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Remote viewing (RV) is a form of clairvoyance 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.

Most scientists are skeptical of psi abilities and parapsychology in general, and do not find the evidence at all convincing and consider remote viewing to be pseudoscience at best and fraud at worst.

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 Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in Menlo Park, California, which was begun in the early 1970s and continued until 1995. 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).

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.

Some variations on the remove 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.

History

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.

As a result, in the early 1970s the US government contracted with Stanford Research Institute (SRI), a think-tank based in Menlo Park, California and at one time associated with Stanford University, to investigate these questions. Dr. Hal Puthoff, one of 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.

Around that time, on the east coast of the US, Mr. Ingo Swann had attained some note as the subject of a series of experiments designed and conducted by Dr. Karlis Osis of the American Society for Psychical Research 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.

Very early on (even from their first visit) 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. The program activity over the following years answered in the affirmative. While the remote viewing results were never (and to this day still are not) anywhere near 100% accurate, and often were entirely negative, on average they provided enough accuracy to warrant the resources spent in pursuing information using RV. And occasionally there were some very impressive "hits".

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.

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, a report was issued by Drs. Jessica Utts and Ray Hyman with some differences of opinion (see the assessment papers and response by Utts at CSL site below), and the decision was made to close (de-fund) the program.

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.

Many organizations today practice RV or offer training in RV. According to some of the 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.

Applications

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 suspect that some US government agencies still make ongoing use of RV activities. RV experts report that a number of foreign states engage in RV activities.

RV has found applications outside the government. It has been used in marine archeology (see papers at the IRVA site), criminal investigations, and commercial information gathering (not to say corporate espionage).

There is also an increasing number of people who are learning RV for their own personal enrichment and for learning more about the strange universe we live in.

Names of Note

• Lyn Buchanan, viewer.
• Ed Dames, viewer.
• Edwin May, program member since mid-1970s and STAR GATE program director from 1986 until the close of the program.
• Joe McMoneagle, one of the early viewers.
• Hal Puthoff, physicist and original program director.
• Paul Smith, viewer credited with authoring/editing the original CRV training manual.
• Ingo Swann, artist and primary subject (not to say "psychic") and co-developer with Puthoff & company of the original RV protocol(s).
• Russel Targ, physicist and program member.

External Links

• International Remove Viewing Association
• Cognitive Sciences Laboratory is nominally the private organization that carries on the spirit of the STAR GATE program.

For the opposing Point of View

• Skeptic's Dictionary on Remote Viewing

Historical:

• Ingo Swann's Biomind Superpowers Web Pages contains his own account of events leading up to his involvement with Hal Puthoff and the program at SRI.
• 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.