Remote Viewing Class 8: Analytic Overlay, Slumps, & History

Instructor: Rainsong
Date: May 5, 2017 (Friday)

Note: This class was conducted in the Order of the Golden Pyramid community’s chatroom. (Wayfarer had another commitment.)

Rainsong
Hiho.
Anyone here for the RV class tonight?

Adflixi Temporus
^^^

Zephyr Cloudrunner
I’ll probably lurk, but I’m sorta busy right now.

Rainsong
Fair enough.
Adflixi Temporus: I don’t recall seeing you in earlier classes. Welcome. (And you’re equally welcome either way, for the record.)
Do you have any questions, before we (possibly) get to tonight’s topic?

greenfire9
I will join, but I like to listen mostly.

Bipolar Bear
I’ll probably stick around more or less but this remote viewing stuff is a lot.
I might need to leave but I’m not sure.

Rainsong
Biploar Bear: Yep, remote viewing is complicated, and a fairly complex topic.
So, no questions, several lurkers, and one possibly “active” student who didn’t reply to my question.

Bipolar Bear
Sorry, I just can’t really guarantee that I can stick around. I’ll try. 😀

Rainsong
That isn’t a problem.
Do *you* have any questions?

Bipolar Bear
None that could be answered in a reasonable amount of time.
I missed most of the earlier lessons and the internet was being really bad during yesterday’s recap :L

Rainsong
Don’t worry about “reasonable amount of time”… The planned topic for the evening history of the American RV programs, and that’s far more interesting with some interaction with more than two people. Otherwise, I’d just write it up as an article.

Bipolar Bear
Okay, I’ll stick around.
Or try to.

Zephyr Cloudrunner
So, noting that I haven’t been in the previous lessons, I would like to ask how one would distinguish between imagination and actual RV.
This is something I have difficulty with as far as psionics and whatnot in general, too.

Rainsong
That’s an excellent question, Zephyr, and one about which a lot of nonsense is thrown around.
If you’re doing RV correctly, you’re going to be “picking up” and recording data that includes imaginary stuff. AOL (Analytical Overlay) is basically the imagination taking over, usually building on fragments of actual data… sometimes without any real data at all.
Complete “clear” pictures and sounds in your mind are more *likely* to be imaginary, but are not necessarily so.
Surprising and hard-to-understand bits are *less* likely to be imaginary, but can be so.
And, in any case, you’re not supposed to be trying to analyze which parts are accurate and which parts aren’t, while you’re doing the RV session, except perhaps at the end bit (which we haven’t gotten to yet, in the procedure). The analysis is for the analyst to do. After the session is over.
So, don’t worry about it. Follow the procedures, record the data, and observe the results.
As you accumulate results from practice, you’ll get a better idea of how much of your data is *usually* accurate. Nobody gets everything right all the time.
For other psionic activities, such as telepathic exercises, it’s much the same: practice enough to have a good sample size, and analyze the accuracy of the data, afterward.
Because there is a “slump” in accuracy, after the first few sessions in remote viewing, don’t bother figuring out your accuracy rate until you’re past the slump stage.
The slump thing is almost universal. Not sure why it happens, but it’s there.
If you keep practicing, your level of accuracy will rise again after that phase… But of course a lot of people get discouraged and quit.

Zephyr Cloudrunner
Interesting.

Rainsong
Side note, re figuring out your accuracy rate: For regular remote viewing, it’s rare to be able to evaluate the accuracy of all the data. There are usually some unknowns that “might or might not be accurate” with variable levels of likelihood. So 100% accuracy rates are even less likely, yea?

Marcus
I am currently in the slump stage, btw.
And that’s fine because I will get better with practice.

Rainsong
Marcus: Indeed, the slump stage is just a phase to get through. Keep at it and you’ll get out of the slump and improve.
Zephyr: Did that answer your question, or is there perhaps a follow-up question?

Zephyr Cloudrunner
It answered for the most part.
I’d have to think how to word thoughts for any follow-up.

Rainsong
*nods* Not to worry. It can be tricky to figure out how to describe these things.

Zephyr Cloudrunner
Doesn’t help that words and my mind aren’t always agreeable to begin with 😛

Rainsong
I hear ya.
Either of you have any other questions?

Marcus
I do not.

Rainsong
Alright. Allowing for the fact that you might need to be wandering off, do you folks want to discuss RV history, or call it a night?

Bipolar Bear
Uhm
I mean I can stay.
I think, anyway.
The history also seems like it would be neato.

Rainsong
History topic for this evening is the early stages of the development of American remote viewing (i.e., the stuff we’re doing in this seminar series).

Bipolar Bear
Hm

Rainsong
There were basically two tracks of development: the semi-civilian track on the west coast and the military one on the east coast.
It had been noticed that the Soviets were pouring rather a lot of money and effort into studying things that were thought to be bogus nonsense by most of mainstream America.
Key phrase: “most of”…. In the late 1960s, some Marines were being trained to use dowsing to find bunkers and traps and the like in Vietnam, so related topics weren’t completely unknown.
In any case, early in the 1970s (1972, I believe), some fellows from a certain agency based out of Langley, Virginia (CIA), approached some researchers at the Stanford Research Institute.
They were looking for people to conduct some research into the feasibility of “psychic” stuff for intelligence work, and they wanted scientists who were not working directly for universities or the government.
They were probably hoping to be able to keep their investigation quiet, because the CIA was already in some proverbial “hot water” for some controversial projects.
(CIA = Central Intelligence Agency… And to be clear, we’re talking about the American CIA, but that part was probably obvious from the context.)

Marcus
I am back, sorry for the leave

Rainsong
No problem. 😀 Welcome back.

Marcus
Thank you ^.^

Rainsong
This being a segment of military history, there are going to be quite a lot of acronyms and initials. The aforementioned Stanford Research Institute is normally designated as “SRI”…
… and specifically, this research was happening at the Radio Physics Laboratory that belonged to SRI-International. This’d be the west-coast bit I mentioned. The lab was in California.
Dr. Harold “Hal” Puthoff was a researcher there. Dr. Russel Targ joined the research team soon after this project started. They are both physicists.
The late Ingo Swann was an artist from New York who was playing around with altered states of consciousness (and who was, incidentally very well read in the fields of parapsychology and magic, according to a mutual friend)… and he entered into a contract with SRI to play guinea pig. They had him describing the contents of sealed boxes and the like until he got bored enough to become annoyed.

He, um, suggested that they give him more challenging targets to describe, further afield… So, they gave him geographical coordinates, and asked him to describe what was there.
Apparently, the researchers had him hooked up to EEGs and the like to monitor what his brain was doing while he was doing his viewing stuff. He had some trouble keeping in the proper frame of mind to describe things, while actually *describing* them, so he requested pen and paper in order to sketch what he perceived.
I should point out that his descriptions had been verbal, and recorded on audiotape.
In any case, he had no more difficulty sketching and describing things on the other side of the planet (and occasionally off-planet) than things in a box in the same room.
As you can imagine, the CIA guys funding this research were intrigued.
Another fellow who was aware of the work, and fancied himself to be psychic, offered his services to the project. His name was Pat Price. (I think he was already working for SRI, and that’s how he knew about the project, but I couldn’t swear to that…)
He had similarly impressive results, in any case.
Apparently, he and Swann didn’t get along very well, and had a bit of an unfriendly competition going on.
Those ego-problems you see in many online “energy” communities? It’s not a new problem. 😛
Questions or commentary so far?

Marcus
Nope.
Enjoying it.

Bipolar Bear
This is neato.
I think I read about this a bit in a book.

Rainsong
A large part of the project wasn’t merely to determine whether this stuff could be done, but to figure out how to codify and teach it.
(Most RV-related books have at least some history in them, so it wouldn’t surprise me if you’ve seen this before…)

Bipolar Bear
Men Who Stare at Goats, I believe…the book, not the movie

Rainsong
*nods* I believe there’s also a documentary by the same name.

Bipolar Bear
No, I believe that’s a bad parody movie

Rainsong
*shakes head* That’s why I said “also”. There’s a movie and a documentary.
Different films. Same name.

Bipolar Bear
Unsure

Rainsong
The movie is supposed to be pretty bad, though. I can’t say for sure, not having seen it.

Bipolar Bear
I started to watch it. It’s really stupid. Anyway…

Rainsong
In addition to describing stuff, Mr. Swann was also asked to attempt to affect stuff. The “Stuff” included a well-shielded piece of equipment that he shouldn’t have been able to do anything to…. but he registered an effect on the device’s recorders. The stuff also included blood cells.
I’m sure your imagination can come up with some ideas as to how a military and/or intelligence organization would view the potential for someone to affect blood cells by thinking at them from a distance….
You can further imagine their reaction to the confirmation that it can be done.
Yes?

Bipolar Bear
Neato

Rainsong
Mr. Swann was more involved in the gradual development of RV (and later instructed soldiers in the methods he was involved in developing) than Mr. Price was. This wasn’t because he was necessarily better at it, or better at teaching it. It was because he remained alive.
Mr. Price died under allegedly suspicious circumstances in 1975.
(For the record, in spite of the timing of that comment and of the lack of friendliness between the two men, I am *not* suggesting that Mr. Swann killed Mr. Price.)
Some accounts of RV history claim that the research was a carefully kept secret until David Moorehouse was about to publish a book about it in the late 1990s. This is untrue. In fact, Drs. Targ and Puthoff published a paper about remote viewing back in 1976.
By this time, the CIA wasn’t funding the research anymore (at least in the official records) and the Air Force had taken over the program. Remote viewing research (and the operational military remote viewing project, also) changed hands quite a few times over the years. Apparently, the American government doesn’t like spooky shit much.
Targ and Puthoff also published a book about RV in 1977. Really heavily secret stuff here. 😛 The book’s called “Mind Reach” and it’s still in print, if you’re interested.
Another physicist joined the team in 1976, Dr. Edwin May.
Another of the psychics was the photographer, Hella Hammid. Here again, her results were impressive. I think she was there before Dr. May, actually.

Anyway, the east coast operational stuff started in 1977.
The dude who got the short straw and had to get the military side going was Lieutenant Atwater. I wonder if he realized exactly how bad that kind of thing would be for his military career….
*pause for questions*…. Anyone?

Marcus
Nope
😀

Bipolar Bear
Not yet.

Rainsong
If memory serves me correctly, it was Joe McMoneagle who admitted in an interview that he knew that accepting the posting to Fort Meade would mean he’d never be taken seriously for a military position again, and Paul Smith who described being “recruited” to the unit as being like a scene straight out of “Men in Black.”
The first few soldiers and civilian military-contractors were taught by Mr. Swann. Some of said soldiers and contractors ended up at Fort Meade. Apparently, some of them did not. David Moorehouse (one of the later soldiers at Fort Meade) claims that some of the students were probably in a different program. He correctly points out that it is rare and considered foolish to have serious work of any kind done in only one unit. It’s even more unusual in the US than in other countries, in fact. So, he’s probably quite right in thinking that another more-or-less parallel military project was ongoing somewhere other than the acknowledged project at Fort Meade, Maryland.

PancakeLizard
Yes

Rainsong
(The West Coast SRI stuff was in Menlo Park, California, if you’re curious.)
Hi, PancakeLizard
(to what was the “yes” in reply or commentary?)
Hmm. I think this might be a good place to pause, actually. We’ll probably be looking at some more history next Friday. It’s much too early in the process to start in on Stage 5, still. Wayfarer will still be doing voice-based classes (on Thursdays, I think), and doing reviews there as needed. We’ll keep entertaining questions, reviews, and such at the beginning of the Friday classes, too.
Questions and/or commentary?

Marcus
Nope
Thank you very much for this though. 😀

Bipolar Bear
k
That sounds good.
This was interesting!

Rainsong
Thank you for participating. 😀
Have a good evening/morning/whatever, all 😀

Bipolar Bear
You too!

Marcus
Thank you, Rainsong, you as well.

Comments are closed.