From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Remote viewing
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Claims
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Believers say anyone can useparanormal ability to see hidden, distant locations usingextra-sensory perception.
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Related scientific disciplines
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Year proposed
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1974
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Original proponents
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Subsequent proponents
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Remote viewing
(RV) is
the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen target using
paranormal means, in particular, extra-sensory perception (ESP) or
"sensing with mind". Unlike traditional psychic practices, remote
viewers use physical models to organize their alleged extra-sensory perceptions
and to stabilized the virtual umwelt.Scientific studies have been
conducted, some earlier, less sophisticated experiments produced positive
results but they had invalidating flaws,[1] and none of the
newer experiments had positive results when under properly
controlled conditions.[2][3][4][5][6] The scientific
community rejects remote viewing due to the absence of an evidence base, the
lack of a theory which would explain remote viewing, and the lack of
experimental techniques which can provide reliably positive results.[7] It is also
considered apseudoscience.[8]
Typically a remote
viewer is expected to give information about an object that is hidden from
physical view and separated at some distance.[9][10] The term was
coined in the 1970s by Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff, parapsychology researchers at Stanford Research Institute,
to distinguish it from clairvoyance.[2]
Remote viewing was
popularized in the 1990s, following the declassification of documents related
to the Stargate Project, a
$20 million research program sponsored by the U.S. Federal Government to
determine any potential military application of psychic phenomena. The program
was eventually terminated in 1995, because it had failed to produce any useful
intelligence information.[3][4]
Contents
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Early background
The study of
psychic phenomena by major scientists started in the mid-nineteenth century;
early researchers included Michael Faraday,Alfred Russel Wallace, Rufus
Osgood Mason and William Crookes.
Their work predominantly involved carrying out focused experimental tests on
specific individuals who were thought to be psychically gifted. Reports of
apparently successful tests were met with much skepticism from the scientific
community.
Later, in the
1930s, J. B. Rhine expanded the study
of paranormal performance into larger populations, by using standard
experimental protocols with unselected human subjects. But, as with the earlier
studies, Rhine was reluctant to publicize this work too early, because of the
fear of criticism from mainstream scientists.[11]
This continuing
skepticism, with its consequences for peer review and research funding, ensured
that paranormal studies remained a fringe area of scientific exploration.
However, by the 1960s, the countercultural attitudes of the time muted some of
the prior hostility. The emergence of New Age thinking and the
popularity of the human potential movement provoked a
"mini-renaissance" that renewed public interest in consciousness
studies and psychic phenomena, and helped to make financial support more
available for research into such topics.[12]
In the early
1970s, Harold E. Puthoff and Russell Targ joined the
Electronics and Bioengineering Laboratory at Stanford Research Institute (SRI)[13]. In
addition to their mainstream scientific research work on quantum mechanics and laser physics, they
initiated several studies of the paranormal. These were supported with funding
from the Parapsychology Foundation and the newly-formedInstitute of Noetic Sciences.
One of the early
experiments, lauded by proponents as having improved the methodology of remote
viewing testing and as raising future experimental standards, was criticized as
leaking information to the participants by inadvertently leaving clues.[14] Some later
experiments had negative results when these clues were eliminated.
US
government-funded research
From World War II
until the 1970s the US government occasionally funded ESP research. When the US
intelligence community learned that the USSR and China were conducting ESP
research, it became receptive to the idea of having its own competing psi research program.
(Schnabel 1997)
In 1972, Puthoff
tested remote viewer Ingo Swann at SRI, and the experiment
led to a visit from two employees of the CIA's Directorate of Science and
Technology. The result was a $50,000 CIA-sponsored project. (Schnabel 1997,
Puthoff 1996,[15] Kress 1977/1999[citation needed], Smith 2005) As research
continued, the SRI team published papers in Nature,[16] in Proceedings of the
IEEE(Puthoff & Targ, 1976),[17] and in the
proceedings of a symposium on consciousness for the American Association for the
Advancement of Science (Puthoff, et al.,
1981[citation needed]).
The initial
CIA-funded project was later renewed and expanded. A number of CIA officials,
including John N. McMahon (then the head of
the Office of Technical Service and later the Agency's deputy director), became
strong supporters of the program.
In the mid 1970s
sponsorship by the CIA was terminated and picked up by the Air Force. In 1979,
the Army's Intelligence and Security Command, which had been providing some
taskings to the SRI investigators, was ordered to develop its own program by
the Army's chief intelligence officer, General Ed Thompson. CIA operations
officers, working from McMahon's office and other offices, also continued to
provide taskings to SRI's subjects. (Schnabel 1997, Smith 2005, Atwater 2001)
In 1984, remote
viewer Joseph McMoneagle was awarded a legion of merit for determining
"150 essential elements of information...producing crucial and vital
intelligence unavailable from any other source".[18]
Unfortunately, the
viewers' advice in the "Stargate project"
was always so unclear and non-detailed that it has never been used in any
intelligence operation.[2][4][3] Despite this, SRI
scientists and remote viewers have claimed that a number of "natural"
psychics were crucial in a number of intelligence operations. The most famous
claimed results from these years were the description of "a big
crane" at a Soviet nuclear research facility by Pat Price (Kress
1977/1999, Targ 1996[citation needed]) and Joseph McMoneagle,[19] a description of a
new class of Soviet strategic submarine by a team of three viewers which
included McMoneagle,(Smith 2005, McMoneagle 2002) and Rosemary Smith's location
of a downed Soviet bomber in Africa[20]. By the
early 1980s numerous offices throughout the intelligence community were
providing taskings to SRI's psychics, (Schnabel 1997, Smith 2005) but the
collaboration never resulted in useful intelligence information.[2][4][3]
Decline
and termination
In the early 1990s
the Military Intelligence Board, chaired by DIA chief Soyster, appointed an
Army Colonel, William Johnson, to manage the remote viewing unit and evaluate
its objective usefulness. Funding dissipated in late 1994 and the program went
into decline. The project was transferred out of DIA to the CIA in
1995.
In 1995, the CIA
hired the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to perform a retrospective
evaluation of the results generated by the Stargate project. Reviewers included Ray Hyman and Jessica Utts. Utts
maintained that there had been a statistically significantpositive effect,[21] with some subjects
scoring 5%-15% above chance.[3] Hyman argued that
Utts' conclusion that ESP had been proven to exist, "is premature, to say
the least."[22] Hyman said the
findings had yet to be replicated independently, and that more investigation
would be necessary to "legitimately claim the existence of paranormal
functioning."[22] Based upon both of
their studies, which recommended a higher level of critical research and
tighter controls, the CIA terminated the 20 million dollar project in 1995.[4] Timemagazine
stated in 1995 that three full-time psychics were still working on a
$500,000-a-year budget out of Fort Meade, Maryland, which would soon be shut
down.[4]
The AIR report
concluded that no usable intelligence data was produced in the program.[3] David Goslin, of
the American Institute for Research said, "There's no documented evidence it
had any value to the intelligence community."[4]
UK
government research
In 2001–2002 the
UK Government performed a study on 18 untrained subjects. The experimenters
recorded the E field and H fieldaround each
viewer to see if the cerebral activity of successful viewings caused
higher-than-usual fields to be emitted from the brain. However, the
experimenters did not find any evidence that the viewers had accessed the
targets in the data collection phase, the project was abandoned, and the data
was never analyzed since no RV activity had happened. Some
"narrow-band" E-fields were detected during the viewings, but they
were attributed to external causes. The experiment was disclosed in 2007 after
a Freedom of Information request.[5]
PEAR's
Remote Perception program
Following Utts'
emphasis on replication and Hyman's challenge on interlaboratory consistency in
the AIR report, the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab conducted several
hundred trials to see if they could replicate the SAIC and
SRI experiments. They created an analytical judgment methodology to replace the
human judging process that was criticized in past experiments, and they
released a report in 1996. They felt the results of the experiments were
consistent with the SRI experiments.[23]
In 2007 the
Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab laboratory was closed.[24]
Scientific studies
and claims
According to
psychologist David Marks in
experiments conducted in the 1970s at the Stanford Research Institute, the notes given to the
judges contained clues as to which order they were carried out, such as
referring to yesterday's two targets, or they had the date of the session
written at the top of the page. Dr. Marks concluded that these clues were the
reason for the experiment's high hit rates.[1][25]
Marks has also
suggested that the participants of remote viewing experiments are influenced by subjective validation, a process through which
correspondences are perceived between stimuli that are in fact associated
purely randomly.[26] Details and
transcripts of the SRI remote viewing experiments themselves were found to be
edited and even unattainable.[27][28]
The information
from the Stargate Project remote viewing sessions was vague and included a lot
of irrelevant and erroneous data, it was never useful in any intelligence
operation, and project managers changed the reports so they would fit
background cues.[3]
According to James Randi,
controlled tests by several other researchers, eliminating several sources of
cuing and extraneous evidence present in the original tests, produced negative
results. Students were also able to solve Puthoff and Targ's locations from the
clues that had inadvertently been included in the transcripts.[6]
Professor Richard Wiseman, a
psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire and a fellow of the Committee
for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) has said that he agrees remote viewing has been
proven using the normal standards of science, but that the bar of evidence
needs to be much higher for outlandish claims that will revolutionize the
world, and thus he remains unconvinced:[29]
I agree that by the standards of any other area of
science that remote viewing is proven, but begs the question: do we need higher
standards of evidence when we study the paranormal? I think we do. (...) if I
said that a UFO had just landed, you'd probably want a lot more evidence.
Because remote viewing is such an outlandish claim that will revolutionize [sic] the world, we need overwhelming
evidence before we draw any conclusions. Right now we don't have that evidence.
Wiseman also
pointed at several problems with one of the early experiments at SAIC, like
information leakage. However, he indicated the importance of its
process-oriented approach and of its refining of remote viewing methodology,
which meant that researchers replicating their work could avoid these problems.[7] Wiseman later
insisted there were multiple opportunities for participants on that experiment
to be influenced by inadvertent cues and that these cues can influence the
results when they appear.[14]
Psychologist Ray Hyman says that, even if
the results were reproduced under specified conditions, they would still not be
a conclusive demonstration of the existence of psychic functioning. He blames
this on the reliance on a negative outcome—the claims on ESP are based on the
results of experiments not being explained by normal means. He says that the
experiments lack a positive theory that guides as to what to control on them
and what to ignore, and that "Parapsychologists have not come close to
(having a positive theory) as yet".[30] Ray Hyman also
says that the amount and quality of the experiments on RV are way too low to
convince the scientific community to "abandon its fundamental ideas about
causality, time, and other principles", due to its findings still not
having been replicated successfully under careful scrutiny.[31]
Science writer Martin Gardner, and
others, describe the topic of remote viewing as pseudoscience.[8][32] Gardner says that
founding researcher Harold Puthoff was an active Scientologist prior to his work
at Stanford
University, and that this influenced his research at SRI. In 1970,
the Church of Scientology published a
notarized letter that had been written by Puthoff while he was conducting
research on remote viewing at Stanford. The letter read, in part:
"Although critics viewing the system Scientology from the outside
may form the impression that Scientology is just another of many
quasi-educational quasi-religious 'schemes,' it is in fact a highly sophistical
and highly technological system more characteristic of modern corporate
planning and applied technology."[8] Among some of the
ideas that Puthoff supported regarding remote viewing was the claim in the book Occult Chemistry that two followers
of Madame Blavatsky,
founder of theosophy, were able
to remote-view the inner structure of atoms.[8]
Various skeptic organizations have conducted
experiments for remote viewing and other alleged paranormal abilities, with no
positive results under properly controlled conditions. Some of the
organizations would provide large monetary rewards to anyone who
could demonstrate a supernatural power under fraud-proof and fool-proof
conditions.[33] For the largest
paranormal research institution, theJames Randi Educational Foundation, out of all
of the applicants who applied for the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge,
nobody has even passed the preliminary tests.[34]
Recent research
Recent studies
into remote viewing suggest positive results.[35][36][37]Michael Persinger,
Cognitive neuroscientist and professor atLaurentian University has published
increases in remote viewing accuracy of remote viewer Ingo Swann, as
measured by a group of ratings of congruence (between Swann's drawings and the
locale being 'viewed') by 40 experimentally blind participants[35]during
stimulation with complex magnetic fields using a circumcerebral (around the
head) eight-channel system. In 2010, Persinger (et al.) published a report of
his work with the psychic Sean Harribance,[38] reporting that
blind-rated accuracies in his psychic insights correlated with specific
Quantitative Electroencephalography profiles; specifically, congruence between
activity over the left temporal lobe of those being 'read' by Mr. Harribance and
his right temporal lobe.[37] "The results
indicate even exceptional skills previously attributed to aberrant sources are
variations of normal cerebral dynamics associated with intuition and may
involve small but discrete changes in proximal energy."
Selected RV study
participants
§ Ingo Swann, one of
the prominent research participants of remote viewing. He wrote a book about
his experience:
§ Kiss
the Earth Good-bye: Adventures and Discoveries in the Nonmaterial, Recounted by
the Man who has Astounded Physicists and Parapsychologists Throughout the World by Ingo Swann,
Hawthorne Books, 1975
§ Pat Price, one of the early remote viewers
§ Russell Targ,
cofounder of the investigation at Stanford Research Institute[13] into psychic
abilities in the 1970s and 1980s
§ Courtney Brown, founder of the Farsight Institute
§ David Marks, the critic of remote viewing, after
finding sensory cues and editing in the original transcripts generated by
Russell Targ and Hal Puthoff at Stanford Research Institute in the 1970s
References
Footnotes
1.
^ a b Marks, D.F. &
Kammann, R. (1978). "Information transmission in remote viewing
experiments", Nature, 274:680–81.
2.
^ a b c d Joe Nickell (March 2001), "Remotely Viewed? The Charlie Jordan Case", Skeptical Inquirer
3.
^ a b c d e f g "An Evaluation of Remote Viewing: Research and Applications"
by Mumford, Rose and Goslin "remote viewings have never provided an
adequate basis for ‘actionable’ intelligence operations-that is, information
sufficiently valuable or compelling so that action was taken as a result (...)
a large amount of irrelevant, erroneous information is provided and little
agreement is observed among viewers' reports. (...) remote viewers and project
managers reported that remote viewing reports were changed to make them
consistent with know background cues (...) Also, it raises some doubts about
some well-publicized cases of dramatic hits, which, if taken at face value,
could not easily be attributed to background cues. In at least some of these
cases, there is reason to suspect, based on both subsequent investigations and
the viewers' statement that reports had been "changed" by previous
program managers, that substantially more background information was available
than one might at first assume."
4.
^ a b c d e f g Time magazine,
11 December 1995, p.45, The Vision Thing by Douglas Waller,
Washington
5.
^ a b "Remote Viewing". UK's Ministry of
Defence. June 2002, disclosed in 2007-02-23. p. 94 (page 50 in second
pdf).
6.
^ a b c Randi & Clarke, An Encyclopedia of Claims,
Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural "Remote viewing"
definition "The data of Puthoff and Targ were reexamined by the other
researchers, and it was found that their students were able to solve the
locations without use of any psychic powers, using only the clues that had
inadvertently been included in the Puthoff and Targ transcripts."
7.
^ a b Wiseman, R. & Milton,
J. (1999). "Experiment One of the SAIC Remote Viewing Program:
A critical reevaluation"(PDF). Journal of
Parapsychology 62 (4): 297–308. Retrieved
2008-06-26.
* Obtained from listing of research papers on Wiseman's website
* Obtained from listing of research papers on Wiseman's website
8.
^ a b c d Gardner, Martin (2000). Did
Adam and Eve have navels? : debunking pseudoscience. New York: W.W.
Norton.ISBN 978-0-393-32238-5.
9.
^ Leonard
Zusne, Warren H. Jones (1989). Anomalistic psychology: a study of magical thinking.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. pp. 167. ISBN 0-8058-0508-7.
11.
^ Hyman
R, "Parapsychological Research: A Tutorial Review and Critical
Appraisal", Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol 74 No 6, pp 823–849, June 1986.
12.
^ Wade
N, "Psychical Research: the Incredible in Search of Credibility", Science,
181, July 13, 1973, pp 138–143.
13.
^ a b SRI International is now an independent
research institute, unconnected with Stanford University.
14.
^ a b Wiseman, R. & Milton,
J. (1999). "Experiment one of the SAIC remote viewing program:
A critical re-evaluation. A reply to May." (PDF). Journal of
Parapsychology 63 (1): 3–14. Retrieved
2008-06-26.
* Obtained from listing of research papers on Wiseman's website
* Obtained from listing of research papers on Wiseman's website
17.
^ Puthoff
& Targ, 1976. A perceptual channel for information transfer over kilometer
distances: Historical perspective and recent research, Proceedings of the IEEE,
March 1976, Volume: 64 Issue:3, page(s): 329 - 354 [1]
18.
^ Edwin C. May, "The American Institutes for Research Review of the
Department of Defense's STAR GATE Program", Journal of
Parapsychology. 60. 3-23. March 1996. Also in published as [2] Journal of Scientific Exploration,
Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 89-107, 1996
19.
^ Sergei
Nechiporuk (2004-12-06). "CIA's remote viewers initiated quest for WMD in
Iraq. Extrasensory agents helped the CIA arrest KGB spies and detect secret
objects in the USSR".Pravda.
20.
^ Reading
the Enemy's Mind: Inside Star Gate, America's Psychic Espionage Program by
Paul H. Smith, Tom Doherty, 2005, p.100
22.
^ a b Hyman, Ray. "Evaluation of a Program on Anomalous Mental
Phenomena". Journal of Society for Scientific
Exploration Volume 10: Number 1: Article 2. Society for Scientific
Exploration. Archived from the original on June 3, 2008. Retrieved
2008-06-24.
23.
^ "Precognitive Remote Perception: Replication of
Remote Viewing" (PDF). Journal
of Scientific Exploration (Society
for Scientific Exploration) 10 (1): 109–110. 1996.
Archived from the original on 2008-04-07. Retrieved
2008-06-02.
24.
^ Carey,
Benedict (2007-02-06). "A Princeton Lab on ESP Plans to Close Its
Doors". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-08-03.
25.
^ "A
comprehensive review of major empirical studies in parapsychology involving
random event generators or remote viewing" by Alcock, J.
27.
^ "The
Psychology of the Psychic" by David Marks and Richard Kamman, Prometheus
Books. Amherst, New York, 2000, 2nd edition.
* note: 1st edition, 1980, does not contain all of this information
* Book review of 2nd edition: James Alcock (January–February, 2002). "Even better the second time 'round. . - book review" (–Scholar search). Skeptical Inquirer. Archived from the originalon May 15, 2006. Retrieved 2008-06-26.[dead link]
* note: 1st edition, 1980, does not contain all of this information
* Book review of 2nd edition: James Alcock (January–February, 2002). "Even better the second time 'round. . - book review" (–Scholar search). Skeptical Inquirer. Archived from the originalon May 15, 2006. Retrieved 2008-06-26.[dead link]
29.
^ a b Penman, Danny (January
28, 2008). "Could there be proof to the theory that we're ALL
psychic?". Daily Mail UK. pp. 28–29. Retrieved
2008-01-29.
30.
^ "Because
even if Utts and her colleagues are correct and we were to find that we could
reproduce the findings under specified conditions, this would still be a far
cry from concluding that psychic functioning has been demonstrated. This is
because the current claim is based entirely upon a negative outcome – the sole
basis for arguing for ESP is that extra-chance results can be obtained that
apparently cannot be explained by normal means. But an infinite variety of
normal possibilities exist and it is not clear than one can control for all of
them in a single experiment. You need a positive theory to guide you as to what
needs to be controlled, and what can be ignored. Parapsychologists have not
come close to this as yet." – Ray Hyman, The Evidence for Psychic
Functioning: Claims vs. Reality Skeptical Inquirer,
March/April 1996 [3]
31.
^ "What
seems clear is that the scientific community is not going to abandon its
fundamental ideas about causality, time, and other principles on the basis of a
handful of experiments whose findings have yet to be shown to be replicable and
lawful." – Ray Hyman, The
Evidence for Psychic Functioning: Claims vs. Reality Skeptical Inquirer,
March/April 1996
32.
^ Bennett,
Gary L. (NASA, Washington, DC) (1994) (PDF).Heretical science – Beyond the boundaries of pathological
science. Washington, DC: American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics. pp. 1207–1212. ISBN AIAA-1994-4003.
35.
^ a b Persinger, MA; Roll, WG;
Tiller, SG; Koren, SA; Cook ., CM (2002). "Remote viewing with the artist Ingo Swann: neuropsychological profile,
electroencephalographic correlates, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and
possible mechanisms.". Perceptual and Motor Skills. 94 (3
Pt1): 927–949. PMID 12081299.
37.
^ a b Hunter, Matthew;
Mulligan, Bryce P; Dotta, Blake; Saroka, Kevin; Lavallee, Christina; Koren,
Stanley; Persinger, Michael (2010). "Cerebral Dynamics and Discrete Energy
Changes in the Personal Physical Environment During Intuitive-Like States and
Perceptions". Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 1 (9):
1179–1197.
39.
^ Mind
Trek: Exploring Consciousness, Time, and Space Through Remote Viewing by
Joseph McMoneagle, Hampton Roads, Publishing Co., Inc., 1997
Bibliography
§ Edward
A. Dames, Tell
Me What You See: Remote Viewing Cases from the World's Premier Psychic Spy.
Wiley, 2010. ISBN 09780470581773
§ David
Marks, Ph.D., "The Psychology of the Psychic (2nd edn.)" Prometheus
Books, 2000. ISBN 1-57392-798-8
§ Courtney
Brown, Ph.D., Remote
Viewing : The Science and Theory of Nonphysical Perception.
Farsight Press, 2005. ISBN 0-9766762-1-4
§ Jim
Schnabel, Remote
Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies,
Dell, 1997 , ISBN 0-440-22306-7
§ Paul
H. Smith, Reading
the Enemy's Mind: Inside Star Gate—America's Psychic Espionage Program,
Forge, 2005, ISBN 0-312-87515-0
§ Ronson, Jon, The Men who Stare
at Goats, Picador,
2004, ISBN 0-330-37547-4,
written to accompany the TV series The
Crazy Rulers of the World [4] The military
budget cuts after Vietnam and how it all began.
§ Buchanan,
Lyn, The
Seventh Sense: The Secrets Of Remote Viewing As Told By A "Psychic
Spy" For The U.S. Military, ISBN 0-7434-6268-8
§ F.
Holmes Atwater, Captain
of My Ship, Master of My Soul: Living with Guidance,
Hampton Roads 2001, ISBN 1-57174-247-6
§ McMoneagle,
Joseph, The
Stargate Chronicles: Memoirs of a Psychic Spy,
Hampton Roads 2002, ISBN 1-57174-225-5
§ Targ,
Russell & Puthoff, Harold, Information
transmission under conditions of sensory shielding, Nature 251, 602-607 (18
October 1974) doi:10.1038/251602a0 Letter0
§ "Remote viewing" Study for U.K.
Ministry of Defence 2001–2002, obtained through Freedom of Information Act
§ The Truth About Remote Viewing: The psychic technique of
remote viewing is consistent with simple, well known magic tricks.,Skeptoid
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