Response by Shelley Thomson
Remote viewing is very well supported as an information gathering procedure.
The original study has been replicated many, many times. However, there
is no evidence that Ed Dames is actually doing remote viewing. If he were,
he should have more to show than a string of awesome bloopers and sensational
failed predictions.
-
- Let's look at what purpose this serves.
First, Dames spreads bizarre stories that make UFO researchers look like
fools. Secondly, his ridiculous failed predictions discredit remote viewing.
Third, the publicity he receives on the strength of his military background
("Wow, a real intelligence agent! He must be telling us the truth!")
keeps genuine (e.g. non-spook) remote viewers from getting any public attention.
And fourth, every time Dames makes one of these fruitcake predictions he
gets more customers for his remote viewing tapes, algae, and whatever else
he is selling.
-
- Makes sense to me.
-
- 1. Remote viewing works, done properly.
No measurement technique is 100% accurate, no matter how it is accomplished,
but multiple replications show a very high accuracy rate *using a good
protocol and a properly selected objective*. Hypothetical targets don't
work well at all.
-
- Example: a viewer can rv the Hale Bopp
comet and determine whether there is anything unusual about it. The presence
of a huge hollow object filled with technology and lifeforms would not
be missed. The viewer could say with confidence (as I said in early November)
that *there is nothing there except ordinary comet substance.*
-
- However, if a viewer were asked to view
the Hale Bopp Companion, it would be very hard for the viewer to return
a verdict that there is nothing there. Because there is. There are the
thoughts, images and beliefs about the Companion. The viewer would see
these. An expert viewer could probably tell the difference between imaginary
images and the real thing, but an amateur couldn't. The spooks are AMATEURS.
Their remote viewing technique is sloppy. They're seeing their own fantasies,
if they are seeing anything at all.
-
- If you are elaborating on your own fantasies
you are doing some form of guided visualization, not remote viewing. Guided
visualization is not an information gathering technique. In plain words,
I don't think Ed Dames is a remote viewer at all. I think he has no clue.
-
- 2. Certain government agencies have spent
many years in covert ops against UFO researchers. Their mission is twofold:
to collect all artifacts, and debrief citizen witnesses; and to make sure
the public is ignorant. It is important to them that genuine artifacts
be taken out of circulation, because these are worth big money on the black
budget, and *that will continue to be true as long as no civilian researchers
make public reports on these objects.* Secrets are worth more if they keep
on being secret. UFO secrecy is a financially driven policy conducted by
selected spooks and defense contractors. It has nothing to do with whether
the public would be frightened if they knew the truth.
-
- 3. Remote viewing is alive and well in
the secret sector. The old SRI program ceased being able to deliver results
when its developers, Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ, left. It was defunded
and the CIA hired Ray Hyman (hack writer and debunker) to do a hatchet
job on military remote viewing. Meanwhile rv projects went right on.
-
- 4. The disinformation program, spreading
wild and trashy stories with UFO and et themes, is in full swing. It surprises
me that people take Dames et al. seriously. He's an intelligence agent
doing his job: spreading fertilizer [now you know what's in the cylinder].
If he can scam the public and get some gullible people to pay him thousands
of dollars in the process, so much the better. We wouldn't want those dollars
to go to serious researchers, now would we?
-
- 5. And now that Dames has spread his
disinformation, how many people are going to listen to, for example, the
striking results of the remote viewing studies I've done of alien species?
I've seen things we need to know about. But mention remote viewing, and
people have to talk about Ed Dames. It's a damn successful strategy for
preventing any serious discussion of alien contact.
-
- Our tax dollars at work.
-
- Shelley Thomson
- Response to Shelley Thomson
by PJ Gaeni
11-18-97
-
-
- Shelly Thomson: ...a viewer can rv the
Hale Bopp comet and determine whether there is anything unusual about it.
The presence of a huge hollow object filled with technology and lifeforms
would not be missed. The viewer could say with confidence (as I said in
early November) that *there is nothing there except ordinary comet substance.*
<<
-
- PJ Gaenir: The Viewer shouldn't know
it is a comet if they're working in proper RV Protocol. (This has nothing
to do with "psychic methods" which some teachers call "RV
protocols." The RV protocol defines what the term "remote viewing"
-- a term invented in a science lab -- describes. The formal protocol
includes the following main requirements: 1) anyone involved with the session
must be absolutely blind to the target and not in direct contact with anybody
who has information on it; and 2) the target must provide feedback to somebody
who can compare it to session results. There are other issues but those
are the main two.)
-
- To find out if there's anything unusual
about a comet you'd have to task toward it, which would itself be improper.
I don't think there is any evidence that every part of any given target
can be assured of turning up as part of the data in an RV session. At
the least one would have to do a huge number of sessions with various Viewers
before thinking something "not mentioned" was considered "not
there," and even then there's no proof. Besides, there's the whole
thought-form issue, not to begin on the issue that if intelligent telepathic
aliens existed and were coming for us, they might psi-project anything
they wanted. (My God! That I should have to devolve into arguing the merits
of alien telepathy is pretty silly. The issue is RV protocol, that ought
to be enough.) Accurate target data on that would depend on the tasking,
at the least; likely many more elements.
-
- ST: The spooks are AMATEURS. Their remote
viewing technique is sloppy. They're seeing their own fantasies, if they
are seeing anything at all.
-
- PJ: Wow. She's pretty opinionated for
someone so lacking in information. I know for a fact that she doesn't know
any (except perhaps Ed Dames) of the intell Viewers, nearly all of whom
are still classified, let alone does she have access to either their techniques
or their results (spanning the last 20 years). Which makes her comments,
made publicly, not just uninformed, but abusive slander which she really
has no right to get into without some evidence to back her up.
-
- I understand that Shelley's experience
with "RV" is via Courtney Brown and The Farsight Institute. This
is yet another good example of the only thing I have seen demonstrated
from Farsight overall: the continual education of their members to believe
that everybody government is bad, and everybody who is considered an expert
(contrary to their instructor who is not) is bad, and that they alone know
the secrets of the universe. It is normally just comedic. However, when
it amounts to public slander and seriously misleading the public (even
if she believes she's right), it becomes somewhat un-funny.
-
- In regards to technique, there is this
interesting devolution that has come from Swann's original CRV. A lot
of people have learned variations on the surface methods, completely missing
the context which the original methods had been developed for. As a result,
a sort of comic book version of "the why" of the methods has
grown, and instead of applying the methods to better understanding what
goes on inside one's head, the methods have been focused externally and
dramatically revised to include such stringent, supposedly important things
as "how you sit on your chair" and "how thick your pad of
paper is" etc.
-
- It is a physical overcompensation for
the frustration of wanting to nail down what is a highly intangible and
fleeting process. Many tools and aspects of the original process are left
out, as well. This has created a rather skewed set of expectations on the
part of people who base their RV understanding on their training in psychic
methodologies (particularly SRV), who seem to think if you're not sitting
in the center of your chair you cannot possibly be as psychic as they are.
-
- In point of fact, most of the "invented
rules" in recent forms of psychic methods (which they are calling
[checkone]RV) are just that -- invented rules. I don't think there is
any real evidence in decades of psi study that these sorts of elements
have the slightest positive effect on sessions across the board. Some
have actually been addressed before (I believe at Duke but I could be wrong).
In the long run, all the obsession on these sorts of details in the methods
does is remove all personal power and preference from the individual and
bestow it upon the instructor (guru) and school (some of which now function
as cults).
-
- If a person has psi talent they can get
the data while gazing into a crystal ball, reading tarot cards, automatic
writing, or whatever else might be their preferred method. If they're
not talented, no method is going to save them. The insistence on methods
being "the important thing" is only an avoidance of standing
up to real-world proof of ability. Combine this with non-feedback targets
such as aliens, godforms and icons, and you have an entirely different
practice and measurement and criteria that has nothing whatsoever to do
with legitimate remote viewing -- RV is defined by a science Protocol (not
methods -- controls) which these logics and targets fail to meet.
-
- As for technique details and results,
these are two different parts of the equation. (You'd think Bruce Lee had
proved this sort of thing.) There is no evidence that one RV technique
makes people demigods while some other with a slight variation makes them
useless. The only data I know of that has been gathered regarding testing
different techniques was collected by the Cognitive Sciences Laboratory
(led by Dr. Edwin C. May at that time).
-
- Now, I'm hard pressed to disagree that
Dames doesn't deserve credit for expertise in this subject, but lumping
everybody else who has any intelligence connection with Dames is the kind
of polarity that best case, is overlooking excellent sources of experience,
in most cases is insulting to anybody compared to him, and worst case,
is seriously underestimating an enemy (seeing as how there's some concern
about the government involvement in all this).
-
- Also, since Dames has clearly tried to
discredit every one of the public, experienced intelligence people in
the RV field, it's clear that this (highly promoted) "all intell people
are bad" phobia only plays into his hands. The more unbelievable
he is, the more unbelievable they are, even though they have to a man been
contradicting him all along. Talk about unfair to them.
-
- I know many of these people and their
psi work in particular has contributed to making many of them exceptionally
decent human beings. It irks me to see people insulting them as a group
or individually solely because they used to be a soldier. There was a
time when risking your life for your country actually had honor. Most of
these guys are carrying injuries for life based on their experience in
asia, europe, the orient, etc., and they're still poor, and still dealing
with those injuries and PTSD trauma until they die. I think any citizen
of this country ought to get down on their knees and thank God that men
and women have been willing to join the armed forces to serve our country.
This knee-jerk contempt for any former soldier ought to be seen as the
childish disrespect it is, rather than given merit as some kind of "internet-acceptable
law." "The Government" is a nice catch-all term we can
hate with an X-Files sort of glee, but it shouldn't be forgotten that our
soldiers are our fathers, brothers, husbands and sons -- our people.
-
- There are a lot of "instant expert"
kiddos out there who paid a few grand to be 'nearly omniscient' and are
now sure they know more than anybody else in the world about it, including
people who have been the most deeply involved with it for two decades.
This is unlikely, and people ought to have to produce evidence of such
claims (there is, alas, no evidence, but plenty of ego).
-
- ST: Guided visualization is not an information
gathering technique.
-
- PJ: It can be used well (semi-guided)
in psychology and hypnosis for gathering information about things internal
to the individual. Which sums up a good deal of this subject as well, of
course. (Particularly some of SRV's 'alien' targets and related presentations.)
-
- ST: 3. Remote viewing is alive and well
in the secret sector.
-
- PJ: Geez, I sure hope that's true.
But I've seen no evidence for that, either. Would really like to! I'd
sure feel better. Iraq, China and many other countries who are NOT our
friends (regardless of trade agreements) are actively pursuing psi exploration
in connection with the military, as both a data collection process and
as a weapon. That the USA would be left without this invaluable tool, and
at the mercy of it, due to pseudo-skeptic or superstitious fervor or incompetent
bureaucracy, makes me angry.
-
- ST: The old SRI program ceased being
able to deliver results when its developers, Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ,
left.
-
- This is very much in error, as far as
the data I've seen goes. It sounds to me like she's been talking to somebody
who was left out of the program at a certain point and is resentful as
a result. The science part of the program demonstrated, even as noted in
various third party research papers available on the WWW, actual improvement
as things went on, not deterioration. Not only was the work more controlled
from a scientific perspective, but more research was achieved in less time
(by %) and many discoveries related to improving effect size were made
as well. Those are critical to the field, and to and RV's success both
in applications tasking and scientific demonstration.
-
- The physicist who took over the project
(Dr. Ed May) worked as a project manager for years prior to doing so and
was part of Puthoff and Targ's own teams. His lab (CSL) and associates
continue to work toward understanding the subject -- and in fact, Dr. Spottiswoode
(also of CS Labs) recently published a couple of papers that are probably
the most astonishing and important breakthroughs the field has had in many
centuries, maybe ever -- a huge honor for their lab.
-
- Her statements in this area are so incorrect
it's breathtaking. A little research on her part should resolve this misunderstanding.
Personal opinion is fine, and "repeated gossip" from someone
who might have been part of things but won't go on record is fine, but
both should be stated as such, by all moral laws of journalism. Particularly
if it's going to be posted on an extremely high volume web site as the
article I'm responding to was. This amounts to slander by someone providing
absolutely zero evidence to back it up as being anything more than personal
bias. Highly irresponsible.
-
- To my understanding, what was determined
to be lacking in results worth funding around the mid 80's were the methodologies
still in development by Ingo Swann and which were just beginning to be
taught to military personnel. That doesn't mean the methods were worthless;
only that it wasn't felt continued funding was appropriate by whomever
made that decision, whether that decision was right or wrong, and that
is why the training was ceased.
-
- Of course, these methods are what people
are now making into the corpse on the cross, the guru in the cave, the
sword in the stone, or whatever you want to call it -- the "icon"
which "makes thing magical and possible." (As opposed to believing
in the innate human ability itself.) Since having paid for methods training
is a lot of people's sole claim to either expertise or superiority, it's
difficult to get people past what side of the paper somebody writes something
on and into the subject of personal ability.
-
- The whole subject of RV methods and the
cults that have sprung up around them is really sad. I have never seen
such a big deal made of something that -- while being insightful and useful,
still -- is hardly a cosmic magic clover. This making everything a religion
reminds me of that saying about government I once read: "Government
is like some hideous plastic contrivance. Shape it any way you want, but
relax for a moment and it snaps back into ancient forms."
-
- It was defunded and the CIA hired Ray
Hyman (hack writer and debunker) to do a hatchet job on military remote
viewing.
-
- This is a tangle to unweave, her mixing
unrelated things. That was many, many years after Puthoff and Targ had
left. The writer is either deliberately putting this together to fulfill
an agenda, or has not seen the actual dates and information on this subject.
The two issues -- the AIR report and Puthoff/Targ leaving --have nothing
to do with each other, and they are a decade apart.
-
- I feel Dr. Hyman's conclusions and recommendations
in the AIR report (this is old news) are questionable; of course, he is
a notorious anti parapsychology scientist so it was hardly surprising the
CIA chose him, let alone that they went to such remarkable efforts to deliberately
stack the deck against RV in a way that is as unscientific as possible.
-
- However it should be noted that there
are pretty much three major points Hyman's paper makes. The second and
third -- that the explanation is unknown and rather than calling it psi,
the door should be left open to finding some other explanation (he infers
possible fraud or error, without evidence of either), and that RV has no
intelligence value, are questionable (the latter he is unqualified to comment
on anyway). Hyman also noted however that there was, in fact, some effect
which needed explaining one way or another. (This despite great efforts
to dramatically limit the information the reviewers were provided.)
-
- I am not a fan of Dr. Hyman personally,
and disagree with his published work on this subject as well, but he has
in the past provided useful input and work with parapsychology and its
scientists (such as the late Dr. Honorton) that have helped parapsychology
scientists better control lab conditions, and that shouldn't be forgotten.
Hack writer and debunker is a bit extreme for an otherwise legitimate
scientist who disagrees. Hyman may be in error even to objective parties
on this point, but that doesn't strip him of his right to an opinion.
-
- ST: Meanwhile rv projects went right
on.
-
- PJ: Evidence? I notice when I see people
writing about subjects such as mind control, how they throw in these comments
as if they are facts, without one shred of evidence to back it up. Not
even rumors of anything specific. Just an "of course" sort of
mention. I'm personally very eager to find some evidence of this. I read
everything related to mind control that comes my way, hoping to find something
useful. Some things there are evidence for. There's some scary stuff
to be found. But for "current underground RV" I have as yet
seen no evidence. Just a lot of wishful thinking.
-
- ST: 5. And now that Dames has spread
his disinformation, how many people are going to listen to, for example,
the striking results of the remote viewing studies I've done of alien species?
I've seen things we need to know about.
-
- PJ: Ah. OK, this all becomes more clear
now. I figured there had to be some kind of "I'm the real expert"
involved in this somewhere. (And aliens! ... I should have known.)
-
- Given that, I think that makes the comments
above about the science program more clear. A little background for you:
-
- Physicist Dr. Edwin May, who took over
leadership of the project from Russell Targ and Dr. Harold Puthoff, has
been quite clear, publicly, about the importance of RV protocol -- of controls,
of blind targets, of feedbackable targets -- in other words, of science.
This has made him no end of enemies in the fringe psi fields where targeting
aliens, buddha, and other shall we say "anomalous targets" is
the norm and obsession. (He never said one couldn't do this; only that
"remote viewing" is a term coined in a science lab, to mean a
certain thing, and if you don't obey scientific protocol, you can't technically
call what you're doing "remote viewing.") In fact, since the
"remote viewing of aliens" is usually found with religious fervor
built-in to the process and beliefs about it, the response he gets for
insisting on science and targets with feedback sometimes verges on fanatical.
-
- I see constant disparagement of Dr. May
(and others from the RV program) from people who took a week-long course
from Courtney Brown in how to remote view aliens and now feel they are
qualified to comment on individuals, Viewers and scientists, and a decades-long
classified project they know absolutely nothing about.
-
- Dr. May has also commented on the formal
studies done on various psychic methodologies (including CRV, the original
methodology that SRV, Farsight's methods, are very loosely based upon),
and has said publicly that methodologies do not "make a person psychic"
and that the methods did not display this ability when subjected to testing
and a formal review by some of the best learning theory experts in the
country. This also has contributed to the resentment that many "magic
methods" people demonstrate against Dr. May and his insistence on
scientific routine.
-
- Personally, I feel for the guy. He's
spent a good portion of his life helping make RV into something legitimate,
only to have people like Ed Dames and Courtney Brown come along, make a
huge media splash and embarrassment, and having no qualifications at all
in the field except their own self-claimed glory, the two men have managed
to publicy wipe out in the space of two years a reputation that Dr. May
and many others have spent 20+ years and millions of dollars working hard
to build. For nothing more than their own egos and religious obsessions.
-
- If anybody had a right to feel threatened,
it should be the scientists and Viewers. Not the self-titled experts who
want to claim the name without even learning what it means, let alone abiding
by its rules. Radio show host Art Bell in particular has played a party
to a gross injustice in this field, by his shameless promotion of Ed Dames
and Courtney Brown as RV gurus, when one simple call to even one legitimate
person in the RV field would have told him otherwise. There is no saving
RV's reputation now. It's just a matter of damage control.
-
- I realize that psychic isn't as cool
a term. Everybody wants the term the government and science lab has because
they provide the process some legitimacy and media popularity. Yet the
same people trying to take a share of someone else's legitimacy and hard
work are simultaneously insulting the most brilliant and well studied scientists,
subjects and experts who put in that work. The same people who want to
be respected refuse to abide by the controls that created that respect.
It is both unfair and irrational.
-
- I have put RV information and reference
to legit RV information all over the web for two years. Anybody making
the slightest effort to study this subject cannot but trip over it. It
requires serious subjectivity, to the point of not being in touch with
reality, to be so totally confused about something that is so easily tracked
down for documentation.
-
- If people are interested in legitimate
information about remote viewing and related parapsychology including the
science mentioned, I recommend them to one of the following URL's:
-
- The Cognitive Sciences Laboratory (Dr.
Edwin C. May, Dr. S. James P. Spottiswoode, Joseph McMoneagle, et. al)
http://www.jsasoc.com/~csl/
-
- Dr. Spottiswoode's page: http://www.jsasoc.com/
-
- Dr. Utts's Page http://www-stat.ucdavis.edu/users/utts/
-
- Rhine Research Center http://www.rhine.org/
-
- University of Edingburgh, Dept. of Psychology,
Koestler Parapsychology Unit http://moebius.psy.ed.ac.uk/
-
- Charles T. Tart Home Page http://www.paradigm-sys.com/cttart/
-
- Firedocs http://www.paradigm-sys.com/firedocs/
-
- Ingo Swann's Home Page ("Superpowers
of the Human Biomind") http://www.biomindsuperpowers.com/
-
- Remote Viewing Methodologies web sites
based on Swann's original ideas include:
-
- Remote Viewing Instructional Services
(CRV; Paul H. Smith, 7 years in the former RV intelligence unit as a remote
viewer et al.) http://www.rviewer.com/
-
- The Controlled Remote Viewing Home Page
(CRV; Lyn Buchanan, 9 years in the former RV intelligence unit as a remote
viewer et al.) http://www.ameritel.net/lusers/rviewer/
-
- Remote Viewing Methodologies web sites
based on derivatives of Swann's original ideas include:
-
- Psi-Tech, Inc. (TRV, a derivative of
CRV; Ed Dames, 2 years in the former RV intelligence unit as a monitor
et al.) http://www.trvi-psitech.com/
-
- The Farsight Institute (SRV, a derivative
of TRV; Courtney Brown, a student of Ed Dames) http://www.farsight.org/
-
- ( -- there may be other spin-offs of
the spin-offs of course, the methodology part of RV being such a financially
lucrative topic.)
-
- I encourage anybody who enjoys thinking
for themselves to get an education on these subjects prior to believing
anything they read on the internet.
-
- PJ Gaenir pj@zmatrix.com http://www.paradigm-sys.com/firedocs/
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