After lunch I wandered back in time to hear Lyn Buchanan present on the future of remote viewing. This is what I had hoped the conference would provide: some progress toward the future. Interestingly, Lyn began his talk by discussing the past of remote viewing, though providing information most hadn’t known before.
Lyn has been doing research about the origins of remote viewing. It is widely accepted that the U.S. copied the remote viewing program of the Soviet Union. But where did the Soviets get it? It turns out that Nazi Germany had an active program to study Jewish mysticism, including the so-called paranormal talents involved. Hitler apparently was deeply supersticious and held a fascination with mystical topics. Upon the end of the war, the Soviets picked up the research and scientists involved.
The U.S. was not so quick to see the value and largely ignored its importance until the 1960s, when reports filtered out that the Soviet Union was using psychic powers for spying. When intelligence officials realized the U.S. was far behind in the “psychic arms race,” the remote viewing program was born. The rest, as they say, is history.
Lyn then looked to the future. What did it hold in store. He presented the “good, bad, and ugly” arising out of the spread of remote viewing. Among the good was the revolutionary leaps in human potential that remote viewing promised. The bad include the misuse of these powers by so-called bad guys. The ugly include such things as paranoia and “witch hunts” which may arise once people realize that there are no such things as secrets anymore.
Here is where I disagree with Lyn. Sure, there are plenty of people – perhaps a majority – who are just not ready to accept that these skills exist. Lyn sees these people greatly fearing this unknown, strange power and turning against anyone who practices it.
I take a different outlook. Remote viewing is an astounding ability. Though its been around for thousands of years and studied scientifically for forty years, no one really knows how it works. All we know that it works and that it can be reproduced using a protocol. In spite of all we know about remote viewing, it is still largely magic.
Instead of this doom-and-gloom scenario, I forsee a different reaction. For instance, I am a “show-me-the-money” kind of guy. A decade ago I heard Ed Dames spinning incredulous yarns on the Art Bell radio show. His claims sounded too outlandish to be true. Even when Joe McMoneagle interjected some sanity to the debate, I still was not ready to buy into this until I had done it myself.
I believe most people are skeptical of the abilities of remote viewing. I believe that even when they hear that their secrets are no longer safe from their rivals and competitors, they’ll want to do it themselves before they will believe it. Only then will it become real. Thus, remote viewing will experience a “gold rush” before any witch hunts take place. Hopefully those new viewers will see the benefits of the ability and this will become their focus.
Next up was Dr. Dean Radin, who wrote the book Entangled Minds and was featured in What the Bleep Do We Know? along with fellow IRVA presenter Dr. William Tiller. Dean looked at remote viewing using the framework of quantum mechanics. The math was a bit over my head but the talk was interesing and lively. Once again I found myself wishing I had done my homework and read the presenter’s book beforehand.
The next session was an outbounder experiment. Paul and Patricia Targ (Russell’s wife) were sent someplace within fifteen minutes travel from the hotel. It was our job to determine where they went using remote viewing. The outbounder team would videotape their location and use this for our feedback.
After explaining the procedure, Stephan led everyone in some relaxation exercises. He then asked us a series of questions about sensations we were perceiving about the target site. All of my remote viewing to date has been done without a monitor, either from Joe’s workshop or from online tools like Palyne Ganir’s Dojopsi website. Before I could discern any impressions, Stephan would be on to the next one. I wound up imagining a lot of junk and feeling a bit too rushed.
On the other hand, I did perceive the target site. Paul and Patricia’s target was the Monorail Station at the Las Vegas Convention Center. While I got a lot of junk, I did sketch a horizontal line held up by supports with trees below it. Next to that I wrote the word “rails?” Not bad for a short-notice outbounder experiment, I thought.
On the way to dinner, I got lassoed by the same group of Lyn’s students as the night before. Once again, we skipped the hotel restaurant in favor of the local burger joint, Hamburger Mary’s. I joked about deja-vu as we settled into the same tables we had occupied 24 hours before.
To my surprise, Lyn joined us. I had written him off as too tired for dinner. We had intersting conversations about remote viewing, parapsychology, reincarnation, and other out-there topics. Lyn regaled us with some strange events he had experienced. Just as the mood was turning festive we realized we were about to miss the speaker’s reception. Hoofing it quickly back to the hotel, we arrived just as the first group of people had filtered through the buffet line.
The h’or d’oerves were tasty and the conversation lively around the tables. I wandered around, taking pictures of the crowd. Mel Riley and a friend showed up unannounced. He joined other remote viewers and presenters for a group photo. Mel’s friend handed my his camera for another picture, so I obliged him. I actually had to take two because Mel’s face was obscured by
an “orb” in the first one. His friend got a kick out of showing this to Mel,
who jokingly disavowed any association with ETs or UFOs.
Then it was Ingo’s turn to speak. The room was packed as he made his way to
the stage, still dressed in the same navy blue warmup pants and T-shirt
he’d warn the day before (he briefly added a jacket for his speech. I don’t understand how a guy with his talent looks like a homeless person).
Once he took the stage my impression of him changed. He was still soft-spoken and his eyes still twinkled, but once he was on stage he took on a regal air.I knew then what a fellow attendee told me was true: in spite of his appearances, Ingo obviously loves being the center of attention.
Ingo’s lecture began by decrying the constant celebration of remote viewing’s “glory days” rather than focusing on the future. I was glad to hear him say that, as many of my RV friends feel the same way. This made his earlier cryptic response to my remote viewing question make more sense to me. As for the rest of his speech, it regarded how mainstream science is not equipped to fairly evaluate psychic abilities. Mainstream science, in its publications and experiments, is biased towards material aspects and ill-equipped for (or downright hostile towards) anything that isn’t physical. His point seemed to be that these attitudes will have to evolve before any progress will be made in accepting psi abilities as fact.
After Ingo’s speech, I wound up again with Lyn and his graduates. We decided
to do some spoon-bending, as that has seemed to become a tradition at the
conference. I’d never done it before, so I said “what the heck.” We had a
table full of spoons at the back of the room and no sign of the hotel staff,
so we grabbed a handful of spoons and got to work.
Some had obviously done this before, since the first twisted spoon was
produced within twenty seconds! It was joined by others soon afterward, though the one I held didn’t seem to get the point. I assume I hadn’t given myself premission to bend the hotel’s spoons, in spite of my supposed intentions.
While we focused on the spoons, Lyn told us some really wild stories of cases he’s worked. Some are so far out (and some so sensitive) that I will decline to repeat them here. Suffice to say I would’ve never believed the tales I heard had Lyn not told them himself.
Paul Smith was anxious to lock up the convention room, so he chased us out at 11 o’clock. The party then moved to poolside, where more spoons got bent and more tales got told. I gave up on my spoon around midnight and bid the others goodnight. I heard the next morning that they had stayed up past one o’clock.
As I went to bed I was feeling somewhat down. Lyn is not considered the doomsayer in remote viewing circles – not by a longshot. That title belongs to Ed Dames. Still, to hear Lyn paint a difficult future for remote viewing made me a little concerned. No, the sky is not going to fall, but acceptance of this skill won’t come as smoothly as I hoped – at least in Lyn’s opinion.
I hope he’s wrong.
