pseudoscience and the Paranormal''. Prometheus Books. p. 135. {{ISBN|1573929794}}</ref>}} | |||
] has written: | |||
{{blockquote|Most of the material in the transcripts consists of the honest attempts by the percipients to describe their impressions. However, the transcripts also contained considerable extraneous material that could aid a judge in matching them to the correct targets. In particular, there were numerous references to dates, times and sites previously visited that would enable the judge to place the transcripts in proper sequence... Astonishingly, the judges in the Targ-Puthoff experiments were given a list of target sites in the exact order in which they were used in the tests!<ref name="Gilovich 1993"/>}} | |||
According to Marks, when the cues were eliminated the results fell to a chance level.<ref name="Marks 2000"/> Marks achieved 100 percent accuracy using cues alone, without visiting any of the sites himself.{{refn|group=n|Martin Bridgstock wrote in ''Beyond Belief: Skepticism, Science and the Paranormal'': "The explanation used by Marks and Kammann clearly involves the use of ]. Marks and Kammann argued that the 'cues' – clues to the order in which sites had been visited—provided sufficient information for the results, without any recourse to extrasensory perception. Indeed Marks himself was able to achieve 100 percent accuracy in allocating some transcripts to sites without visiting any of the sites himself, purely on the ground basis of the cues. From Occam's razor, it follows that if a straightforward natural explanation exists, there is no need for the spectacular paranormal explanation: Targ and Puthoff's claims are not justified".<ref>{{cite book |first= Martin |last= Bridgstock |year= 2009 |title= Beyond Belief: Skepticism, Science and the Paranormal |publisher= ] |page= 106 |isbn= 978-0521758932}}</ref>}} ] has written that controlled tests by several other researchers, eliminating several sources of cueing and extraneous evidence present in the original tests, produced negative results. Students also solved Puthoff and Targ's locations from the clues in the transcripts.<ref name= "randi_encyclopedia"/> | |||
Marks and Kamman concluded: "Until remote viewing can be confirmed in conditions which prevent sensory cueing the conclusions of Targ and Puthoff remain an unsubstantiated hypothesis."<ref>]. (1980). ''ESP and Parapsychology: A Critical Reevaluation''. Prometheus Books. p. 293</ref> In 1980, ] claimed that a rejudging of the transcripts from one of Targ and Puthoff's experiments revealed an above-chance result.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Tart | first1 = Charles | author-link = Charles Tart | author-link2 = Harold E. Puthoff | author-link3 = Russell Targ | last2 = Puthoff | first2 = Harold | last3 = Targ | first3 = Russell | year = 1980 | title = Information Transmission in Remote Viewing Experiments | journal = Nature | volume = 284 | issue = 5752 | page = 191 | doi=10.1038/284191a0 | pmid = 7360248 | bibcode = 1980Natur.284..191T| doi-access = free }}</ref> Targ and Puthoff again refused to provide copies of the transcripts and it was not until July 1985 that they were made available for study when it was discovered they still contained ]s.<ref name="Paranormal. Prometheus Books p. 136"/> Marks and Christopher Scott (1986) wrote, "Considering the importance for the remote viewing hypothesis of adequate cue removal, Tart's failure to perform this basic task seems beyond comprehension. As previously concluded, remote viewing has not been demonstrated in the experiments conducted by Puthoff and Targ, only the repeated failure of the investigators to remove sensory cues."<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Marks | first1 = David | author-link = David Marks (psychologist) | last2 = Scott | first2 = Christopher | year = 1986 | title = Remote Viewing Exposed | journal = Nature | volume = 319 | issue = 6053 | page = 444 | doi=10.1038/319444a0 | pmid = 3945330 | bibcode = 1986Natur.319..444M| doi-access = free }}</ref> | |||
The information from the ] remote viewing sessions was vague and included irrelevant and erroneous data. The project was never useful in any intelligence operation, and it was suspected that the project managers, in some cases, changed the reports so they would fit background cues.{{refn|group=n|name="Eval of RV"|Mumford, Rose and Goslin wrote, in ''An Evaluation of Remote Viewing: Research and Applications'': "remote viewings have never provided an adequate basis for 'actionable' intelligence operations{{snd}}that is, information sufficiently valuable or compelling so that action was taken as a result (...) a large amount of irrelevant, erroneous information is provided and little agreement is observed among viewers' reports. (...) remote viewers and project managers reported that remote viewing reports were changed to make them consistent with known background cues. While this was appropriate in that situation, it makes it impossible to interpret the role of the paranormal phenomena independently. Also, it raises some doubts about some well-publicized cases of dramatic hits, which, if taken at face value, could not easily be attributed to background cues. In at least some of these cases, there is reason to suspect, based on both subsequent investigations and the viewers' statement that reports had been "changed" by previous program managers, that substantially more background information was available than one might at first assume."<ref name="psiland">{{cite book |last1= Mumford |first1= Michael D. |last2= Rose |first2= Andrew M. |last3= Goslin |first3= David A. |title= An Evaluation of Remote Viewing: Research and Applications |url= http://www.lfr.org/lfr/csl/library/airreport.pdf |date= 29 September 1995 |publisher= ] |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20170113100257/http://www.lfr.org/lfr/csl/library/AirReport.pdf |archive-date= 13 January 2017 }}</ref>}} | |||
Marks in his book '']'' (2000) discussed the flaws in the Stargate Project in detail.<ref name="Marks 2">]. (2000). '']'' (2nd Edition). Prometheus Books. pp. 71–96. {{ISBN|1573927988}}</ref> He wrote that the experiments had several flaws. The possibility of cues or ] was not ruled out, the experiments were not independently ], and some of the experiments were conducted in secret, making ] impossible. He further noted that the judge, ], was also the ] for the project, risking a significant conflict of interest. Marks concluded the project was nothing more than a "subjective delusion", and after two decades of research, it had failed to provide any scientific evidence for remote viewing.<ref name="Marks 2"/> | |||
Professor ], a psychologist at the ], and a fellow of the ] (CSI) has pointed out several problems with one of the early experiments at SAIC, including information leakage. However, he indicated the importance of its process-oriented approach and of its refining of remote viewing methodology, which meant that researchers replicating their work could avoid these problems.<ref name="wiseman_one" /> Wiseman later insisted there were multiple opportunities for participants in that experiment to be influenced by cues and that these cues can affect the results when they appear.<ref name="wiseman_may" /> | |||
==Selected study participants== | |||
* ], political scientist and founder of the Farsight Institute{{cn|date=December 2024}} | |||
* ], the subject of a study by Targ and Puthoff at Stanford Research Institute<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1038/251602a0 | last1 = Targ | first1 = R | last2 = Puthoff | first2 = H | title = Information transmission under conditions of sensory shielding | journal = Nature | volume = 251 | issue = 5476 | pages = 602–607 | year = 1974 | pmid = 4423858 | bibcode = 1974Natur.251..602T| s2cid = 4152651 }}</ref> | |||
* ], a critic of remote viewing, after finding sensory cues and editing in the original transcripts generated by Targ and Puthoff at Stanford Research Institute in the 1970s{{cn|date=December 2024}} | |||
* ], an early remote viewer<ref>{{cite book |author-link= Joseph McMoneagle |first= Joseph |last= McMoneagle |title= Mind Trek: Exploring Consciousness, Time, and Space Through Remote Viewing |publisher= Hampton Roads |date= 1997}}</ref> See: ] | |||
* ], an early remote viewer{{cn|date=December 2024}} | |||
* ], a research participant in remote viewing<ref>{{cite book |title= Mind-Reach: Scientists Look at Psychic Ability |first1= Russell |last1= Targ |first2= Harold |last2=Puthoff |publisher= Dell |date= 1977}}</ref> | |||
==See also== | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
==Notes== | |||
{{Reflist|group=n}} | |||
==Footnotes== | |||
{{Reflist|2}} | |||
==Further reading== | |||
* {{cite book |last1= Alcock |first1= James E. |last2= Committee on Techniques for the Enhancement of Human Performance: Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences Education: ] (NRC) |author-link= James Alcock |title= Enhancing Human Performance: Issues, Theories, and Techniques, Background Papers (Complete Set)|publisher= ] |chapter= Part VI. Parapsychological Techniques |year= 1988 |location= Washington, DC |doi= 10.17226/778 |isbn= 978-0309078108 |ref= {{SfnRef|Alcock|1988}} |url= http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=778&page=601}} | |||
* ]. (2005). ''Remote Viewing: The Science and Theory of Nonphysical Perception''. Farsight Press. {{ISBN|0976676214}} | |||
* ]. (1988). ''Extrasensory Deception: ESP, Psychics, Shirley MacLaine, Ghosts, UFOs''. Macmillan of Canada. {{ISBN|0771595395}} | |||
* ]. (2002). ''The Stargate Chronicles: Memoirs of a Psychic Spy''. Hampton Roads. {{ISBN|1571742255}} | |||
* ]. (1982). '']''. Prometheus Books. {{ISBN|0879751983}} | |||
==External links== | |||
* – ] | |||
{{Parapsychology}} | |||
{{New Age Movement}} | |||
{{Authority control}} | |||
{{DEFAULTSORT:Remote Viewing}} | |||
] | |||
] | |||
] | |||
] | |||
] | |||
] |
Latest revision as of 09:35, 26 December 2024
Pseudoscientific concept Not to be confused with remote sensing or remote access software.Claims | The alleged paranormal ability to perceive a remote or hidden subject without support of the senses. |
---|---|
Year proposed | 1970 |
Original proponents | Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff |
Subsequent proponents | Ingo Swann, Joseph McMoneagle, Courtney Brown |
New Age beliefs List of New Age topics |
---|
Concepts |
Spiritual practices |
Doctrines |
Remote viewing (RV) is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen subject, purportedly sensing with the mind. A remote viewer is expected to give information about an object, event, person, or location hidden from physical view and separated at some distance. Physicists Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff, parapsychology researchers at Stanford Research Institute (SRI), are generally credited with coining the term "remote viewing" to distinguish it from the closely related concept of clairvoyance. According to Targ, the term was first suggested by Ingo Swann in December 1971 during an experiment at the American Society for Psychical Research in New York City.
Remote viewing experiments have historically lacked proper controls and repeatability. There is no scientific evidence that remote viewing exists, and the topic of remote viewing is generally regarded as pseudoscience.
The idea of remote viewing received renewed attention in the 1990s upon the declassification of documents related to the Stargate Project, a $20 million research program sponsored by the U.S. government that attempted to determine potential military applications of psychic phenomena. The program ran from 1975 to 1995 and ended after evaluators concluded that remote viewers consistently failed to produce actionable intelligence information.
History
Early background
In early occult and spiritualist literature, remote viewing was known as telesthesia and traveling clairvoyance. Rosemary Guiley described it as "seeing remote or hidden objects clairvoyantly with the inner eye, or in alleged out-of-body travel."
The study of psychic phenomena by major scientists started in the mid-nineteenth century. Early researchers included Michael Faraday, Alfred Russel Wallace, Rufus Osgood Mason, and William Crookes. Their work predominantly involved carrying out focused experimental tests on individuals thought to be psychically gifted. Reports of apparently successful tests were met with much skepticism from the scientific community.
In the 1930s, J. B. Rhine expanded the study of paranormal performance into larger populations by using standard experimental protocols with unselected human subjects. But, as with the earlier studies, Rhine was reluctant to publicize this work too early because of the fear of criticism from mainstream scientists.
This continuing skepticism, with its consequences for peer review and research funding, ensured that paranormal studies remained a fringe area of scientific exploration. However, by the 1960s, the prevailing counterculture attitudes muted some prior hostility. The emergence of what is termed "New Age" thinking and the popularity of the Human Potential Movement provoked a mini-renaissance that renewed public interest in consciousness studies and psychic phenomena. It also helped to make financial support more available for research into such topics.
In the early 1970s, Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ joined the Electronics and Bioengineering Laboratory at Stanford Research Institute (SRI, now SRI International), where they initiated studies of the paranormal that were, at first, supported with private funding from the Parapsychology Foundation and the Institute of Noetic Sciences.
In the late 1970s, the physicists John Taylor and Eduardo Balanovski tested the psychic Matthew Manning in remote viewing, and the results proved "completely unsuccessful".
One of the early experiments, lauded by proponents as having improved the methodology of remote viewing testing and raising future experimental standards, was criticized as leaking information to the participants by inadvertently leaving clues. Some later experiments had negative results when these clues were eliminated.
The viewers' advice in the "Stargate project" was always so unclear and non-detailed that it has never been used in any intelligence operation.
Decline and termination
In the early 1990s, the Military Intelligence Board, chaired by Defense Intelligence Agency chief Harry E. Soyster, appointed Army Colonel William Johnson to manage the remote viewing unit and evaluate its objective usefulness. Funding dissipated in late 1994, and the program declined. The project was transferred from DIA to the CIA in 1995.
In 1995, the CIA hired the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to perform a retrospective evaluation of the results generated by the Stargate Project. Reviewers included Ray Hyman and Jessica Utts. Utts maintained that there had been a statistically significant positive effect, with some subjects scoring 5–15% above chance. Hyman argued that Utts' conclusion that ESP had been proven to exist "is premature, to say the least." Hyman said the findings had yet to be replicated independently, and that more investigation would be necessary to "legitimately claim the existence of paranormal functioning". Based upon both of their studies, which recommended a higher level of critical research and tighter controls, the CIA terminated the $20 million project in 1995. Time magazine stated in 1995 that three full-time psychics were still working on a $500,000-a-year budget at Fort Meade, Maryland, which would soon be closed.
The AIR report concluded that no usable intelligence data was produced in the program. David Goslin of the American Institute for Research said, "There's no documented evidence it had any value to the intelligence community".
PEAR's Remote Perception program
Beginning in the late 1970s, the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab (PEAR) carried out extensive research on remote viewing. By 1989, it had conducted 336 formal trials, reporting a composite z-score of 6.355, with a corresponding p-value of 1.04×10. In a 1992 critique of these results, Hansen, Utts and Markwick concluded "The PEAR remote-viewing experiments depart from commonly accepted criteria for formal research in science. In fact, they are undoubtedly some of the poorest quality ESP experiments published in many years." The lab responded that "none of the stated complaints compromises the PEAR experimental protocols or analytical methods" and reaffirmed their results.
Following Utts' emphasis on replication and Hyman's challenge on interlaboratory consistency in the AIR report, PEAR conducted several hundred trials to see if they could replicate the SAIC and SRI experiments. They created an analytical judgment methodology to replace the human judging process criticized in past experiments, and they released a report in 1996. They felt the results of the experiments were consistent with the SRI experiments. However, statistical flaws have been proposed by others in the parapsychological community and within the general scientific community.
Scientific reception
A variety of scientific studies on remote viewing have been conducted. Early experiments produced positive results, but they had invalidating flaws. None of the more recent experiments have shown positive results when conducted under properly controlled conditions. This lack of successful experiments has led the mainstream scientific community to reject remote viewing, based upon the absence of an evidence base, the lack of a theory which would explain remote viewing, and the lack of experimental techniques which can provide reliably positive results.
Science writers Gary Bennett, Martin Gardner, Michael Shermer and professor of neurology Terence Hines describe the topic of remote viewing as pseudoscience.
C. E. M. Hansel, who evaluated the remote viewing experiments of parapsychologists such as Puthoff, Targ, John B. Bisha, and Brenda J. Dunne, noted that there was a lack of controls, and precautions were not taken to rule out the possibility of fraud. He concluded the experimental design was inadequately reported and "too loosely controlled to serve any useful function."
The psychologist Ray Hyman says that, even if the results from remote viewing experiments were reproduced under specified conditions, they would still not be a conclusive demonstration of the existence of psychic functioning. He blames this on the reliance on a negative outcome—the claims on ESP are based on the results of experiments not being explained by normal means. He says that the experiments lack a positive theory that guides as to what to control on them and what to ignore, and that "Parapsychologists have not come close to (having a positive theory) as yet".
Hyman also says that the amount and quality of the experiments on RV are far too low to convince the scientific community to "abandon its fundamental ideas about causality, time, and other principles" due to its findings still not being replicated successfully under scrutiny.
Martin Gardner has written that the founding researcher Harold Puthoff was an active Scientologist before his work at Stanford University, which influenced his research at SRI. In 1970, the Church of Scientology published a notarized letter that Puthoff had written while he was conducting research on remote viewing at Stanford. The letter read, in part: "Although critics viewing the system Scientology from the outside may form the impression that Scientology is just another of many quasi-educational quasi-religious 'schemes,' it is in fact a highly sophistical and highly technological system more characteristic of modern corporate planning and applied technology". Among some of the ideas that Puthoff supported regarding remote viewing was the claim in the book Occult Chemistry that two followers of Madame Blavatsky, founder of theosophy, were able to remote-view the inner structure of atoms.
Michael Shermer investigated remote viewing experiments and discovered a problem with the target selection list. According to Shermer, with the sketches, only a handful of designs are usually used, such as lines and curves, which could depict any object and be interpreted as a "hit". Shermer has also written about confirmation and hindsight biases that have occurred in remote viewing experiments.
Various skeptic organizations have conducted experiments for remote viewing and other alleged paranormal abilities, with no positive results under properly controlled conditions.
Sensory cues
The psychologists David Marks and Richard Kammann attempted to replicate Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff's remote viewing experiments that were carried out in the 1970s at the Stanford Research Institute. In a series of 35 studies, they could not replicate the results, so they investigated the procedure of the original experiments. Marks and Kammann discovered that the notes given to the judges in Targ and Puthoff's experiments contained clues as to which order they were carried out, such as referring to yesterday's two targets or having the session date written at the top of the page. They concluded that these clues were the reason for the experiment's high hit rates. According to Terence Hines:
Examination of the few actual transcripts published by Targ and Puthoff show that just such clues were present. To find out if the unpublished transcripts contained cues, Marks and Kammann wrote to Targ and Puthoff requesting copies. It is almost unheard of for a scientist to refuse to provide his data for independent examination when asked, but Targ and Puthoff consistently refused to allow Marks and Kammann to see copies of the transcripts. Marks and Kammann were, however, able to obtain copies of the transcripts from the judge who used them. The transcripts were found to contain a wealth of cues.
Thomas Gilovich has written:
Most of the material in the transcripts consists of the honest attempts by the percipients to describe their impressions. However, the transcripts also contained considerable extraneous material that could aid a judge in matching them to the correct targets. In particular, there were numerous references to dates, times and sites previously visited that would enable the judge to place the transcripts in proper sequence... Astonishingly, the judges in the Targ-Puthoff experiments were given a list of target sites in the exact order in which they were used in the tests!
According to Marks, when the cues were eliminated the results fell to a chance level. Marks achieved 100 percent accuracy using cues alone, without visiting any of the sites himself. James Randi has written that controlled tests by several other researchers, eliminating several sources of cueing and extraneous evidence present in the original tests, produced negative results. Students also solved Puthoff and Targ's locations from the clues in the transcripts.
Marks and Kamman concluded: "Until remote viewing can be confirmed in conditions which prevent sensory cueing the conclusions of Targ and Puthoff remain an unsubstantiated hypothesis." In 1980, Charles Tart claimed that a rejudging of the transcripts from one of Targ and Puthoff's experiments revealed an above-chance result. Targ and Puthoff again refused to provide copies of the transcripts and it was not until July 1985 that they were made available for study when it was discovered they still contained sensory cues. Marks and Christopher Scott (1986) wrote, "Considering the importance for the remote viewing hypothesis of adequate cue removal, Tart's failure to perform this basic task seems beyond comprehension. As previously concluded, remote viewing has not been demonstrated in the experiments conducted by Puthoff and Targ, only the repeated failure of the investigators to remove sensory cues."
The information from the Stargate Project remote viewing sessions was vague and included irrelevant and erroneous data. The project was never useful in any intelligence operation, and it was suspected that the project managers, in some cases, changed the reports so they would fit background cues.
Marks in his book The Psychology of the Psychic (2000) discussed the flaws in the Stargate Project in detail. He wrote that the experiments had several flaws. The possibility of cues or sensory leakage was not ruled out, the experiments were not independently replicated, and some of the experiments were conducted in secret, making peer review impossible. He further noted that the judge, Edwin May, was also the principal investigator for the project, risking a significant conflict of interest. Marks concluded the project was nothing more than a "subjective delusion", and after two decades of research, it had failed to provide any scientific evidence for remote viewing.
Professor Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire, and a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) has pointed out several problems with one of the early experiments at SAIC, including information leakage. However, he indicated the importance of its process-oriented approach and of its refining of remote viewing methodology, which meant that researchers replicating their work could avoid these problems. Wiseman later insisted there were multiple opportunities for participants in that experiment to be influenced by cues and that these cues can affect the results when they appear.
Selected study participants
- Courtney Brown, political scientist and founder of the Farsight Institute
- Uri Geller, the subject of a study by Targ and Puthoff at Stanford Research Institute
- David Marks, a critic of remote viewing, after finding sensory cues and editing in the original transcripts generated by Targ and Puthoff at Stanford Research Institute in the 1970s
- Joseph McMoneagle, an early remote viewer See: Stargate Project
- Pat Price, an early remote viewer
- Ingo Swann, a research participant in remote viewing
See also
- Astral projection
- Bilocation
- Body of light
- Divination
- Edgar Cayce
- Extrasensory perception
- List of topics characterized as pseudoscience
- Lucid dreaming
- Parapsychology research at SRI
- Project MKUltra
- Scrying
- Third eye
- The Men Who Stare at Goats (film)
- Suspect Zero (film)
Notes
- ^ Mumford, Rose and Goslin wrote, in An Evaluation of Remote Viewing: Research and Applications: "remote viewings have never provided an adequate basis for 'actionable' intelligence operations – that is, information sufficiently valuable or compelling so that action was taken as a result (...) a large amount of irrelevant, erroneous information is provided and little agreement is observed among viewers' reports. (...) remote viewers and project managers reported that remote viewing reports were changed to make them consistent with known background cues. While this was appropriate in that situation, it makes it impossible to interpret the role of the paranormal phenomena independently. Also, it raises some doubts about some well-publicized cases of dramatic hits, which, if taken at face value, could not easily be attributed to background cues. In at least some of these cases, there is reason to suspect, based on both subsequent investigations and the viewers' statement that reports had been "changed" by previous program managers, that substantially more background information was available than one might at first assume."
- ^ From An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural by James Randi: "The data of Puthoff and Targ were reexamined by the other researchers, and it was found that their students were able to solve the locations without use of any psychic powers, using only the clues that had inadvertently been included in the Puthoff and Targ transcripts."
- Ray Hyman wrote in an article in Skeptical Inquirer: "Because even if Utts and her colleagues are correct and we were to find that we could reproduce the findings under specified conditions, this would still be a far cry from concluding that psychic functioning has been demonstrated. This is because the current claim is based entirely upon a negative outcome—the sole basis for arguing for ESP is that extra-chance results can be obtained that apparently cannot be explained by normal means. But an infinite variety of normal possibilities exist and it is not clear than one can control for all of them in a single experiment. You need a positive theory to guide you as to what needs to be controlled, and what can be ignored. Parapsychologists have not come close to this as yet."
- Hyman also says in the Skeptical Inquirer article: "What seems clear is that the scientific community is not going to abandon its fundamental ideas about causality, time, and other principles on the basis of a handful of experiments whose findings have yet to be shown to be replicable and lawful."
- Martin Bridgstock wrote in Beyond Belief: Skepticism, Science and the Paranormal: "The explanation used by Marks and Kammann clearly involves the use of Occam's razor. Marks and Kammann argued that the 'cues' – clues to the order in which sites had been visited—provided sufficient information for the results, without any recourse to extrasensory perception. Indeed Marks himself was able to achieve 100 percent accuracy in allocating some transcripts to sites without visiting any of the sites himself, purely on the ground basis of the cues. From Occam's razor, it follows that if a straightforward natural explanation exists, there is no need for the spectacular paranormal explanation: Targ and Puthoff's claims are not justified".
Footnotes
- ^ Blom, Jan. (2009). A Dictionary of Hallucinations. Springer. p. 451. ISBN 978-1441912220
- Zusne, Leonard; Jones, Warren (1989). Anomalistic psychology: a study of magical thinking. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. p. 167. ISBN 0805805087.
- Kendrick Frazier. Science Confronts the Paranormal. Prometheus Books, Publishers; ISBN 978-1615926190. pp. 94–.
- ^ Joe Nickell (March 2001), "Remotely Viewed? The Charlie Jordan Case", Skeptical Inquirer
- Targ, Russell (2012). The Reality of ESP: A Physicist's Proof of Psychic Abilities. Quest Books. pp. 4, 14, 23. ISBN 978-0835608848.
- ^ Alcock, James. (1981). Parapsychology-Science Or Magic?: A Psychological Perspective. Pergamon Press. pp. 164–179. ISBN 978-0080257730
- Gilovich, Thomas (1993). How We Know What Isn't So: Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life. Free Press. pp. 166–173. ISBN 978-0029117064
- ^ Marks, David; Kammann, Richard. (2000). The Psychology of the Psychic. Prometheus Books. ISBN 1573927988
- Wiseman, R; Milton, J (1999). "Experiment One of the SAIC Remote Viewing Program: A critical reevaluation" (PDF). Journal of Parapsychology. 62 (4): 297–308. Retrieved 2008-06-26.* Obtained from listing of research papers on Wiseman's website
- Gardner, Martin (2000). Did Adam and Eve Have Navels?: Debunking Pseudoscience. New York: W.W. Norton. pp. 60–67. ISBN 978-0393322385.
- Hines, Terence (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. p. 136. ISBN 1573929794.
- ^ Waller, Douglas (11 December 1995). "The vision thing". Time. p. 45. Archived from the original on February 9, 2007.
- Guiley, Rosemary (1991). Harper's Encyclopedia of Mystical and Paranormal Experience. San Francisco: Harper. p. 507. ISBN 978-0062503664.
- Hyman, Ray (1985). "A Critical Historical Overview of Parapsychology". In Kurtz, Paul (ed.). A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology. Prometheus Books. pp. 3–96. ISBN 0879753005.
- Hyman, R (June 1986). "Parapsychological research: A tutorial review and critical appraisal". Proceedings of the IEEE. 74 (6): 823–849. doi:10.1109/proc.1986.13557. S2CID 39889367.
- Wade, N (July 13, 1973). "Psychical research: The incredible in search of credibility". Science. 181 (4095): 138–143. Bibcode:1973Sci...181..138W. doi:10.1126/science.181.4095.138. PMID 17746612.
- Kaiser, David (2011). How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival. W.W. Norton & Company. pp. 69–71. ISBN 978-0393076363.
- Taylor, John (1980). Science and the Supernatural: An Investigation of Paranormal Phenomena Including Psychic Healing, Clairvoyance, Telepathy, and Precognition by a Distinguished Physicist and Mathematician. Temple Smith. p. 83. ISBN 0851171915.
- ^ Wiseman, R; Milton, J (1999). "Experiment one of the SAIC remote viewing program: A critical re-evaluation. A reply to May" (PDF). Journal of Parapsychology. 63 (1): 3–14. Retrieved 2008-06-26.
* Obtained from listing of research papers on Wiseman's website - ^ Randi, James (n.d.) . "Remote Viewing". An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural. Digital adaptation by Gilles-Maurice de Schryver. (Online ed.). James Randi Educational Foundation . Retrieved 26 January 2022.
- Utts, Jessica (1995). An assessment of the evidence for psychic functioning. Archived from the original on 13 May 2008.
- ^ Hyman, Ray. "Evaluation of a program on anomalous mental phenomena". Journal of Society for Scientific Exploration. 10 (1). Society for Scientific Exploration: Article 2. Archived from the original on June 3, 2008. Retrieved 2008-06-24.
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- "Remote Viewing". UK's Ministry of Defence. 23 February 2007 . p. 94 (page 50 in second pdf). Archived from the original on 26 October 2012.
- ^ Gilovich, Thomas (1993). How We Know What Isn't So: Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life. Free Press. pp. 166–173. ISBN 978-0029117064
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* Obtained from listing of research papers on Wiseman's website - ^ Gardner, Martin (2000). Did Adam and Eve Have Navels?: Debunking Pseudoscience. New York: W.W. Norton. pp. 60–67. ISBN 978-0393322385.
- ^ Hines, Terence (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. p. 136. ISBN 1573929794.
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- Shermer, Michael (2013). "Science and Pseudoscience". In Pigliucci, Massimo; Boudry, Maarten (eds.). Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem. University Of Chicago Press. p. 206. ISBN 978-0226051963.
- Hansel, C. E. M (1989). The Search for Psychic Power. Prometheus Books. pp. 160–166. ISBN 0879755164.
- ^ Hyman, Ray (March–April 1996). "The evidence for psychic functioning: Claims vs. reality". Skeptical Inquirer.
- Shermer, Michael. (2001). The Borderlands of Science: Where Sense Meets Nonsense. Oxford University Press. pp. 8–10. ISBN 978-0198032724.
- ^ Targ, R; Puthoff, H (1974). "Information transmission under conditions of sensory shielding". Nature. 251 (5476): 602–607. Bibcode:1974Natur.251..602T. doi:10.1038/251602a0. PMID 4423858. S2CID 4152651.
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- Hines, Terence. (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. p. 135. ISBN 1573929794
- Bridgstock, Martin (2009). Beyond Belief: Skepticism, Science and the Paranormal. Cambridge University Press. p. 106. ISBN 978-0521758932.
- Hansel, C. E. M. (1980). ESP and Parapsychology: A Critical Reevaluation. Prometheus Books. p. 293
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- ^ Marks, David. (2000). The Psychology of the Psychic (2nd Edition). Prometheus Books. pp. 71–96. ISBN 1573927988
- McMoneagle, Joseph (1997). Mind Trek: Exploring Consciousness, Time, and Space Through Remote Viewing. Hampton Roads.
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Further reading
- Alcock, James E.; Committee on Techniques for the Enhancement of Human Performance: Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences Education: National Research Council (NRC) (1988). "Part VI. Parapsychological Techniques". Enhancing Human Performance: Issues, Theories, and Techniques, Background Papers (Complete Set). Washington, DC: National Academies Press. doi:10.17226/778. ISBN 978-0309078108.
- Brown, Courtney. (2005). Remote Viewing: The Science and Theory of Nonphysical Perception. Farsight Press. ISBN 0976676214
- Gordon, Henry. (1988). Extrasensory Deception: ESP, Psychics, Shirley MacLaine, Ghosts, UFOs. Macmillan of Canada. ISBN 0771595395
- McMoneagle, Joseph. (2002). The Stargate Chronicles: Memoirs of a Psychic Spy. Hampton Roads. ISBN 1571742255
- Randi, James. (1982). Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions. Prometheus Books. ISBN 0879751983