Discussions on Remote Viewing

by Jimmy Williams

These articles first appeared in On Target, the HRVG newsletter edited by Dick Allgire, between 2001-2002 

Part I

This is the first in a series of articles that is meant to promote dialog about the nature of remote viewing by comparing it to works by authors that seem pertinent to the discussion but in particular to the experimental work in telepathy done by French chemical engineer Rene’ Warcollier in the early decades of the twentieth century.

Monsieur Warcollier was unique in that he didn't try to prove telepathy to skeptics. He concerned himself with conducting experiments and recording the results. His belief was that until the phenomena could be produced at will, it wouldn't be given scientific status.

Warcollier’s book, Experiments in Telepathy, published in 1938, is a treasure trove of information about psychic functioning. The telepathy he sought to describe strongly parallels what we call remote viewing. There are some key differences between the telepathic experiments carried out or reported by Monsieur Warcollier and remote viewing as generally practiced.

The first difference is that with telepathy, there is assumed to be a sender and a receiver. (This loosely equates to the relationship between the targeteer and viewers in remote viewing, which I explain below.)

The second difference is the notion that telepathic communication is dependent on simultaneity. This was not stated explicitly, but was implied by the structure of the experiments. This basically assumes that in order to succeed, the participants must be actively engaged in sending and receiving information. In remote viewing there is no active sender. Instead the subject to be viewed is given a unique coded designator called a target ID which is a set of random numbers and/or letters such as 2637-8927 or ABCD-EFGH. The target ID is associated to the subject through an act of focused attention. The person who carries out this activity is specially trained and is called a targeteer.

The remote viewer only gets the target ID, frequently has no contact with the targeteer and does not do the viewing while the targeteer is preparing the target. Therefore, simultaneity is not a factor in a remote viewing session.

There is a unique case called "outbound remote viewing" or "beaconing" which is similar to telepathy, in that there is an active sender, but this represents a very small percentage of the remote viewing being done.

I found it most interesting that despite his assumptions about the nature of telepathy, Monsieur Warcollier’s results were entirely familiar to me as a trained remote viewer.

Prior to my exposure to Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity and other quantum physical theories, my world view would have dictated unquestioning agreement with Monsieur Warcollier’s prejudices for the importance of time and causality. His unconscious assumptions are right for his time and show up in the way he crafted the protocols of his psychic experiments.

Chapter 1

Warcollier describes psychic imagery as converging on the percipient from memory and being organized in visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, and kinesthetic categories.

Does this sound familiar? It is the very same organization, in the same order, that we use in stage two of remote viewing. You can see examples of this in the many sessions posted on the Hawaii Remote Viewer’s Guild (HRVG) web site. Is this a natural pattern, a coincidence, or could it be that the authors of early remote viewing protocols were familiar with Warcollier’s work?

In the experiments carried out by Warcollier and his colleagues, the imagery received were mostly hand drawn impressions of “visual” data. The primary nature of the visual senses represented in the work is remarkable in that some modern remote viewing techniques suppress "viewing" in the early stages of their protocol structure.


Let's look at some of the specific problems that come about when trying to perceive visual data. In their telepathic experiments, many of the images transmitted contained color. In this regard Warcollier writes: “We cannot know how color is transmitted, but the important thing is that color is transmitted, independently of form. Some subjects never perceive colors in telepathic images; others, like myself, perceive colors as well as form. With the latter, color may be transmitted well, but in connection with a mistaken image. For instance, in the case of a fish of a certain shade of red, the exact shade may get through in association with a billiard ball of the same color, although the image of the red fish may be transmitted in the form of a white fish of another species.”

The data can all be there, but the faculty of the analytical mind is missing. The discernment of normal thought is missing. The mind is communicating the essential gestalts, but it filters out the meaning while transmitting fundamental data like color and form.

Warcollier says that data converge on the percipient from strata of memory. Robert Ornstein, the author of The Evolution of Consciousness, The Origins of the Way We Think, cites experiments by Frederic Bartlett in 1932 that destroy the idea of the accuracy of what we think of as normal memory: “He noticed that people’s recall of figures and events was not accurate. He realized that the transformations memory performed on elements generally altered them to be more like the previous experiences of the person recalling them.”

The basic idea is that your mind assembles data on the fly according to a predetermined mental framework or paradigm one is operating in. (This sounds very much like the concept of "framing" from Neuro-Linguistic Programming.)

Ornstein goes on to say: “…Bartlett developed the notion of schema – a mental template into which we fit our experiences. Investigators of the memory schema have discovered several types of distortions in recall. Memory is selective - information not in the currently active schema cannot be recalled; it is interpretive - the active schema leads to supposition about the meaning of events, and it is integrative – different ideas and events are combined into one schema and can no longer be processed separately.” On the simplest level, the integrative-interpretive aspect of thought is what we recognize in the proper association of the color (red) and form (fish) in Warcollier’s example, but it also shows up in curious illogical associations like a red fish colored billiard ball and a white fish of similar form. Each is a legitimate association, but the second example lacks context.

Natural evolutionary pressures designed the mind. It was never meant to be an accurate catalogue of the outside world inside one's head. It evolved to accomplish the task of finding food, avoiding pain and reproducing. These are the baseline schemas of the mind.

Schema can be very much more complex, but all data processing is organized to make efficient use of the enormous amounts of data that our environment is bombarding us with. Data is assembled from the senses in real time and from memory according to schema. The schema give meaning to the data and filter out anything that is extraneous. Processing information correctly and efficiently meant staying alive and it has been wonderfully successful.

Getting back to telepathic or remote viewed data, there is no predetermined “schema” to operate from. There is no meaning to organize the data. This is what is known as blind or double blind remote viewing and it is the standard method of conducting a remote viewing session. The data organizing principle of the mind is therefore negated by the protocols of remote viewing (or the experimental restrictions of telepathy).

Because the schema is lacking, the data that is received has to fall back on simple, associative memory rather than integrative-interpretive memory. As in Warcollier’s example above, the red of the fish associates with the red of a billiard ball because it doesn't have access to the direct sensory framework provided by the eyes sending signals to the mind, which say Red Fish. Neither can it rely on memory organized in the form of earlier similar events having similar schema.

This is why people who claim to remote view, but know the nature of the subject ahead of time (i.e. "front loaded"), are not really working in the same arena at all. When front loaded, a whole different aspect of mind is interpreting and integrating data. Remote viewing relies on pure associative data in the beginning stages. It is ill advised to refer to both front loaded and blind remote viewing with the same label because of the significant differences in mental processing.

There is a term used by remote viewers called “Analytical Overlay”(AOL). It is the activity of the mind slipping in to integrative-interpretive mode. This is when one assembles reasonable imaginary contexts for incompletely perceived remote viewing data.

The trick is to maintain associative mental processing. If successful in avoiding AOL, the data collected in the remote viewing session eventually accretes in meaningful ways through the agency of the data collection matrix created by the remote viewing protocols.

This is crucial to understanding the activity of the mind while remote viewing. It takes training and discipline to suspend the normal tendency of the mind to integrate and interpret. Strict adherence to remote viewing protocols ensure that one is in the proper state of mind and that data is collected in a standard methodology that allows meaning to be reconstituted through data analysis.   

Part II

Why is it that the subconscious mind is able to transfer basic gestaltic information by means that are seemingly beyond the capability of our physical senses, when the conscious mind cannot? Does the conscious mind also accesses a-causal, spatially distant, and time-displaced information?

Before we can seriously approach this question we have to understand the working principles of the conscious mind. Some of this was touched on in the previous chapter. The waking mind is active. It is constantly comparing data from the world of the senses and data from memory against an organizing scheme of some kind. This central construct is the person’s best guess of how the world works.

This central organizing principle usually is a multifaceted, loose confederation of mental constructs, with each part having a unique characteristic and each taking turns being dominant in order to adapt to changing survival pressures. Different world views or Me’s take turns to fulfill the appropriate survival needs of the moment.

One Me takes charge in serious business environments, while another takes over during intimate loving relationships. Sometimes a monolithic Me takes over, refuses to leave center stage and acts the same way no matter the situation. This can seem neurotic in inappropriate circumstances.

Whether multifaceted, monolithic or somewhere in between, the point is that data converges on a central framework and can only be evaluated in terms of it. This is a highly successful way of processing the world and is probably responsible for the primacy of Homo sapiens.

We are incredibly adaptable creatures. As Robert Ornstein says in The Evolution of Consciousness, The Origins of the Way We Think, “Because of the great malleability of the brain, human beings are as successful a species as we are because we can occupy a wide range of niches. Other animals have died out because of their lack of adaptability.” We are like the tiger that can change his stripes. We change our central brain operating system in response to survival needs. Through a combination of nature and nurture, we build mental frameworks that are appropriate to our environment.

What happens to data that doesn’t fit the framework? Usually it is totally ignored, but sometimes it floats to the surface as intuition. Sometimes the importance of the information is so important to the survival of the person that they are compelled to act without reason, as if they had lost their mind. Take for instance the person that has a bad premonition and decides not to board an airplane that latter crashes. Some major organizing paradigms of that person’s world had to be shoved aside to act on those gut feelings.

“People that are not flexible and adaptable in their mental framing strategies can find remote viewing downright destabilizing.”

The remote viewer is trained to short-circuit this central organizing matrix by moving fast and not evaluating the data as it is received. The completely unknown nature of the target prevents the selection of an organizing scheme for the data. The scheme is transferred to the remote viewing protocols.

The very activity of suspending their comfortable filter of the world can be very disturbing. People that are not flexible and adaptable in their mental framing strategies can find remote viewing downright destabilizing. Personal filters that were previously taken for granted or invisible are now switched off through the application of the remote viewing protocols. What was previously thought of as an immovable feature of their psychic landscape is now shown to be controllable by an act of will. One no longer has plausible deniability when it comes to taking responsibility for the strange features of one’s mind. It is a constant battle to refrain from judging the data you receive from the world through your filters. This is where analytical overlay comes from. It can take hundreds of remote viewing sessions before a person actually gets comfortable and can process information in this way. Some are never able to handle the stress to their mental framework, and have to quit.

Lets get back to the original question I posed at the beginning of this chapter.

I think the reason why we generally don’t perceive a-causal, spatially distant, and time-displaced information is because of the wildly successful nature of our conventional mental processes. It isn’t that we can’t perceive signals of this type. Ninety-nine percent of the time, these subtle messages just don’t matter. We are conditioned by success to not pay them much attention.

You are much more interested and successful in finding food, a mate, and avoiding pain using the conventional mind operating system. It’s like Microsoft® Windows®. MSDOS is still there, but most people don’t need it and don’t care.

From time to time something comes through such as intuition, precognition or the hair rising on the back of your neck that bypasses the normal system. Our tendency is to immediately interpret this strange information in terms of what we can sense or remember. We run it through the ringer of our analytical mind. Is it any wonder we have problems with analytical overlay in remote viewing?

So, does your conscious mind receive a-causal, spatially distant, and time-displaced information? You betcha; but there is an 800 pound gorilla called the analytical mind that is sitting in your lap. Guess who gets all the attention?

I tell my remote viewing students that this is the monkey mind. There is a chattering monkey sitting on your shoulder always interrupting the subtle reception of remote data with constant analyzing and framing of the data. You have to turn off the monkey mind to be successful.

Now that we have some basic idea of how the mental machinery operates, let’s take a look at how we perceive and process remote viewing data. Chapter three of Rene’ Warcollier’s book Experiments in Telepathy, is titled “What is Transmitted”. I previously touched on some of this when I brought up the subject of color (the red fish and the billiard ball).

In speaking of the strange way that data associates, Warcollier states: “This anomaly of transmission is of value to us because it shows in the most indisputable way that, in telepathic reception at least, the cerebral neurons play a part like that of the keyboard of a piano during the performance of a piece of music. The keys seem to be moved, as it were, from outside, whereas in our habitual perception they are moved from within, like the keys of a mechanical player-piano.”

We have a program that organizes data, which equates to the scroll of the player piano. Remove the program and what you get is strange juxtapositions of data. Normal associative thought processes would cause memory images to accrete to the imagery of the target. The imagery associations do not necessarily combine in a reasonable relationship to one another. Color, form or idea can recombine in metaphoric or mixed up ways. As if an infant were drawing the picture (or playing the piano).

We have seen how color and form can cross associate. Ideas alone can show up as form as well. Here are a few cases sited in Warcollier’s book:

1) May, 1926. The agent, in one room, repeated in a low voice, “To be or not to be.” The percipient. R.W., in another room, thought of a cross in a graveyard.
2) Same day, same conditions. The agent thought of the river Seine as seen from the top of the Eiffel Tower. The percipient thought of isothermic lines on a map of the world and a city map.
3) Same conditions. The agent, Captain B., wrote and pronounced in a low voice, “Honor and country.” The percipient, R.W., thought of a French flag blowing in the wind, with a golden star above it, but did not catch the meaning of the image.

In the first example, the idea comes across symbolically as a cross in a graveyard. In the second, the agent (targeteer for you remote viewers) was working from memory. The result was visual impressions rendered in the form of maps. The last was highly metaphoric. All of the above results were essentially visual in nature. Our primary sense is visual. Is it any wonder that complex ideas are rendered in visual format?

In a later chapter Warcollier says: “In fact, telepathy almost never manifests itself to the percipient (viewer) by a sense-image or a meaning-image of the agent (targeteer). It seems that the memory or sense images disintegrate into their component elements; and it is from these elements, reviewed by the percipient that the creative imagination reconstructs, as well as it can, the perception or the memory image of the agent”.

In the telepathy experiments the percipient had to grab all the data and render it in one try. In remote viewing, we can minimize the effects of memory by slowly collecting data in a well-organized manner. Meaning develops in the later stages and any realization about meaning is postponed for as long as possible so as not to interfere with the data collection process.

In a remote viewing session bits of data appear but are not assigned meaning by the viewer. This is like an impressionist painting composed of dots. It is futile to assign meaning to individual dots or to try to draw the picture from a small percentage of those collected.

It is only after completing the tapestry of data that one can stand back and try to reassemble the meaning from the collected work. Patience is a virtue.  

Part III

We now have some idea of the mental framework that is operating when we attempt to remote view. What other factors come in to play? We are marvelous receivers and processors of information, however, the ability to perceive things that are outside the range of our normal sense organs is very weak in most people. So weak in fact, that many people believe that perception other than through normal channels is at best a fantasy and at worst, mental illness.

It is tempting to become metaphysical when discussing remote viewing and other psychic phenomena. I think the ultimate answers are beyond the reach of this article, so I will stick to ideas that are known to science or can reasonably be associated with known principles.

A weak signal can be detected providing the surrounding noise is sufficiently low. This is what is known as the signal to noise ratio. If there is little difference between a signal and the surrounding noise, little information is present. The ultimate example of this is the high contrast between the hot bright point of a star and the cold vastness of space. In between these two is all the information there is: all planets, all life, all that we know and perceive. This is an example of very high information density.

Our perceptual apparatus is hard wired to receive visual, auditory, gustatory and tactile data. It is like a television that is capable of receiving a broad spectrum of information. The receiver itself, apart from the input array, is still a receiver. If you were to pull the tuner out of a television, you would still get a snowy picture. An occasional station may bleed through on the audio or you might see an occasional glimpse of a picture, but the high noise to signal ratio will prevent your accustomed level of reception.

Your receiver, the wet-ware between your ears is capable of receiving even without the normal data feed from your senses. This is not a normal mode of operation. If you were to backward engineer a television so that you would get interesting pictures on the screen in response to AM radio stations, you would have interesting patterns that do not fit your normal scheme of understanding. Weird associations between the tempo of a song and the visual cues on the screen might occur. These are weak signals, disassociated from the normal scheme that you expect from a television.

The same is true of remote viewing. Remote viewing protocols are the substitute tuner you use in place of the normal sensory array. You co-opt the usual sensory pathways and cue (tune) the receiver to a band your receiver does not normally pick up.

When these weak signals hit your signal processor, they lack the normal contextual framework. The information is mixed up, incorrectly associated, metaphorical or only partially perceived. Placing this information in the overlaid framework of remote viewing protocols allows you to reassemble data in a meaningful fashion.

Retraining yourself to operate in this environment takes a lot of work. It is as hard as learning any difficult new skill.

We have discussed the mental framework. We have a working idea of how things are wired up. Now lets talk about what facilitates our ability to perceive the intended target. This is probably the most speculative and least understood area of remote viewing. How do we select a coherent and intended set of information out of all the possibilities?

First I will offer an expert’s opinion. After much experimentation, Rene Warcollier offers the following explanation under a heading entitled The Hypothesis of Psychic Charges:

The influence of the agent’s glance may have two interpretations. Telepathic phenomena happen as if the percipient were looking with the agent’s eyes. But this does not explain why the percipient often sees the drawings as if he were behind them, that is to say, as if they were reversed. It may be then, that looking at an object gives it a psychic charge, perceptible to the percipient.

Note: This reversal may also be confused with the effects of dyslexia. (author)

Continuing:

It is only reasonable, if we admit, with Bergson, that perception is exercised upon the object itself. In Matiere et Moemoire he writes,” External objects are perceived by me where they are, themselves, not in me.” In so far as this concerns the hypothesis of psychic charges, it seems to me necessary to add that it is the first perception of an object that can be perceived as of itself, the subsequent perceptions for the most part continuations of our memory.

If that is so, A percipient in a state of clairvoyance might, then, have a particular attraction toward an object which had been recently seen by the agent, rather than toward another which had not been seen.

“Remote viewing protocols are the substitute tuner you use in place of the normal sensory array. You co-opt the usual sensory pathways and cue (tune) the receiver to a band your receiver does not normally pick up.”

Here Warcollier attempts to frame in words a phenomenon that he and others repeatedly observed. It is a hypothesis. I can add that we have observed a similar phenomenon in remote viewing. No one is claiming that this psychic charge is a measurable force, detectible by instrumentation. It is merely a convenient description that helps us to talk about an observed experimental effect that we don’t understand yet.

In the simplest terms, we can say that there is an interaction between the perceiver and that, which is perceived. There is compelling evidence from quantum physics that the only time quanta (sub-atomic particles) ever manifest as particles is when we are looking at them! Disturbed by the idea that there was a quantum soup that only came in to form when you had your eyes open, physicist David Bohm postulated that particles do exist in the absence of an observer and this could be explained by a new field he called the quantum potential, and like gravity it pervaded all space. However, unlike gravitational fields, magnetic fields and so on, its influence did not diminish with distance. Its effects were subtle, but it was equally powerful everywhere. (from: Michael Talbot’s The Holographic Universe.}

The effects reported by Warcollier and those we are seeing in remote viewing are plainly accounted for and have some basis in physics. I don’t presume to be able to explain it all. All I am saying is that some very high-powered scientific theories seem to parallel the phenomena we are reporting.

In Warcollier’s example above, he notes that, “every object observed for the first time by me can reflect me as I reflect it, at least for a certain time. It has a certain psychic charge from me, and it also retains the impression that I have of it, just as I have a memory of the object.” Focused attention on anything causes the subject and object to be identified with each other in some way. There is an entanglement of the observer and the observed. In this way, a targeteer associates a subject to be remote viewed with the cryptic identifier the remote viewer will use to retrieve target imagery.

Warcollier goes on to say, “it is the first perception of an object that can be perceived as of itself, the subsequent perceptions for the most part continuations of our memory.” I think this is an important statement. It illustrates the principle of resonance. At first encounter with the target, the very first incident wave of attention by the targeteer with the target is pure. As one lingers, ones own memory associations begin to create interference patterns with the original event.

A similar effect happens from the perspective of the viewer. As a viewer lingers on target imagery, there is an increasing chance that subsequent information will be colored by interference of the viewer’s creation. I think this equates to simple contamination and not what is commonly termed analytical overlay (AOL).

Finally, it is important to be in a good frame of mind when remote viewing. Rene Warcollier says,” It is necessary for the percipient to be in good spirits, free of cares and even of conscious thought.” He also says that faith in the existence of telepathy is helpful but it is not necessary in the person that is sending the message.

You have to be ready, willing and able to communicate. The role of targeteer simply requires a clear understanding of what is to be perceived. No particular will power is required. It is the viewer’s job to extract accurate unembellished data. Hopefully this article will give you a clearer knowledge of how things work, and a faith that one can succeed.  


Part IV

For me, the most interesting aspect of remote viewing is what it says about how the world works. I don’t practice this skill because I want to be a psychic voyeur. RV demonstrates just how inadequate the conventional view of the world is. It challenges one’s imagination to come up with a personal consciousness that can encompass the facts. RV forces a break with the conventional understanding of reality. It demonstrates that space and time aren’t barriers to the human consciousness’ access to information.

Very sophisticated explanations exist from ancient times that provide a plausible framework for us to understand these phenomena. Modern mathematicians and theoretical physicists have also done much to help grasp our world.

Humanity is slow to embrace revolutionary new ideas, especially when the existing paradigm is adequate for daily existence.

Remote viewing challenges our worldview. Linear cause and effect relationships break down. Remote viewing lends a new twist to the term “out of sight, out of mind”. Space and time are no longer universally applicable as benchmarks for reality. How then, do we need to change our concepts of space and time to accommodate the fact that remote viewing occurs?

We obviously need an organizing principle that fits the facts. For starters let’s try to re-spatialize our viewpoint of time and space.

Think of a basketball with thumbtacks stuck all over its surface. Think of yourself as one of those thumbtacks. Being a lowly inhabitant of basketball world, you can only relate to adjacent thumbtacks that are within your field of view and only along an arc on the surface. All the processing of information in your basketball/thumbtack world is conditioned by the geometry of the surface.

As you move from thumbtack to thumbtack you evolve a slightly more sophisticated worldview based on the curved plane of the surface. You evolve an understanding of your world as a series of linear sequential relationships.

Now take a God’s eye view of it all. Leave the surface of the ball. Notice that the individual thumbtacks are really part of a higher geometry, a sphere. Events, bound in a linear-sequential relationship at the surface, are now simultaneous. Concepts of time and space, which make sense at the surface, are rendered irrelevant. We have moved from a geometry of arcs to a geometry of spheres. The earlier worldview isn’t wrong, just inappropriate in the higher dimensional realm.

If consciousness is a field that is not affected by mass and gravity (except for when I drop a heavy object on my toe), then it can operate across space and time. The portion of consciousness that lives in dense matter at the bottom of a gravity well, i.e. a planetary surface, is constrained by the physics of dense matter where linear processing of information makes sense.

Modern physics is absolutely brimming over with theories that postulate higher dimensions. That portion of consciousness that exists in higher geometries doesn’t have the constraints of space and time, but it doesn’t have the analytical framework that normal thought does either. This creates quite a dilemma when one tries to bridge the two environments.

Intuition is a good example of how thought might change in an unconstrained realm. This kind of information appears as a flash of knowing. Data is instantly known. There is no “thinking through” the ideas that appear intuitively. They arrive in complete packets, just as one would perceive the basketball and all the thumbtacks as a unit.

"Humanity is slow to embrace revolutionary new ideas, especially when the existing paradigm is adequate for daily existence.”

Normally, information comes from a source (space) and is assembled in some kind of order (time). Intuitive leaps appear from who knows where and are completely formed. These are two very different modes of knowing.

When we remote view, we are exchanging information from one order of knowing to another. The remote viewing protocols are an intermediate device that allows us to exchange data from one to the other. Here’s another example. Think of consciousness as existing across a gradient of energy. As things cool, a phase change that takes place, just as when water suddenly turns to ice at 0 Degrees Centigrade. The ice in the lake is still part of the lake, yet you can’t swim in the ice anymore than you can skate on the water. You can’t think non-local, a-causal thoughts with your analytical mind. It was created in and is constrained by the neighborhood it lives in.

Electromagnetic wave theories are frequently used in a metaphorical sense to explain remote viewing phenomena. This is fairly useful as a teaching tool, but breaks down when pushed too far. I don’t believe that information itself is constrained by electromagnetic energy. However, in as much as our bodies are affected by electromagnetic forces, it plays a substantial role in our ability to perceive. The brain is affected by electromagnetic fields because of its highly complex electro-chemical nature.

Experiments have been done that entirely isolate remote viewers from the surrounding electromagnetic environment. They are still able to remote view. Indeed, it has been shown that viewers are more successful when the sun is blocked by the mass of the Earth, thereby reducing the noise in the electromagnetic spectrum. To me, this indicates that electromagnetism is a hindrance rather than an essential medium.

So, if information isn’t electromagnetic, where is it and how is it obtained? Where is meaning? If one looks at a form: a house, a car, a plant, where is the information that tells you what this is? All form, when reduced to essential elements is a cloud of quantum particles!

The clearest answers come from two seemingly separate sources: the mystical and shamanistic traditions, and modern physics. They both speak of a level of reality that is more fundamental than the observed world and out of which everything flows. The only difference is the mix of metaphor and math that each uses. The Judaic texts and the Hindu Vedas are heavily coded with mathematical terms. Our most revered physicists wax poetic and mystical in many of their writings.

The Hindu Vedas call the ground out of which everything springs “Brahman”. It is the formless birthplace of all that exists. They believe that consciousness is more fundamental than matter and that all is an illusion created by projecting consciousness and veiling off parts of reality to create the illusion of the world, which they call “Maya”.

The physicists speak of higher dimensional planes in which fundamental forces of nature are unified and they speak of the tenuous and uncertain nature of quantum particles, their own version of “Maya”. Judaic concepts are familiar to almost everyone in the form of the book of Genesis in which the world is created from the void.

Hawaiian spirituality speaks of the world being formed in a higher realm by an aspect of our self, called the “aumakua”. Thoughts and desires that are clearly communicated to this level of reality achieve form in the mundane world.

The Australian aborigines have a similar view of the world in their belief in the “dreamtime”. The similarities go on and on.

So, this is a quest for better understanding of the world. If we listen very carefully to our greatest teachers, we may have a few intuitive leaps of our own that will improve our remote viewing techniques. As I said in the beginning, I’m not practicing remote viewing to become a better psychic voyeur. But, who’s to say I can’t have a little fun as I learn?  


Part V

The recently concluded RV conference was a great inspiration. I was especially struck by Dr. Edgar Mitchell’s presentation of ground breaking new scientific research, which validates the quantum and holographic nature of macroscopic reality.

I am going to attempt to bring my rudimentary (and possibly flawed) understanding of the main points of his talk into the context of the earlier chapters I have written on the subject of remote viewing.

I want to apologize in advance to Dr. Mitchell and the researchers involved if I am crude or wrong. I am going on my recollection and limited understanding of the materials that were presented at the remote viewing conference Saturday evening, June sixteenth in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Prior to Dr. Mitchell’s talk we were treated to the always informative and inspiring words of Dr. Russell Targ. One story Dr. Targ presented was that of the experiments done on the quantum phase entanglement of photons carried out in Switzerland. The experiments involved the emission of a pair of photons from a source, which were sent in opposite directions. At an approximate distance of ten kilometers, one of the photons was passed through a polarizer, which changed its phase. At the same instant, its twin photon, which had been sent in the opposite direction, exhibited the same phase change effect.

This experiment was groundbreaking in that it demonstrated the non-local aspect of quantum particles which were predicted in quantum theory but which were so weird, that even Dr. Albert Einstein was spooked by the implications.

Dr. Mitchell explained that all molecules exchange quantum particles. The ground breaking new information is that information, even on a macroscopic level, is encoded in the phase relationships of quantum emissions. What this implies is that all forms of matter and energy by the agency of their quantum emissions have a non-local aspect that identifies them as a unique entity. This non-local information is carried in the phase nature of quantum particles and may be the ultimate reason that remote viewing is possible.

Dr. Mitchell went on to say that the information contained in the quantum phase relationships could be detected and reconstituted. He calls this process “Phase Conjugate Adaptive Resonance” or PCAR. He testified that some experiments have already taken place using these new developments in conjunction with Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technology.

Dr. Mitchell reported that an experimental application of this technology has been tried and has produced some very curious results. Until further duplication of the experiment by independent researchers can be done, I am highly cautious about the reported results, but am passing the story on to you as I remember it from the conference, simply because it is possibly an important new development in our understanding of how things work.

According to Dr. Mitchell, experimenters have demonstrated the ability to extract three-dimensional imagery of a macroscopic subject (in this case a cow) by scanning a two dimensional image of a wire that had been extracted from its stomach. Presumably, this demonstrates a holographic-like quality possessed by material objects. If true, macro scale objects retain some of their environmental history in the quantum phase encoding of their molecules.

The subject of the experiment was a glass photographic plate obtained in the purchase of a laboratory previously owned by remote therapy researcher George De La Warr. It included a highly controversial machine whose development traces its roots back to Dr. Albert Abrams who was experimenting with a subject called “Radio Therapy.” Ruth Beymer Drown elaborated on his work. She developed a machine called the “Homo Vibra Ray Machine,” which stood for “homogeneity vibration ray” and to which the term “Radionics” was associated. Latter a machine with of the same genealogy was developed by George De La Warr with which he conducted many experiments.

According to Dr. Mitchell, the remains of George De La Warr’s laboratory was purchased more or less intact and included this machine and a collection of glass photographic plates. The story goes that the machine was used to investigate the strong psychic talents of his wife. Other reports say that it was used to effect distance healing and diagnosis of medical conditions. The theory of how the machine was supposed to work was, and is still the subject of great controversy.

I feel that mentioning the “De La Warr Machine” in connection with the new experimental developments detracted from the more interesting news hinted at in the experimental findings. The photographic plate used in the experiment was sufficient in its own right.

Nevertheless, the story goes that De La Warr was asked to apply his technology to determine what was wrong with a sick cow. The cow was subsequently found to have a wire lodged in its stomach. Although I am not clear on the events, a glass plate image of the wire and the “De La Warr” machine were presumably used to diagnose the condition of the cow.

Whether the machine somehow produced the glass plate or the plate was just an experimental sample was unclear. The important point was that the new MRI/Quantum Theory technology was able to detect and present three-dimensional imagery of a cow encoded in the 2D glass photographic plate image of the wire.

The technology used quantum phase measurements and computer manipulation of the data to create the image. Dr. Mitchell likened the process to that used by astronomers to enhance the capability of ground-based telescopes to see through the distortion of the atmosphere. In astronomy a laser beam is shot in to the atmosphere and its distorted reflection is then used to calculate corrections to the telescope using computer analysis. This greatly improves their imaging ability.

It has been found that photographic negatives have higher “signature” as a remote viewing target than their prints, or worse yet, photocopies of prints. There seems to be a progressive loss of resolution the further one goes down the copy trail. A similar effect happens as holographic images are sliced in to smaller and smaller bits. The basic image is there, but the detail is reduced.

The fact that a cow’s image can be detected out of a 2D image of a wire that was in its stomach is weird and astonishing. If Dr. Mitchell’s claim that computer enhanced manipulation of information encoded in the quantum phase nature of molecules is true and if this can be independently verified, this is indeed an important new scientific development. Caution is advised. We don't know the circumstances of the image’s creation, or what experimental controls were in place.

This is very new, unpublished and speculative. Scientific papers have been presented on the physics and math, which support this new theory. The papers have passed peer review and will likely be published in a matter of weeks, according to Dr. Mitchell.

Since this article is about remote viewing, I want to bring us back to some of the writings of Renè Warcollier. The previously mentioned developments shed new light on the meaning of his earlier experiments in the 1920’s and 30’s.

I want to continue with some excerpts from Warcollier’s book Beyond Telepathy:

“…in telepathic transmission it is a question not of acquaintanceship, but of accord.” P.81 (This refers to the acquaintance of the sender and receiver).

“Apparently it is the will of the percipient alone that is effective in the majority of cases, in making telepathic transmission possible…We must emphasize the multiple impressions which assail the percipient.” P.82

“…telepathy being considered as a phenomenon analogous to acoustic resonance, residing in a syntonization, a “vibrating with”, which may be spontaneous indeed.”

In my readings of Warcollier’s work, it is clear thought rather than strong intent on the part of the agent (targeteer) seems to be more important.

Several factors seem to aid the viewer: Sympathy (affinity for the target), Antipathy (a strong negative identification with the subject) and an ability to not add extraneous data to the perceived imagery.

The information presented by Dr. Mitchell would seem to explain the agency of both the targeting of remote data and the ability to perceive it. It also falls in nicely with the experimental results of Renè Warcollier.

The data indicates that remote viewing involves the interaction with the quantum phase nature of distant subjects. In fact the ability of people to perceive information based on quantum phase encoding may be the only reason we are able to perceive anything at all.

Near field objects have the added advantage of a channel of molecular level sensors that are hard wired to our brain. This is as it should be from a biological, evolutionary standpoint. We should be less concerned about the tiger on the next continent than the lion in our own back yard. Which is to say, it is for very good survival reasons that the main data input channel gets most of our attention. Indirect quantum phase resonant perceptions are relegated to the realm of intuition and other extrasensory perceptions. In this sense, extrasensory means outside the main hard wired biochemical channel.

Once the information is sensed it somehow becomes our own personal construct of the world. How do the photons bouncing off the lion end up in the complex world we perceive? I submit that it isn't the neurological firings in the brain that contain meaning, and our conceptual construct of the world. Instead, the brain may be the gross structure of a quantum phase resonant processor. Modern science is enamored with the electrochemical explanation of how consciousness happens. This is the modern myth of how things work based on the best science available to date. I believe this new data will show that something much more interesting is happening on a quantum level.

As a paradigm for allowing normal perception and remote viewing (not to mention other psychic functioning) to happily coexist, this is an interesting and perhaps effective new working model. What is most exciting to me is that the math and physics of how it works have been developed; peer reviewed, and will soon be published. This is real science, not wishful thinking.

So how does remote viewing work? Here’s one man’s guess…by “Phase Conjugate Adaptive Resonance” (PCAR) a la Dr. Edgar Mitchell and associated researchers. First, the person designating the target resonates with the subject to be viewed by intentionally viewing a picture containing a meaningful representation of the target or by experiencing the target itself.

In this process, the agent or targeteer further associates something else like a cryptic identifier (target ID) that will act as an ingress point for the remote viewer. This identifier has now been “PCAR’d” with the original subject. In a sense, a further bit of information has been added to the matrix of quantum data that is the target.

If you can access any part of an associatively linked set of information, you can access it all. My teacher at the Hawaii Remote Viewer’s Guild, Glenn Wheaton, has said many times “If anything can be known by remote viewing, everything can be known by remote viewing.” I think this is amply explained when you consider the holographic, associative nature of information encoded in the quantum phase nature of everything. The principle of non-locality renders everything available. Conscious focus determines which body of information is perceived.

This brings me to the explanation of how remote perception works. The key idea here is resonance. Beginning with the cryptic identifier produced by the one tasking the target, the viewer begins perceiving gestaltic data associated with the target identifier. Slowly, as perception builds, one begins to phase in with more and more of the quantum field that is the target.

Because of the non-local nature of the quantum field, the viewer’s activity of faithfully resonating and associating with the target information increasingly establishes contact with the non-local nature of the target. This causes his consciousness to ingress the field. Or, perhaps it is better to say that the non-local nature of the activity asserts itself to a higher and higher degree until the viewer and the viewed have fully established space-time non-locality. They have become one. This is how the non-local nature of the quantum field comes to play and allows the viewer to extract, perceive and even experience the remote target.

This theory puts to rest some of the problems of remote viewing versus electromagnetic wave theory. Electromagnetic waves propagate in time and space. Quantum effects are non-local. The quantum propagation of information resolves the time space paradoxes that remote viewing presents. Electromagnetism still plays an important role. It has been shown that electromagnetic noise can interfere with our ability to perceive. That electromagnetic shielding helps or ability to perceive has been well demonstrated by remote viewers taking advantage of local sidereal time.

Well this sounds just marvelous, but why can't we view anything, anywhere, anytime? Why are some people better at remote viewing than others? And can anybody learn how to do it?

If all information is non-local by virtue of its quantum nature, we need a built in perceptual constraint otherwise we would be flooded with information. I suspect this is a feature of the packaging we come in. The genetic coding that has built up over the ages has adapted us to our environment. It is a constraint implicit in living on a planet at the bottom of a gravity well. We are constrained by three (four) macroscopic dimensions and inhabit and a biologic vessel.

Some people seem to have a stronger natural talent for psychic functioning. Possibly, they're attention is less affixed to the normal sensory channels. There is enough quantum information leakage that they are able to put together interesting non-local observations about the world.


This can be very confusing to people who they're experience the world in the same way. It has lead to prejudicial treatment by “normal” people and is the source of the “fringe” and “weird science” label that the conventional establishment places on people that exhibit psychic abilities or who do research in this area.

Psychic functioning is a subject of great curiosity to most people. I have noticed that people who experienced trauma, particularly head trauma, report a higher degree of psychic perceptions of one kind or another. When anyone reports to me about visions, sightings, intuitions or talents of an esoteric nature, I always question them about their trauma history. They almost universally report a prior physical or psychic injury of some kind.

The classic example of trauma inducing altered perception is the out of body experience following a near death. I suspect that there is a natural governor built in to the healthy human’s genetic code, which enforces our sense of locality and linear time. Trauma tends to loosen the bindings of this connection.

I also suspect that many mentally ill people are subjected to indiscriminate access to quantum phase information and are haunted by voices and visions that are chaotic simply because they are not bound in a healthy manner to their main channel sensory inputs. It is a blessing that some folks are able to integrate psychic functioning into their lives in a healthy manner. Perhaps the disciplined use of remote viewing protocols may one day be redesigned to help people make sense out of chaotic extrasensory perceptions.

It has been said that training is not really necessary to become a good remote viewer. There is some truth in this. Many people have developed or are blessed with a fairly high degree of psychic functioning. For the rest of us training is a must.

In order for me to marshal my meager psychic resources I need a paradigm (a mythology if you will) and a language. These allow me integrate my linear, analytical aspects with the intuitive, psychic aspects of my being. The theory helps me to form a world view that I am comfortable with. The remote viewing protocols and training allow me to share my experiences and results with others in a coherent fashion.

In some small way I hope this series of articles has helped give the interested reader broader appreciation for the subject.  

Part VI

1. Multidimensional. Since it seems to operate in violation of space-time restrictions, it must be “unified” at greater than four dimensions.
   
   By unification, we mean that one force can be seen as an aspect or extension of another force. Einstein had to postulate “Spacetime”, a unification of space and time in order to unify the concepts of matter and energy.
   
   
2. Field strength. When a magnetic field passes through a wire, it induces an electric current. The stronger the field, or the more rapidly it passes through the wire, the stronger the current. The inverse is also true. Electric current through a wire produces a magnetic field proportional to the current flow.
   
   There have been thousands of reports of people that “knew” when a loved one was in danger or had died. The intensity and personal interest in the event induced an extrasensory perception. The moment in the movie Star Wars when Obi-Wan “Ben” Ken obi senses a tremor in the Force when the planet explodes is a dramatic example of an incident with a large psychological impact exhibiting a high “field strength” for the purpose of remote viewing.
   
   Combining the examples above, we have a unique phenomenon that exhibits some of the qualities of a magnetic field. It has some of the characteristics of induction, like a proportional response to intensity, but is missing the familiar space-time component.
   
   
3. Singularity. Mass bends space as in a gravitational field. It extends in all directions; at least in the three spatial directions. The ultimate expression of gravity is the “Black Hole”; a gravity well so strong that not even light can escape.
   
   Gravity distinguishes what’s at its center from the space around it. It imparts the quality of singularity and uniqueness to what would otherwise be undifferentiated cosmic goop. Gravity glues discrete particles of energy and mass into an association having a combined identity that it otherwise wouldn't have.
   
   The Earth and Moon circle each other, captured by their interacting gravitational fields. If you approach this system from far away, in route to the Moon, you couldn't help but be influenced by the Earth. If your intent and skill as a navigator wavered, you would almost certainly be sucked into Earth’s gravitational field, missing your target entirely.
   
   My esteemed colleague, Sita Seery, recently published a prime example of the remote viewing equivalent of this on the Hawaii Remote Viewer’s Guild web site. The recent World Trade Center bombing caused a massive accretion in the conscious field. To use the example above, it was as if, in the course of traveling to a Moon-sized planet, the Earth suddenly appeared. In this case the intended target was a relatively mundane validation target. An important aspect of this is that the viewing took place several hours before the actual event occurred.
   
   The field strength of the WTC event was so powerful that the session work was littered with WTC data from multiple viewers. This is a prime example of how field strength applies to RV and how conventional space-time considerations are violated in the conscious field.
   
   An event or thing that has any coherency of its own has a center of sorts. It is not a center of gravity, but a center of meaning. It is a center of importance. It has a singular quality that distinguishes it from everything else.
   
   
4. Association. This is like that. This is with that. Association acts much like static electricity. Things which are in close proximity cling together. In this case like charges attract. It has it’s mirror opposite in the electromagnetic field where like charges repel.
   
   Things that are associated by virtue of spatial proximity, by meaning or by emotion accrete into a center of sorts, apart from that imposed by gravity. High association equals high cohesion. Low association equals nebulosity.
   
   If gravity were subject to whimsy, the cosmos would continuously morph with our changes in ideas about it. It doesn't. Our ideas, feelings and impulses govern our actions and are subject to the action of thought. They cause continuous changes in the conscious landscape. This defines the boundary between features of the conscious field versus energy-mass features of the gravitational field. There is overlap. The dynamics operate differently but with ghostly similarity.

1. Discrimination. This is not like that. This is not with that. This is the complement of association.
   
   All the meaning we perceive, exists between the vacuum of space and the highly defined point created by the gravitational wells of spatial bodies. If gravity were an absolutely irresistible force, all there is would fall together in a Big Crunch. There would no longer be any meaning to the concept “Universe”.
   
   One set of associated ideas or events is unique from another set of ideas by virtue of our ability to disassociate one from another. As association and disassociation change, the topography of the conscious field changes.
   
   
2. Perspective. Events as we conventionally perceive them are organized in meaningful ways due to their angle of incidence in space-time relative to the percipient. This is how our mind assigns causality.
   
   Consciousness as a field is superior to but coexists with spacetime. A portion of the conscious field is intimately connected with and conditioned by the four dimensions. This aspect of mind processes the world in terms of causality. This is the appropriate domain for rational, analytical thought.
   
   What is interesting about remote viewing is that it teaches the viewer to collect data from that part of the field that is not preconditioned to four-dimensional constraints. By disconnecting the normal analytical mode of thinking, we are able to retrieve data unrestricted by space and time.
   
   As Rene Warcollier states in his book Experiments in Telepathy, “In fact, telepathy almost never manifests itself to the percipient by a sense-image or a memory-image of the agent.” Which is to say, the data is not perceived with the analytical and rational framework intact as it applies to direct sensing or as it applies to memory. “It seems that memory or sense images disintegrate into their component elements; and it is from these elements, revived by the percipient, that the creative imagination reconstructs, as well it can, the perception or memory-image of the agent.”
   
   The characteristics of the conscious field, apart from the constraints of the matter-energy-gravity fields are such that “meaning” is divorced from sequential, causal references. The information is there but the framework in which it is normally understood is missing. Association is king when time and space are rendered irrelevant.
   
   Remember, at the speed of light, quantum mechanics breaks down. At lower velocities special relativity breaks down. In the conscious field space-time and causality breaks down. All are accurate pictures of how the universe works, but each is king in its own domain.
   
   
3. Meaning. How we assemble data has to do with our unique qualities of creative intelligence. It also has to do with all the other factors I have mentioned till now: The multidimensional aspect of the conscious field, field strength, singularity, association, discrimination and perspective all play a part.

Part VII

In this article I will attempt to summarize the main points from previous articles and give a brief illustration of each.

Remote viewing data accretes by association.

Thoughts form "Thoughtforms" (n.). Picture ideas as bubbles, thought bubbles if you will. They float about in a sea of other bubbles that bump in to each other. They stick to each other, merge, repel and congregate. Basic needs dictate some of the associations. Fight or flight, hunger, sex and basic proximity are among the key organizing forces. This is the primitive mind.

The conscious mind throws its neural net onto this sea of thought bubbles and organizes them in ways that make us more successful. These are the two basic levels of organization: pure association, and cognitive organization. The associative level is primal and is the level we tap in to when we operate as remote viewers.

Analysis of primary perceptual data is counterproductive during acquisition.

The important thing to note is that the associative mind is indiscriminant. Time and space are organizational categories that belong to the cognitive awareness, not the subconscious. One begins a remote viewing session by sensing what has been associated with the target identifier. To the extent that one engages cognitive organization around this data acquisition process, one looses the ability to accurately extract the non-spatial, non-temporal information that the subconscious allows us to access.

Perceptual detail and perspective depend on personal tendencies, conscious or not, and vary from person to person.

Who you are, in all your complexity, profoundly effects how you process the world around you. If your attention is wrapped up in attitudes, feelings, past experiences and the trauma of life, you will find it difficult to clearly perceive subtle information made available through the exercise of remote viewing protocols.

How well do you pay attention to details in waking life? Are you perceptually alive, or do you walk through life in a haze?

Imagery can be gestaltic, metaphorical or direct.

Perception happens in many ways. Usually, at the beginning of a remote viewing session, target contact is tenuous at best. Information arrives as if filtered through a thick, hazy darkness. This is the gestaltic level of apprehension. As contact improves, imagery begins to assemble metaphorically. We are shown likenesses that aren't necessarily the target itself, but are associatively similar. There is no framework of meaning on which to hang perceived data. The thick hazy darkness begins to assemble into people, places and things that are hard to make sense of, like a mumbled sentence, whispered by a passing stranger.

Example: The target is a pool of blood. Your subconscious mind associates the color red with a billiard ball of the same color. You are more adept at perceiving shapes than colors. You draw a circle, or on a higher level, you see a couple people playing billiards. On a higher level yet, the people playing are both people you know that have passed away, indicating that the source of the blood at the actual target was associated with a death.

Finally, if we are very disciplined and perceptive we begin to receive data that is highly accurate and recognizable. Sometimes it may even seem hyper-real. This is the level of direct contact with the target. A substantial part of your consciousness has phased in with the essential elements of the target. So much so that the target reality becomes very real indeed. If one is able to mange ones consciousness to a high degree, one can even move around in the target reality as if actually there.

There are both common and unique gestaltic symbols.

There are basic data so simple that they are virtually universal: a sloping line, for a hill, a wavy line for water, or a vortex for energy. A person can be creative even with simple gestalts. One viewer I recall always had a simple cross in the work if there was a dead person at the target, a metaphoric gestalt. Another always had an inverted U if there was a doorway.

The metaphorical language can be highly specific to the individual or archetypal.

The above example of the blood and the billiard ball is demonstrative of metaphorical language that is specific to the individual. Metaphorical language can also be represented in common themes much like dream imagery. In archetypal imagery the thematic quality that can be recognized by most people.

Past, present and future are accessible.

The sub conscious mind does not know "before-after" or "cause-effect". These concepts are part of the cognitive overlay of the conscious mind. The subconscious mind can be induced to retrieve non-spatial and non-temporal data by engaging its power of association. A remote viewer takes a target ID that has been associatively linked with a target and slowly follows the trail of associations while holding the cognitive aspects of the mind at bay.

We are so highly biased in our thoughts by the tremendous success of the conscious mind's ability to think in logical terms, that perceiving outside of the space-time box seems like utter fantasy to many people, particularly the scientifically trained and the skeptical.

Future realities are available to the extent that the potentialities of all the factors that form them are certain.

Thoughts held in mind create after their kind. Many thoughts of the same kind create a larger potential. A summation or integration of the potential happens. This potential wave results in the forms of life: buildings, cars, machines, societies and the events of life. The more consciousness contributing to the wave, the more likely an image will appear in physical form. The potential for alternate realities collapse in the face of the one that was, is and shall be selected.

The idea that the future isn't real is an error in perspective. The present is a dynamic point. If you stand on the mouth of a geyser, the imminent arrival of the next eruption and the consequences of that act will consume your attention. You can't help but contemplate the potential below you and what will form in the air above you. The cognitive ability to appreciate the past, present and unfolding future is profoundly biased by the nature of the environment. The conscious mind is the tool we use to manage this dynamic world around us.

The subconscious mind, not having the same appreciation for space-time dynamics can access the reality that, in cognitive terms, "will be" created.

The farther one moves away from the probability wave of the future that is forming in front of us, the less likely we will acquire accurate remote viewing data. Chaos overwhelms the alternate probabilities. Chaos ultimately degrades our ability perceive events in the far future.

Artificial descriptors of time (Hours, minutes, seconds) are less effective than the perception of natural temporal indicators.

Sometimes it is important to know what time it was at the target. Was the theft a night job or a day job? Was the child abducted before school or after school?

The subconscious is dyslexic. It can't read a watch or a newspaper except in very special circumstances and by rare talent. It can tell if it is light or dark. It can smell the smells of Spring or Winter. It can hear the song of the bird that only sings while mating in June or the school bell for recess. Advanced remote viewing protocols exist that try to take advantage of these natural tendencies.

Clear intent is important.

There is only so much attention. If you are preoccupied by the fight with the spouse, your bills, the dog barking or that feeling of hunger, you will have less attention to devote to the task at hand. All the thoughts and emotions that you are experiencing in present time are competing for headspace with the arriving target imagery. Anything other than imagery from the target will merge with and obfuscate the data you are interested in.

On the flip side, when a targeteer is preparing a target to be viewed, it is very important that his environment be as pristine as possible. Anything in the targeteer's environment or headspace can find its way into the target cuing process.

To the subconscious mind, everything is equal to everything. It is indiscriminate. The targeteer may not even be aware of interfering data. A target that is clearly prepared and viewed with a clear mind will succeed almost every time.

Strong feelings or affinity for the subject can influence target acquisition.

Highly attractive or repellent emotions in close proximity to the target subject, can act as a beacon. There have been many reports of people woken in the night by a feeling of premonition or dread on the occasion of a loved one's distress or death.

If a remote viewer is given a target for which they have a high degree of passion, chances are they will be more successful. This can also be a problem. If the subject is closely associated with a high strength event or emotion, it may be very difficult for the remote viewer to discriminate what constitutes the intended data.

Example: If the viewer is supposed to find out what is in the suspicious box hidden under the stage at the concert, it may be impossible for them to ignore the rock band playing on the stage.

Information is encoded in the phase nature of matter (how fast and in what direction particles spin). Imagery and information is holographic in nature.

I believe that information is encoded in the phase relationships of quantum particles. This has been called "Phase Conjugate Adaptive Resonance"¹or "Quantum Holographic Phase Conjugate Adaptive Resonance"² in articles and lectures on the subject. Experiments have proven that there is a non-local quality to the phase relationship of quantum particles. The ability of the subconscious mind to follow a trail of associated information clearly has something to do with our natural ability to interact with the target subject. Is there a connection?

Our brain is a network of electrically charged neuro-chemicals. The mind/brain combination uses associative modeling to bias itself in such a way as to phase-emulate the subject in question. It is possible to "phase in" to the target of interest and exchange non-local phase based information. As our mentor Glenn Wheaton says in his beginning lecture, "everything is communication". Information pre-exists. The creative patterning must exist before form.

I picture the mind as a quantum holographic image that acts as a computer. It is a construct of phase relationships. Our physiology is a material image of the quantum hologram, which serves as the pattern for its creation. Or, looking at it from the opposite perspective, the mind is bootstrapped from the quantum phase nature of our neural network and the electrochemical nature of our body. Depending on which direction you think the arrow of creation points, determines which model you choose.

Intelligence interacts with the quantum hologram, which in turn interacts with the bio-chemical and neural features of our chemistry on a quantum level. Assuming this is true, it would explain how we are able to access non-local, non-temporal data. The implications of this model are exciting, not only to remote viewing, but to healing to learning, and many other areas.

Electromagnetic fields interfere with perception. Absence of electromagnetic fields improves perception.

That brings me to the subject of electromagnetic fields, which are everywhere. They penetrate our body and introduce information (or chaotic noise) into anything that is sensitive. If you are trying to perceive subtle quantum holographic information, you can only be hindered in the face of electromagnetic noise.

Electromagnetic shielding has been shown to enhance remote viewing success. The reason for this is the improved signal to noise ration in the shielded environment.

We at HRVG are attempting to build or acquire a Faraday cage; an electromagnetically shielded room in which we can do advanced experiments in this area. We could use some help with this project and other endeavors we are contemplating. As a non-profit, we are always grateful for contributions. If you would like to contribute to the furtherance of knowledge in this field, please contact us.


¹ Edgar Mitchell, Phd, Lecture, 2001 Remote Viewing Conference.
² P. J. Marcer, BSc, DPhil, FBCS, A Quantum Mechanical Model of Evolution and Consciousness

Part VIII

Quantum physics is truly strange. It is quite a stretch for the properly grounded conventionally oriented human. Remote viewing is just as strange. Being a lover of strange things, I continue in this article with some thoughts on why quantum physics and remote viewing are intimately related and why it is important for remote viewers to have at least a provisional knowledge of how physics and consciousness work together. This is a controversial subject and many of the ideas I propose are theoretical and unproven. Nevertheless, I have done a great deal of research and believe the information will be helpful for remote viewers that are struggling to find an explanation for their experiences.

The nature of remote viewing is intimately tied with the nature of thought. It is also intimately tied with the nature of the physical world. It is therefore important to understand how thought and matter interact. The skeptic applies classical understanding of the physical world to psychic functioning and is in disbelief when he hears claims of extraordinary abilities. The mystic tries to translate personal experience, in terms of the mundane world and is often frustrated by the difficulty. Thankfully, there have been many new advances in physics and philosophy that give us hope that the gap between these two worldviews is closing.

What is it about thought and matter that make them so fundamentally different? Amit Goswami, Ph.D., resident quantum physicist at the Institute for Noetic Sciences says that one big difference is the “grossness” of the macro world. Physical and mental objects are both quantum substances. The physical objects we see are composed of smaller and smaller components whereas mental objects are already at their fundamental level of simplicity. There are no thought molecules or thought atoms.

Quantum objects like photons and electrons obey the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which says that you cannot simultaneously measure the position and velocity of quantum objects with accuracy. You can only state where they might be or how fast they might be going. The mathematics of Quantum Physics allows us to calculate these probabilities with a high degree of accuracy.

Quantum objects are subtle. The act of observation itself interferes with the photon or electron. Of all the possible places or velocities the particle can assume, conscious observation fixes either it's position or velocity, but not both.

According to physicist David Bohm, you can verify directly that thoughts-mental objects-obey the uncertainty principle; because you can never simultaneously keep track of both the content of a thought and where it is going, (the direction of thought). Thoughts are therefore quantum in their very nature.

Contrast this to macro scale objects. Even though our observed physical world is composed of quantum objects, we can’t observe them directly. Because of the microscopic scale and because of the conglomerate nature of the things we observe, mere observation has an extremely small effect. Between the time I look at a wall then you look at the same wall a short time later, the probabilities have changed so little due to our conscious interference, that we can have a high degree of consensus about where the wall is and where it is likely to be in the future, i.e. its position and velocity.

How does remote viewing fit in to this scheme? As has been shown in past articles, there is a direct correlation between the idea of quantum non-locality and our ability to associatively link our awareness to information that is displaced in space and time. How do we reconcile the gap between classical Newtonian physics and the subtle nature of quantum physics? How are humans able to perceive quantum physical objects non-locally and interact in a classical world of objective reality at the same time?

The grossness of the physical world and the subtleness of the quantum world are beautifully balanced in a hierarchy of ascending and descending order. Our feet are firmly planted on the earth. Our identity is firmly fixed in our bodies. Our thoughts and feelings are intimately associated with the subtlest aspects of our neurochemistry.

Thoughts, emotions, perceptions, intuitions and our creativity come from the quantum nature of the world and are fixed at increasingly gross levels by chemistry, physiology and physics. The fully functioning, healthy human can exist all along this gradient of manifestation. The ability to hold the highest potential from the subtlest to the grossest levels of reality in harmony with the rest of creation is the hallmark of a successful human being.

The successful remote viewer has the ability to interact with the subtle nature of the world. The remote viewer learns to use techniques that bridge the gradient from subtle to gross. The remote viewer ascends and descends this hierarchy of existence to render pictures and words on paper that once existed in the quantum nature of reality alone. I think this is the true value of learning this skill.

According to a recent article in Discover Magazine by Tom Folger, eminent scientist John Wheeler believes that consciousness shapes the universe, not only the present but the past as well. According to the article, physicists at the University of Maryland proved this in the laboratory in 1984. “Using a light source and an arrangement of mirrors to provide a number of possible photon routes, the physicists were able to show that the paths the photons took were not fixed until the physicists made their measurements, even though their measurements were made after the photons had already left the light source and begun their circuit through the course of mirrors.”

What this shows is that when consciousness interacts with quantum reality, it selectively causes some aspect of the quantum potential to become real. It causes one of all the possible outcomes to manifest. It also shows that it doesn’t matter whether the so-called causal event (in this case the emission of the photon), happened in the past or not.

“The successful remote viewer has the ability to interact with the subtle nature of the world. The remote viewer learns to use techniques that bridge the gradient from subtle to gross.”

On the one hand it would seem that we live in a magical world where cause and effect are weirdly affected by a mere glance. On the other hand, we all struggle with gross reality. I can’t manifest a new car out of the quantum soup any more than the next guy can. There are many features of reality that fix the nature of quantum events and make the physical world behave the way it does.

According to Dr. Amit Goswami in his book Physics of the Soul, without a body, or a brain there can be no collapse of the possibility waves of quantum objects. Ordinarily quantum experiments use gross objects like a Geiger counter or some other detector to “measure” the quantum particles of interest. Even so, it takes an actual observation by a conscious observer to “quantify” what is being detected.

According to Dr. Goswami, one thought is just as possible, subtle and ephemeral as the next. All thoughts operate on the same scale. Since there is no hierarchy of action, one thought can never manifest another as reality without the intercession of a living being whether it is a living cell or a brain.

When a human observes the outcome of a quantum experiment there are actual molecular changes in the physiology of the brain. According to the proposals of Dr. Stuart Hameroff and Dr. Roger Penrose this process takes place in the microtubules that make up the neurons in our brains. Quantum states are fixed by the orientation of the proteins that make up the structure of these microtubules. The interesting thing is that these proteins can be in an indeterminate quantum state. Until a choice is made, until an observation is made, they represent all of the several possible configurations that protein can have.

Millions of protein molecules along the microtubules of each neuron are interconnected with each other in an array that makes up the neuron and ultimately determines when, if and in what manner the neuron fires. This hierarchy of events beginning at a quantum level and ascending in grossness to neuro-chemical events is a means of amplifying what is going on at a quantum level. Possibilities are manifest as intricate assemblies of neural proteins. The configuration of these proteins is selected by consciousness.

What we experience as conscious thought occurs very far upstream from the molecular level of action. Massive orderings of the quantum states of our neurochemistry show up as thoughts, emotions and perceptions. Our cognitive mind operates at this level of complexity.

Conscious choice and intent cascade down the ladder of action just as quantum information cascades up. It is a bi-directional feedback loop. It is not unlike the biblical reference to “Jacob’s Ladder” with angels ascending and descending between heaven and earth. Our conscious will (and our unconscious predispositions) bias our quantum computer to receive the information we receive.

Remote viewing works because this channel of action exists between the quantum physical and the electrochemical and neurological levels of our brain. Remember, one of the characteristics of quantum reality is non-locality.

In Alain Aspects experiment with correlated (entangled) photons it was conclusively shown that when one experimenter observes a photon, thus collapsing its state, the other correlated photon will immediately acquire this state but it will remain as potential and unexperienced until another observer measures it. It doesn’t matter how far away the other photon is. Theoretically it could be on the other side of the galaxy.

By consciously cuing a cryptic identifier, a target ID, to a remote viewing target we are creating a non-local link to that target. A new, unused target identifier, for instance: 2M4Y-6L0U doesn’t mean anything. The symbol is only a thought and therefore quantum in nature. The possibilities of what this target ID could mean are practically infinite. Before a target is cued to this ID, it is in an indeterminate state. Its quantum wave function has not collapsed.

A targeteer, being careful to have in mind only the subject that he wants viewed, identifies it with the target identifier. At this point, the only meaning in the entire universe that this cryptic symbol identifies is that of the target. This symbols’ quantum wave function has now collapsed into a state representative of the actual target. The targeteer has created a quantum phase entanglement between the real target and the target identifier, much like the quantum entanglement in Alain Aspects experiment with photons.

As the remote viewer clears his mind and concentrates on the identifier, he biases his own quantum computer (brain) to predispose it to the target. He collapses some of the quantum nature of his consciousness in the form of the target ID. This target identifier means more than just a random set of symbols due to the actions of the targeteer. It now is intimately identified with the target and nothing else. As the extended meaning of this target identifier comes through it begins to assemble at higher levels of neural activity until it becomes a perception.

It is well known that as one learns, one will more easily learn things that are similar. Your mind predisposes itself to receiving more of the same. At first when you begin to perceive remote data that is cued to a target ID, very little in the way of reference and predisposition exists. After all, to the conscious mind a target ID has no meaning whatsoever.

As the nature of the target slowly impresses itself on your consciousness, more and more of your quantum machinery is brought into play. Bits of disjointed data begin to assemble at higher and higher resolution as entanglement with the target increases. This is why it is very important for the remote viewer to keep the analytical mind disengaged.

If one were to know the nature of the target ahead of time (front loaded remote viewing), a whole different set of quantum effects comes in to play. Not only the target, but also all the secondary effects of what you thought, felt or knew about the subject or any similar subject become entangled with the intended target. Under these circumstances there is no way to discriminate between actual target data and ones imaginings or remembrances. Even if you were especially astute at screening imaginary or remembered data from the actual target, you would never convince the skeptical observer.

Unfortunately, many people that claim to be remote viewers do not understand the importance of being ignorant of the target prior to viewing. Even some people that claim to be teachers of remote viewing are either woefully ignorant or are playing fast and loose with remote viewing protocols for their personal gain. One has to use a very sharp intellectual knife to slice the charlatans and the self deluded from the actual application of this skill. If we aren’t mindful of what constitutes true remote viewing versus false claims about it, the credibility that we are trying so hard to establish will be washed away by sensationalist claims that make their way on to the popular mass media.

There is very strong scientific information that supports our claim that remote viewing is a real phenomenon. If we study the science and apply our skills in a scrupulously honest fashion, we will further prevail. I hope this article will give some further insight into why remote viewing works and allow us to push the boundary of understanding without doing violence to our credibility in the process.

References:

Amit Goswami, Physics of the Soul, 2001

David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, 1980

Stuart Hameroff, www.consciousness.arizona.edu

Roger Penrose, Shadows of the Mind, A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness, 1994