Are you curious about remote viewing? You have most likely heard about this mysterious practice and understand that is has something to do with ESP. What you may not know is that a person does not have to be a psychic to learn and use remote viewing. In fact, you can learn to become a remote viewer and access incredible mental powers you didn't even know you have.
What Is Remote Viewing?
Remote viewing is the controlled use of ESP (extrasensory perception) through a specific method. Using a set of protocols (technical rules), the remote viewer can perceive a target - a person, object or event - that is located distantly in time and space. A remote viewer, it is said, can perceive a target in the past or future that is located in the next room, across the country, around the world or, theoretically, across the universe. In remote viewing, time and space are meaningless. What makes remote viewing different than ESP is that, because it uses specific techniques, it can be learned by virtually anyone.
The term "remote viewing" came about in 1971 through experimentation conducted by Ingo Swann (who correctly remote viewed in 1973 that the planet Jupiter has rings, a fact later confirmed by space probes), Janet Mitchell, Karlis Osis and Gertrude Schmeidler.
In the method that they and others developed, there are five components necessary for remote viewing to take place:
- a subject (the remote viewer)
- active ESP abilities
- a distant target
- the subject's recorded perceptions
- a confirmatory positive feedback
A remote viewing sessions lasts about one hour.
During the Cold War through the 1970s and 1980s, remote viewing was further developed by the US military and the CIA through such programs codenamed Sun Streak, Grill Flame and Star Gate. The government-sponsored remote viewing programs were successful, according to many who participated. Some of the now-declassified examples include the highly accurate and detailed descriptions of buildings and facilities hundred of miles from the remote viewer - including a crane assembly in the Soviet Union.
Although these organizations claim that after 20 years of experimentation their remote viewing programs have been abandoned, some insiders believe that they are being continued secretly. Some well-known remote viewers say they were contacted by the US government after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to help locate other possible terrorist activity.
What It Isn't
Remote viewing is not an out-of-body experience. A remote viewer does not astrally project to the target, although some remote viewers occasionally report a feeling of bilocating to the site of the target.
It also is not a meditative, dream or trance state. During a remote viewing session, the subject is always fully awake and alert. As Christophe Brunski writes in "Remote Viewing: Conditions and Potentials," "Whereas one might consider a trance state to be 'going down' into the deeper levels of mind, RV might be said to allow information from these deeper levels to 'come up.'"
How Does It Work?
No one really knows for certain how remote viewing works, only that it does. One theory is that trained remote viewers are able to tap into the "Universal Mind" - a kind of comprehensive storehouse of information about everything, where time and space are irrelevant. The remote viewer can enter a "hyperconscious state" in which he or she can tune in to specific targets within the universal consciousness of which all people and all things are a part. It sounds like a lot of "New Age" jargon, but it's a good guess as to what's really taking place.
Ingo Swann calls remote viewing a "form of virtual reality traveling" that is brought under conscious control.
How well does it work? While skeptics contend that it doesn't work at all and some proponents claim it works 100 percent of the time, the fact is it does work, but not all of the time for all remote viewers. A highly skilled remote viewer may have a success rate that approaches 100 percent; he or she may be able to access a target nearly all of the time, but all of the data obtained may not be completely accurate. There are many factors involved, and some targets may be more complicated to reach and describe than others.
Who Can Learn Remote Viewing?
Virtually anyone can learn remote viewing. You don't need to be "psychic" to successfully remote view, but it does require training and diligent practice. Some research has shown that left-handed people are more likely to become successful at it. But learning remote viewing has been likened to learning to play a musical instrument. You're not going to be able to read a book (or website) about it and then be able to do it. You must learn the techniques and then practice. As with a musical instrument, the more you train and practice with it, the better you'll be able to perform. It takes time, motivation and dedication.
According to Paul H. Smith in his article "Can Remote Viewing Be Trained," remote viewing "training has been nearly always successful to a greater or lesser degree depending on the level of motivation, preparation and innate ability of a given student viewer." Remote viewer Joe McMoneagle has compared it to training for the martial arts.
How You Can Learn Remote Viewing
If you're curious about the potential of remote viewing, there are many resources for learning its methods and techniques. For example, the official Army manual on Coordinate Remote Viewing, written in 1986, is available free online. It provides background, training procedures, how a remote viewing session works and more.
There are commercial courses as well, which can range in cost from free to hundreds of dollars and even thousands of dollars. Be cautious and research a company thoroughly before investing any money in training. Be wary of exaggerated claims and find out exactly what you get for your money. Here are a few sources:
Why would you want to learn remote viewing? Paul H. Smith answers:
"Within its inherent limitations remote viewing has been used in intelligence collection, crime-solving, finding missing persons, market predictions, and - more controversially - space exploration. Yet most people who learn it do so not because of practical applications so much as the challenge it represents - learning to do something that few other people as yet know how to do; or acquiring a skill deemed impossible under the currently ruling scientific paradigm; or because it provides convincing and satisfying proof that we are, indeed, much more than our physical bodies. While skydivers learn that it is possible to transcend the physical fears and bodily limitations that we normally think we are subject to, remote viewers learn something analogous: that it is possible to transcend not only those limitations, but the boundaries of space and time as well."
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