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.
