Remote Viewing in Hawaii: continuation of the Staff Reports thread

Great Debates
61

Sea Sorbust wrote:

Right, but what’s the “design?”

I used to hang around with a lot of RF engineers at work. One of the things they drilled into my head was that an optimal receiver will have an antenna either a quarter the length of the waves it’s supposed to receive, or half the wavelength.

So, what’s the longest EM wave a human could optimally receive? About 8 meters, on average (well, 2 meters is a little tall for a human, actually). Where is that in the whole EM spectrum? About 37.5 megaHertz. According to this PDF chart, 37.5 MHz is allocated for, in the U.S., land mobile radio and/or radio astronomy. It’s likely then that there’d be quite a bit of “interference” at that frequency. Short people, or growing kids, at just under 5 feet tall might be swamped with HAM radio dialogs, data, or even images!

What if it’s just the brain that’s used as an antenna? According to this Web page, the length of the human brain is about 15 cm. As a quarter-wavelength antenna, this would optimally pull in signals of about 500 MHz. According to the above-linked chart, frequencies between 470 MHz and 512 MHz are allocated for public mobile radio, broadcast TV, auxiliary broadcasting, and private land mobile radio in the U.S. In all three international regions, we see the word “broadcasting.” Tons of interference from man-made sources around 500 MHz.

Hey, maybe the Stanford EE’s actually received a PBS program about Costa Rica! (Of course, I’m touching on dental work picking up radio stations, here…)

Seriously, how long are the “long” EM waves spoken of in ESP research supposed to be?

62

The members of the HRVG have come in here and posted what are essentially “witnessing” posts, in which they say only, “I believe in remote viewing, because it works for me”, but they don’t give us any facts about remote viewing.

The brain on my shoulder told me to spend 15 minutes searching for documentation on remote viewing. Some of these links were supplied by the HRVG posts. So, I was able to gather some facts about remote viewing from them. I got as much confusing info as you did too, but I did get some facts.

The message I derive from their posts is that its a technique that anyone can try. That’s what the resources I’ve found so far indicate as well. I find it interesting that the protocols break down perceptions into a structured format that leads from low level to high level. That’s how the brain perceives and communicates to our awareness.
I’m guessing that’s how they first formed their perception on the validity of remote viewing. Interestingly, I’m not finding any reports from skeptics (trust me, I’m desperately hoping to find some good info that explains the ‘mind trick’), mainly because I don’t see any sessions posted from skeptics to show the statistical probability of getting associated data.

Super Bowl XXIV was played in New Orleans, at the Louisiana SuperDome, which is, of course, a climate-controlled dome. So that eliminates “cold, snow, breeze, brisk”. So that leaves “grass, field, tackle, fellow”. Wow! You really DID remote view Super Bowl XXIV…

Oh, wait…what about “ingots, brillo, timeless, journey, mainstay, Thomas, gadget, ring”? [heavy sarcasm] Oh, let’s just ignore those, as they don’t seem to have anything to do with SuperBowl XXIV. [/heavy sarcasm]

You came up with a random word list, and out of 18 words, you got 4 that had to do with a football game. Were you psychic? No. Was it a statistical anomaly? No.
Coming up with a word list of 18 words, and having four of the words “go together”, is perfectly average.

I didn’t say that my test results indicated that it was a function of psi. I said I don’t know, because I don’t have enough information to form an opinion. So, with that in mind, let’s take a logical approach to this.

My test wasn’t done to prove or disprove remote viewing. It was to see what sort of descriptors I would write down if it was done under the assumption that I would see the picture when I was finished. I wrote down the word ‘tackle’. Let’s think of a few targets – out of the zillions avaiable – that would would be most acceptable for the descriptor. Fishing gear. Football/rugby. The act of undertaking a task.
I dunno. I’m streaming as many random pictures through my mind as possible (Clockwork Orange-style, with my imagination pried open with eyelid braces) and none of them have any association with tackle. If someone flashed a picture of a football game, I’d mark that picture as a potential hit.
My rational, clear-headed reaction is that the chance of writing tackle in a list of 18 words is much less than 50/50. ‘Grass’ and ‘field’ are likely less than 50/50 as well. ‘Cold, snow, breeze’ are likely 50/50, though it may have been cold, snowy and breezy right outside the dome. If I was playing charades and the word was ‘January,’ I’d act out being cold and shoveling snow. Even if the target was January in Hawaii, the concept would get across to the other players.

A “tailormade cow” could just as easily be an IVF Holstein.

Exactly. Common sense should tell us that it’s speculation and the tailormade cow concept should be tossed. Rationalization taints the data, according to the RV resources.

Oh, wait…what about “ingots, brillo, timeless, journey, mainstay, Thomas, gadget, ring”? [heavy sarcasm] Oh, let’s just ignore those, as they don’t seem to have anything to do with SuperBowl XXIV. [/heavy sarcasm]

For my copywriting profession, I’ll often write two full pages of word streams about the product I’m writing about. I’ll just stream my consciousness, describing the product using multiple senses - colors, textures, emotions, tone, etc. It’s an exercise surprisingly like the remote viewing technique.
Inevitably, the document will be full of random words that don’t directly coorelate to the product, but do serve to prompt my brain to ‘feel’ its way to the most appropriate description. For instance, the other day I free wrote about a software technology for the healthcare industry. To describe the powerful software engine, I streamed ‘fast, moving data efficiently, revved up, churning.’ These are words that my brain uses to describe the concept. You would come up with other words - we all communicate in a unique way since communication is based on memories, past experiences, language skills and social influences, among many other factors.

So, only I can honestly communicate what the intended concept is. A year from now, if you read those descriptors to me, I’d likely say that you’re describing an engine of some sort. If I streamed the list to you, you’d have a different conclusion.

So, I’m starting to realize what’s going on here. When I write, I often look back at the words a few hours later and wonder where they came from. When I’m on a roll, I can be fully focused on the music pounding through my speakers or think about the design of our the deck we’re building.
If there’s anything to remote viewing, it probably taps the higher brain functions, such as creativity, which are highly dependent on unconscious functions of brain activity.

This makes this whole remote viewing thing so sticky. These folks are showing us pictures of word stream exercises that can only make sense to them, unless they hit words like ‘tackle’ that may have a stronger association. Not every word is set in cement, because it’s all just freeform writing. So, remote viewing techniques seem to mirror creative writing methods. If I showed that list of word streams about the product to you, you’d probably think, “hmm, must be writing about some sort of software, maybe health related.” So, applying that reason to some of those pages they’ve scanned up, I can do the same thing. Only, these people supposedly didn’t know what the target was.

So, that’s why I’ll give a few more hours of life to research it. That’s where I’ll stop – time to research the brain function of creativity.

I’d love to get input on this. Put aside the whole psi thing and let’s look at how this works.

63

It still looks as if you took a random stream of words and played a game of seeing how many could fit the target answer. A more honest approach would be to take the words and try to guess, before knowing what the target was, then sticking to your answer after the target was known. No “analysis”. No interpreters or “targerteers”.

By the way, I have a bit of trouble with the rote “I started out a skeptic” mantra chanted by almost everyone from your group that has posted here. On your own message board your leader, Glenn Wheaton, has stated that he has never known an honest skeptic. What kind of “skeptic” were you? You have no trouble believing that he has a ghost in his house, and when he claimed that he had psychic advice about AOL-Time Warner stock, no one questioned it. When everyone in your group supposedly stopped being a skeptic about “remote viewing”, did you also stop being skeptical about any other fantastic claims?

One last thing. Why do you all add “Aloha” to the beginnings and endings to 99% of your messages? I realize what the word means, but if everyone here started their messages with “Hello!” and ended with “Goodbye!” it would just look weird. I know that it’s not standard for everyone from Hawaii to post like that, and even in other message boards and newsgroups about and/or based in Hawaii they don’t do it as often as your group does. Is there a reason for it? Just curious.

64

Mana wrote:

So what you’re saying here is that no one has ever done a scientific study of remote viewing. Which means that your belief in it is based on only anecdotal evidence. Sorry for putting words in your mouth, but that’s what your above statement says to me.

But the statement is not correct about what a scientific study would require. We’re not trying to find a correlation, so we don’t need to separate results based on time of day, temperature, humidity, etc. We’re just trying to measure whether it exists, so those don’t matter. This test should be extremely simple, and the fact it hasn’t been done has to mean that your group doesn’t want to know the answer.

If RV exists, you should be able to remote view 20 targets, and then later match some of the pictures to the right ID numbers. Surely, after RVing several of the ideas of a picture, you would stand a better chance of picking the right one out of 20 than a monkey throwing a dart could do! You would only have to do this at a success rate that is larger than what you could do by chance. In other words, if you could average just two correct matches out of twenty, this would be plenty to prove RV.

You could do this in one day. No complex jargon, no subjective analysis by another person. Just a simple, objective answer. You could do this test with less effort than composing a few posts on this board. I can’t speak for the JREF, but I’m pretty sure that you could do this same test to claim your million dollars. Could you try it and let us know the results? Thanks.

65

It’s been a while, DaveW, but don’t I remember that the optimal reception antenna will be 2[sup]-n[/sup] times the wavelenth?

Your question “Uh, what’s the deal?” is a good question. The “design” is somewhere in the [human] genetic structure. The better question is “Are we humans designed to send and receive long waves?”. I don’t know.

As to the “antenna” length…I don’t think that it matters if I’m right about the optimal number being one of half-wavelengths (that is, one of {wavelength x 2[sup]-n[/sup] for n = 1, 2, 3…} ). It would seem that very many of these optimal lengths would fit into the human brain. :slight_smile:

66

Dave:

IANA electrical engineer, but Google is my friend. Does this help?

http://www.karenlundegaard.com/Questions/Psi&EH/Stokes.html

I’m going over to The Onion now, to get the Schumann resonances rinsed out of my earth-ionosphere cavities. :smiley:

67

Sea Sorbust wrote:

It does matter. If any fractional power-of-two length antenna is optimal, then we wouldn’t require anything but tiny antennas on any receiver. Why have a two-foot antenna on a boom box when all you need is a, let’s see… 2 feet times 2[sup]-11[/sup] is… an antenna slightly longer than 0.0117 inches?

No, any power of two will not do.

(Geez, you even quoted the question I actually asked…) I suspect, given what we know about radio waves, that human beings are not designed in any way to receive them, except for frequencies within or near visible light. Certainly not ELF waves.

Duck Duck Goose: yeah, that helps. Let’s see. 8 Hertz would be well received by a quarter-wave antenna 9,375 kilometers long (over 5,800 miles). Going with the powers-of-two, the first antenna small enough to fit inside an average human begin would be 2[sup]-25[/sup] times the wavelength, or 1.12 meters long. An antenna 2[sup]-28[/sup] times the wavelength would fit in the brain, at 13.96 cm. These numbers are absurdly small, and, as has already been pointed out, these same antenna lengths probably are quarter-wavelengths of signals being pumped out all over. Interference galore!

And 10[sup]-8[/sup] watts? Good grief. It’s also important to note that at a distance of 1,000 miles, any psi signals would be a million times weaker than those coming from people just a mile away. A person 5 feet from the ‘receiver’ would be sending signals a billion times stronger than someone 1,000 miles away. If the Stanford EEs really did pick up psi signals in this method, there was a fellow student day-dreaming about the beach, in the same building at the time, ‘sending’ them.

This is what makes for good pseudo-science. Take a perfectly reasonable science (like that of radio), and then twist it to meet your needs. psi-ELF appears, according to DDG’s cite, to not be blocked by things which should block “normal” ELF. Psi-ELF also doesn’t pay any attention to the inverse-square law. Given these two things, if it exists, it’s not EM that’s being transmitted.

(And yes, I will have something closer to the OP to contribute later on this evening. More of a response to Suzie, actually, and less of a continuation of this hijack. :slight_smile: )

68

You are, indeed, truly amazing with Google, Duck Duck Goose. Your link yielded the following

I disagree with the “telling blow” part view in that the purpose, the function, of any ESP kind of stuff is almost certainly NOT for experimenters to sit around and guess at arcane pictures or obscure thoughts.

IF there is such a thing as ESP, it MUST have some purpose; just as the hand’s purpose is to scratch one’s crotch and the mouth’s purpose is to initiate the beginning steps in the digestion of food. (I admit [or concede, as the case may be] that secondary functions/purposes might have arisen over time since the organ in question was genetically determined.)

My suspicion is that such a purpose of the hypothetical ESP (or “remote viewing”) would be non-verbalisms, perhaps principally from very small (defenceless) children. “Help”, I’m in danger. “Uh”, I’m hungry. Etc. Essentially one of a batch of emoticons (“Smilies”, we call them in vBulliten :slight_smile: ).

How would that change what your link said, Duck Duck Goose? Such “telepathic emoticons” are ultimately basic and would be jarred at an extremely low level, in an extremely small portion of the brain. Perhaps only a few bits would suffice to elicit a telepathic message inside a well-known fellow-human’s (for example, Mama’s) brain of “HELP!” or “I’m hungry”.

I whole-heartedly concur with their conclusions on PK, however. :slight_smile:

69

DaveW posted:

“It does matter. If any fractional power-of-two length antenna is optimal, then we wouldn’t require anything but tiny antennas on any receiver. Why have a two-foot antenna on a boom box when all you need is a, let’s see… 2 feet times 2[sup]-11[/sup] is… an antenna slightly longer than 0.0117 inches?”

No, any power of two will not do.

**'orbust **responds: Ah. You got me there. I felt that there was some catch. Still, if the sender and receiver were close enough or if the sender’s brain, (say because of sheer panic), was able to generate enough energy . . . ?

DaveW:
(Geez, you even quoted the question I actually asked…) I suspect, given what we know about radio waves, that human beings are not designed in any way to receive them, except for frequencies within or near visible light. Certainly not ELF waves.
’orbust responds with “Sorry, DaveW. I was in the middle of another thread on Pink Floyd and quoted the title of one of their tunes by ( :wink: ) error.”

DaveW continues:

’sorbust: “The 5 feet distance was the one that I was thinking about.”

’sorbust comments: "I had the very same thought when I first read their paper. :o "

’orbust winds up with: Not to forget what N. Tesla was aiming for when he and the odious, despicable George Westinghouse [sub](may his name rot from every library reference book)[/sub] got into their “tif” over money and patent-rights. If he (Tesla) was right then that might be the answer to all the questions about “remote viewing” and, more generally, “ESP”. (And EVEN, oddly, PK!!)

70

I would just like to say with regards to remote viewing, that I too was skeptical. I have been VERY skeptical about things like UFO’s, Out of Body travel, and all those other holloween sounding “contrivances” fostered on us by our society. Still, I gave remote viewing a chance ( it’s day in court if you will ) and, as a resuilt have had to take a closer look. I took the HRVG online class.

I followed the program as I was asked and came up with some very astounding results that really defies conventional thinking. When you do a target blind, meaning you are only given an address which is the target ID number ( or letters ), and not given ANY other information, and you actually draw a picture of the target that is validated when the target address is “unlocked” for your inspection on a prearranged day, the result is nothing less than shock!

On one session I had generated data regarding “water”, “flooding”, a picture of a helicopter. When the target ID became available for my inspection I was quite astounded to find that indeed the picture was of a helicopter over water, the flooded Holeman Airfield in Minnesota from about two years ago.

The same thing happened with another session where I drew a picture of what looked like an upside down bolw turned slightly sideways with lines drawn in front of it, and words that had come to mind like, “people, music, clapping”. The picture I drew indeed looked like the Hollywood Bowl.

The target WAS the Hollywood Bowl. SO something was deffinitely going on that I could not explain with conventional thinking, but at the same time that does not mean the acceptance of magical thinking either.

However, not every RV session one does ends with that kind of success. Many sessions are only marginally good, meaning that while some of the data is congruent with the actual target, much of it is not, or is TOTALLY off.

How to explaine that? I don’t know, but I do know that that is no reason to dismiss RV out of hand.

I would suggest that we keep our skepticism. It’s a good thing if practiced properly. By that I mean a decided difference between blatent closed mindedness and real skeptical thinking where one “remains open to the truth REGARDless of what the possible truth might be.” Even if it violate our most cherished beliefs. That takes a real maturity rarely found on public discussion boards.

So what IS the truth about Remote Viewing? I don’t know. But I imagine if we take all that energy we have expended by saying something is bullshit, dismissing it out of hand, and applying that energy in real honest research, our own personal explorations or that done in a scientific lab, we might be able to find out.

Robert

71

DaveW wrote

I wholeheartedly NON-CONCUR, DaveW. While my first posting to this thread was slightly peripheral, we have come “full circle” and my (and your) postings are exactly what the OP is about: remote viewing.

72

This makes my list of Threads I Wish I Had Never Opened. Remote viewing is utter garbage. There is not the slightest bit of truth to it at all.

73

You mentioned eyes and skin. Where else, pray tell, are our bodies “designed” to receive EM waves?

You want people to present eveidence that there is no evidence…

There. I have done so. Wanna see it again?

On the “asteroid defence” thread, you claimed to be part of a group studying this problem and yet you don’t know where two of the best-known American universities are located? :rolleyes:

Oh, and to receive long-wave EM signals, you need a big antenna. Mind telling us where in the human body we may find such an antenna?

74

It’s nice to see there is SOME interest in remote viewing that goes beyond the mere trashing of the subject. I can’t say that I understand some of the technical jargon you guys are talking about. While I try to approach things in a thoughtful way and not jump to hasty conclusions ( at least not too many (:slight_smile: )I am also not a science oriented person either. I mean that I don’t have the science background to get involved in scientific discussions. Philosophical discussions, maybe. So I would like to say upfront that I am not going to imply ( pass myself off ) as having some credible backgound that entitles me to make sweeping statements about the subject. My only authority is my experience with remote viewing. I also understand that such subective experience is not considered scientific. Fair enough. Still, on a personal level, I have gotten beyond the point of saying “there is nothing to the matter.” On a very unscientific scale of 1 - 10, I have given it ( RV ) a strong 8 meaning I have left plenty of room for listening to opposing views. Listening to them and actually acepting them as proof that RV doesn’t exist is another matter. My personal experiences with RV tells me that there is deffinitely something going on that conventional thinking has not been able to adequately address.

I think it is great that there are people who can use scientific structure/s to look at this and any OTHER subject. I also suspect the “structure” one uses effects the out come. The observer effects the obsevered. But I’m not suggesting something to you that you don’t already know. I think the bottom line may be for people to finally dive in and learn one of the many RV techniques that are out there and judge for themselves the data one gets while doing the targets. One can go only so far with analytical technique.

There is no point in going on an on how “water” MIGHT taste, as interesting as the discussions might be.

And what does one have to lose? Is one’s world view really going to be so badly shaken if one begins to realize there may be more to the world than first thought? Perhaps it boilds down to having made a bad investment. I think many of us invest alot of energy in defending ideas, some of which we have built our lives around. No one wants to think they have made a bad investiment of their time. Who likes to bet on the wrong horse? It’s a strange kind of economics, for sure, but oddly enough people define themselves by those investments.

Ah well. Just thought I would share some unscientific thoughts. (:slight_smile:

Robert

75

BTW, about those EM waves. I happened across an interesting book by Albert Budden called “Electric UFO’s.” You may already know of the book. He atempts to show a relationship between EMF’s RF’s and altered states of consciousness, such as alien abductions and ufo sightings. Your probably already aware of Michael Persingers seminal work with electromagnetic fields ( the magic hat ) where he bathes the temporal lobe with weak EM signals to reproduce aliens and ufo, out of body experience etc.

It would be VERY interesting to see what kind of remote viewing could be done under such conditions. Below is a review of Buddens book:

ELECTRIC UFOs
Fireballs, Electromagnetics and Abnormal States
Albert Budden
Click here for frame free viewing

This is the most important book yet to examine the impact of electromagnetic pollution on the human organism, and to link the headlong expansion of electrical power networks and telecommunications technology with a range of paranormal experiences, alleged UFO and alien visitations, and adverse health effects.

While governments are becoming increasingly active in the face of damage caused to the planet by pollution, reaction to the expansion of the lucrative telecommunications industry remains largely unfocussed. Our dependence on electrical energy means that operational hardware - mobile phones, pylons, microwave repeaters, television booster stations, electrical substations and power lines - is being installed all around us largely unchecked.

In this ground-breaking work, researcher Albert Budden has brought together a revealing catalogue of evidence, showing that the resulting health effects caused by these rogue energies in our environment are intrinsically linked to a cluster of bizarre conscious effects - such as hauntings, poltergeists, UFOs, alien abductions, missing time, visitations, out-of-body experiences - all previously thought to be the province of the paranormal. Moreover, he has found that these experiences have a biological survivalist function in that they embody holistic messages sent from the over-stressed body via the image banks of the mind: electromagnetic stress is seen to cause a breakdown of the body’s regulatory functions, which in turn triggers visionary messages telling the individual that their health is under threat from electromagnetic fields.

A sequel to his earlier title “UFOs - Psychic Close Encounters”, this is an engaging and informative work, which, for the first time, gathers together a comprehensive range of evidence and case studies, including data collected from co-workers and correspondents in Canada, the UK, the US and Australia. In this cohesive approach, paranormal experiences are shown to be different facets of electromagnetic irradiation, whereby both the body and the mind’s equilibrium is being disturbed.

This is a seminal work, examining the strange evolutionary modifications of the human organism in response to our arrival in the new electromagnetic environment.

Reviewed by Douglas Chapman

Albert Budden’s theory is nothing if not inclusive. Irradiation and/or electromagnetic pollution is postulated by him to be related to or the source of nearly everything “paranormal.” A chart that opens the book relates it to anomalies including missing time, “UFOs,” psychic phenomena, spontaneous fires, metal bending, “aliens,” skin trauma, “hauntings,” “poltergeists,” and more.

Major electrical events are thought by him to kick-start peoples’ bodies into field sensitivity. With the brain rather unprotected from irradiation, many experienced odd phenomenas through epileptiform states, “in which an electrical destabilization of the brain occurs due to frequent and prolonged irradiation by EM [electromagnetic] fields…” Budden sees the downplaying of the dangers of power lines and other such generators of fields as being motivated by the fear of the moneys to be lost via lawsuits if such things are admitted. The visionary materials experienced by the victims are actually warnings of the harm to their persons and the environment—but not generally understood as such unless reflected back to them by outsiders. Case file studies climax the volume, with much quoted anecdotal material, demonstrating these concerns.

One contactee, an “Ian of Peckham,” was, when young, narrowly missed by lightning and was, at the time of the interview, being irradiated by excess radio waves and electricity; Budden’s tape recorded acted up around him.

Many readers of this book may well have previously wondered if energies have affected humans in all sorts of ways. They are apt to find Budden’s ideas fascinating, if not proven in the vastness of their contentions.

76

I have been skimming this thread with interest.

To those more familiar with remote viewing tests, I ask the following question - What kind of result would disprove the phenomenon of remote viewing?

77

I don’t think you’re skeptical enough.

The same could be said for astrologers, homeopaths and flat-Earthers.

But this allows them to say that ANY number of apparent correlations counts as a success, as I shall demonstrate.

But if the target had been a photo of Thomas the Tank Engine chugging past some cattle during a blizzard, you might have called that a success. I bet our “remote viewers” would have.

I think all you did was allow your mind to think up a bunch of words at random and, if you think of enough words, you’re going to get “hits” from just about ANY photograph.

78

jab1 wrote:

Hey! Don’t forget about us Square Earthers!

79

I guess I should begin this post by going back to the start. I don’t think I’ve yet to see an unambiguous defintion of what remote viewing is. Not even in the HRVG’s FAQ. What’s it good for? I’d like to hear this from a ‘believer’. What’s it good for?

The point is that while RV remains a vague notion, asking questions about its efficacy is fairly worthless. I mean, the name itself says one thing, that it’s about viewing things remotely. But I can do that with a camera, transmitter, receiver, and monitor. The talk about actual viewings themselves so far in this thread makes RV seem pretty pointless when you ask the question, “what can you do with RV?”

So far, someone selects a target, someone else RVs it, and then it’s compared to see how close it matches. No new information appears to be gleaned from this process. And that “new information” is the only thing that I can see would interest the intelligence community. What you’d want is to say, “remote view the Taliban for us,” and the RVers go off and come back with a current report on the group’s strategic plans and other such information.

Remote viewing past events, like Lennon’s murder or a football game, is absolutely worthless unless you can come out of it with information that nobody’s ever had before, which is verifiable against reality, and which actually means something. Remotely viewing that the quarterback was happier than normal because of a good investment is close to worthless information - even if it’s correct.

So, that’s the main question that’s been eating at me. RVing a target when the target is already known is a fine skill, I suppose, but I can’t see where that, by itself, will be anything but a carny game. I don’t see any real applications.

Anyway, thinking about Suzie’s posts, I wanted to try some stuff out for myself. So I asked Mrs. W. to think of a famous person, place, or event, but to keep it to herself. I then asked her to give me eight random numbers or letters. She gave me QPN4-70BZ. I went back into my office, and through a process called DaveWistics (pronounced dave-wistics, I will describe it later on), I came up with the following word list:

Throw, strain, inevitable, millenia, defense, member, townships, Kodak, media, hallucinations, excitement, failures, obvious, blurb, moving, objective, cases, haunted, college, comics

Clearly, the above word list is describing the Vietnam War in a very general sense (hence the word ‘blurb’). Unfortunately, my wife said that she was thinking of the Taj Mahal. Since I imagined DaveWistics to be very powerful, she must have been mistaken. [tongue now out of cheek]

However, after visiting The Majestic Taj Mahal, and liberally applying the Law of Fives, the words strain, inevitable, Kodak, and moving appear to be words well-associated with the Taj Mahal (and ‘moving’ in more than one sense). Four out of 20. I was actually surprised to find that ‘haunted’ did not fit. Oh, well.

(My biggest mistake was, of course, making a guess as to what the target was before asking my wife. That should be ‘obvious’ - another hit?!?)

My 20% “hit” performance doesn’t compare badly to Suzie’s 22% (and her ‘grass’ might only count for half a hit if the field is actually astroturf :wink: ). Without doing a whole bunch of trials, we won’t really be able to compare the numbers too much. Either of our performances may have been a fluke, in either direction.

The biggest difference between Suzie’s method and DaveWistics, though, is that I’m sure that none of the words on my list are anything but random. DaveWistics involves grabbing a book off the shelf (Sagan’s Demon-Haunted World, in this case), then flipping pages and jamming your finger down as randomly as possible. If your fingernail is on a noun, verb, adjective or adverb not already on your list, write it down. Otherwise, flip again. Took me 34 jabs to get 20 different words.

(One might be able to use a magazine, if it’s sufficiently thick. I avoided the dictionary since the words are in some sort of order. I’d also suggest avoiding minimalist fiction.)

I’m quite convinced that any list of 20 randomly-selected words will, with a little elbow grease, provide at least a 20% hit rate, on average, but I have, as yet, no data to support this contention other than my own single trial.

Anyhow, I plan to play again, just because I found it an amusing way to spend ten minutes of my time. Perhaps using DaveWistics, perhaps not. And so, I got Mrs. W. to generate another target. And a friend of mine, too. I have no knowledge of what either one is. I don’t know where my wife stuck her piece of paper, and my friend’s piece of paper is in his office (miles out of my way), somewhere (I told him to stick it in a desk drawer, and he said he might do that, or he might put it somewhere else - he’s got the right spirit for this stuff). I’ll toss in a target of my own, which I might run DaveWistics on for fun. So, in no particular order, here are the three randomly-selected target IDs:[ul][li]4925-LVR1[]2PTV-13XA[]47IE-95TS (that third digit is a capital-I, as in GHIJK, not a one or an L)[/ul]Anyone is free to play along, I will “unblind” these IDs in, say, a week. Others ought to also feel free to add to this list, because I’ve got a couple of other modifications of DaveWistics I’d like to try out, and two targets won’t cut it.[/li]
I won’t be bothering to submit these formally to HRVG, as I don’t know what two of them are, and so cannot meet HRVG’s submission criteria (anyone from HRVG is free to play, though). I also don’t have pictures of them or anything of the like, but, I did tell my wife and my friend to select a famous person, place, or event, and so digging up photos ought to be easy on the Web, a week from now.

(Oh, and as to the “low blow,” Sea Sorbust… Given that it’s technically unknown as to whether or not RV actually even works (or, in my case, what it’s supposed do), I think any discussion about the possible physical - or psychical - mechanism through which it works is a hijack of this thread. I mean, we can toss out possibilities and knock 'em down, as we did, all day long, but it means little if the most-basic questions remain unanswered.)

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Well, Dave, to answer your question, “What is remote viewing for?” all I can tell you is that it’s a hobby for some people, exactly the same as Ouija boards, or seances, or tarot cards. You may as well ask, “What’s any hobby for?” A hobby makes you feel good, and it passes the time pleasantly. Some hobbies, like stamp collecting and crocheting and making Martha Stewart-type crafts, generate more “stuff” than others. At least with remote viewing, you don’t have the problem of what to do with all the “stuff”. :smiley: