Psychic Abilities: Remote Viewing

Remote viewing is a controversial branch of parapsychology (the study of psychic phenomena). The psychic who performs remote viewing has the ability to experience a target location or object, giving feedback about various characteristics of the target. Some psychics reportedly can even can taste or smell during the remote view experience. Other psychics in the past have combined remote viewing with associative writing. Experiments have gone as far as giving a psychic latitude and longitude coordinates and letting the psychic describe what is at the location. The target for a remote viewer may be an object contained in a box or envelope, or it could be a far-away location (including celestial bodies). Remote viewing has been criticized by some in the scientific community, but has been supported by others who have studied the phenomena (including former skeptics).

Many in the field of parapsychology believe there are individuals who can perform remote view who are not aware of their ability. Others in the field believe remote viewing can help a psychic view not only happenings and installations that are geographically distant, but also view events and places that are distant in time.

The government became involved in remote viewing during the Cold War. Concern about the possible ability of Soviet spies to observe secret US installations and practices fueled the CIA and other groups to research the possibility of such a threat. As in the scientific community there was a mixture of opinions on the validity of remote viewing. In 1995, under the Clinton Administration's efforts at transparency in government, several documents from remote viewing experiments were declassified for public view.

Public speculation on the government's involvement with parapsychology has been building since the 1960s. It is now known remote viewing has been employed in hostage situations, military operations, and intelligence gathering among other applications. With the declassification of government documents, the release of programs named Star Gate, Sun Streak, and Center Lane associated with remote viewing have helped sustain recent fascination with the subject. Several portrayals of remote viewing have appeared in popular culture, including the season seven opener of the TV show the X Files and Stephen King's book Hearts in Atlantis.

If you have any experiences with remote viewing or have questions or comments, please leave a comment below. For more info: see the International Remote Viewing Association's website - a non-profit remote viewing organization.
Click here for some interesting information on H.E. Puthoff's involvment with the government sponsored remote viewing experiments at Stanford Research Institute.