Remote Viewing Videos on the CSL site

ersby

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On the Cognitive Science Laboratory’s site, there is a page of videos.

http://www.lfr.org/LFR/csl/media/videos.html

I was asked, on another thread, what I made of the evidence shown in these videos. I’ve only had a chance to look at the first, since I got bogged down in researching one of the claims.

The video player on this page has no timer on it, so I can’t direct you to exactly the right place on the video. Sorry about that.

The first one I looked at was the one called Put To The Test. This remote viewing experiment has two problems, One is that the remote viewing notes are directly compared to the target area. This allows images in the session notes to be made to fit the features of the target. Also, Joe produced several drawings, and the final one does not seem to be one of those compared to the target. There’s a brief glimpse of what he drew just before they go to the judging, and there seem to be quite a lot of pages. It looks to me like they’ve found correspondences among Joe’s data and then presented those as being the totality of Joe’s data.

This video clip also mentions an example of a hit from the 1980s. Edwin May describes it:

“One of his best hits we had a person who was in the administration building a Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. And all Joe drew was... the laboratory. A perfect plan view of what this laboratory looks like. The interesting this is, Joe’s never been to Livermore and this person could’ve been hiding anywhere in the entire continental USA.”

This is not what happened according to the contemporary report (link to the pdf at the end of this).

This experiment took place on 7 May 1987. The plan was that Joe should do four RV sessions on one target (a location), using three people as beacons. One of the beacons was at the location from 8am until 8pm. Joe was told the man's name and told that he was a physicist. The two other beacons were SRI staff members, known to the remote viewer. They would also be on that site such that the three beacons would be there for a twenty-four hour period. Joe was also told that the location was in the San Francisco Bay area, and he was informed about the “technical” nature of the target (the exact word is blanked out).

The paper describes the target material in this way (from page 7 of the pdf. I’ve included the spaces left by the censored words):

“The primary target was the ATA facility [...] In particular, the accelerator itself was targeted during operation with an external beam.

We have also identified targets of lesser interest in the targets’ environment. We have designated a wind-power electric generator farm at Altamont Pass but adjacent to the primary target area as a secondary target, and the target’s main complex, which is farther away geographically but is functionally accocitated with [...] as a tertiaty target.”


The problem here is that it is not made clear when these secondary targets were chosen. In the section called “Target and Response Data”, it states that: “A few elements, however, were determined by an SRI analyst on a post hoc basis in order to allow for a more accurate assessment of reliability.” If the three targets were decided beforehand, there should’ve been no need to later change the elements used to judge the remote viewing sessions.

And if having three targets for one experiment is unusual, the reasons for calling these two extra targets “secondary” and “tertiary” also seem odd. One is because it was near the target (the wind farm) and the other reason was that Lawrence Livermore Labs had some kind of thematic link to the target. But if you consider that the beacon’s occupation and the nature of the target was known to Joe, surely some kind of thematic link was likely. Whatever you make of it, Edwin May's description of the hit is not accurate since the beacon was never at Lawrence Livermore.

I shall take a look at the other videos later.

http://www.mediafire.com/view/kbagmqr197j46im/88 April Application Oriented RV Lawrence Livermore hit.pdf
 
It seems the most amazing and convincing thing in the video escaped (for some mysterious reason..)Your attention: Joe's detailed drawing of the barge is almost identical with the barge on the target site. I find it hard to imagine any open-minded person would claim this to be solely due to chance, it is just way, way too detailed.
 
It seems the most amazing and convincing thing in the video escaped (for some mysterious reason..)Your attention: Joe's detailed drawing of the barge is almost identical with the barge on the target site. I find it hard to imagine any open-minded person would claim this to be solely due to chance, it is just way, way too detailed.

Well, I think a lot of that is down to editing and the voice over. Joe never draws a barge. He draws something tall, and if you were to look at it in isolation, you wouldn't call it a barge. In fact, he then elaborates on the image of something tall in another picture that you only glimpse briefly during the film, by which time it looks more like a monument in a park. Certainly nothing to do with a boat.

Joes tall structure.pngjoe 1995 abc remote viewing.png
 
Oh yes he draws the barge, because as said it is almost identical with the target barge. But obviously, because where you are coming from, you would not call it a barge even if 100% identical. It is unfortunate that you chose a stillpicture from a moment when Joe had not completed his drawing. I fail to understand why you did not chose the moment when Joe's complete drawing of the barge and the real barge are in the same picture. Had you done so, everyone could have seen how identical the two are. Unfortunately, eh, it is not in my power at the moment to do that myself. But I ask you, or anyone else for that matter, if you could produce a still from the moment where Joe's ready drawing and the barge are in the same picture. But I doubt you will want to produce THAT still though. Of course you could always prowe me wrong.
 
The picture I posted on the right certainly is completed. And if you look at the film where they compare the barge to one of Joe's drawings, it is the same drawing as I posted on the left.
 
I fail to understand why you did not chose the moment when Joe's complete drawing of the barge and the real barge are in the same picture. Had you done so, everyone could have seen how identical the two are.
I can do this, no problem. As you can see, I did not post an incomplete drawing as you claimed: it is the same as the image I posted above.

not a barge.png
 
It is not only that wedge-shape in Joe's drawing that is identical with the barge, but also the lower portions of the ship, like the quadrangle, or "box" right below the wedge, are right there in Joe's drawing. Unfortunately this still shows only the wedge-shape.

Anyway, for me this is a fine remote viewing demo. I guess you explain everything by chance? So we just have to agree that we disagree here:)
 
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... The first one I looked at was the one called Put To The Test. This remote viewing experiment has two problems, One is that the remote viewing notes are directly compared to the target area. This allows images in the session notes to be made to fit the features of the target...

May I ask, what alternative method do you think should be used, if not to compare the notes directly to the target site?
 
May I ask, what alternative method do you think should be used, if not to compare the notes directly to the target site?
The judge, who does not know what the target is, takes the notes to a number of target sites and chooses which one is the best match.
 
The judge, who does not know what the target is, takes the notes to a number of target sites and chooses which one is the best match.

Ok. This would be something like triple blind. The toughest criteria, and fair enough.

Do you think a triple blind judge could have spotted the barge, the river and the bridge?
The same way as was done.
 
Ok. This would be something like triple blind. The toughest criteria, and fair enough.

Do you think a triple blind judge could have spotted the barge, the river and the bridge?
The same way as was done.
Well, Joe didn't draw a barge. Bear that in mind. We'd need to see all of the drawings and notes and to see all of the target. For example, the Astroworld site had bridges, a waterway improved by man and, I'd imagine, quite a lot of metallic noises. George Ranch, too, has a river and a bridge. And those dark parallel lines that Joe drew are a good match for the bannister going up and around the tree house. We can't say either way for sure.
 
Well, Joe didn't draw a barge. Bear that in mind. We'd need to see all of the drawings and notes and to see all of the target. For example, the Astroworld site had bridges, a waterway improved by man and, I'd imagine, quite a lot of metallic noises. George Ranch, too, has a river and a bridge. And those dark parallel lines that Joe drew are a good match for the bannister going up and around the tree house. We can't say either way for sure.

It is no dark parallel lines, but it is a wedge shape Joe draws. And it is almost exactly at the right angle, maybe just a bit narrower than the " wedge" of the barge. And the quadrat Joe drew just below the wedge is spot on. As are the rungs below the quadrat. Whether you like it or not Joe drew almost an exact replica of the barge. Plus the "manmade river" and the bridge. Remembering Joe was totally blind when he did this, it just humanely could not be any better.
 
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There is a similarity between one of Joe's drawing and an element of the target, true, but without the opportunity to compare all of session notes to all of the targets' features we cannot say how evidential it is. The opinion that remarkable correspondences are always meaningful or never happen by chance is subjective. (See this paper, link goes to a pdf)

Let me try and illustrate my point. In 2002, on another forum I wrote a number of descriptors for a remote viewing test. Among those descriptors were:

Roads, bridge, tower, a light or beacon high up, an underpass, a ship or boat, a squat structure, and metal structure with grid-like features.

Each one of those eight descriptors is present at Joe's target site, so does that mean I score 100%? No. In order to assess my performance properly, you'd need all of the descriptors I wrote and you'd need to compare them to all potential targets without knowing which was the actual target. Once that is done, it should be clearer as to whether or not I was remote viewing a particular location.
 
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Alright, your point(s) taken and I appreciate. Fair enough! It is of course the nature of such demonstrations that lots of unanswered questions and doubts will remain no matter what the performance of the viewer and it is of course as far away from a conclusive evidence as just gets. I am happy to hear you find Joe's notes somewhat descriptive of the target, I understand that is a kind of compromise from you! So I on my part can now confess what a terrible nagging doubt I feel inside because it is not known what those Joe's other notes describe! They can be just anything really! And besides, you still have two more demonstrations to expound on and tell us the true lie of the public rv land. I am perfectly happy this time to only attentively listen from the galleries and learn!!
 
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An interesting sampling of "remote viewing" before it was named that was completed by Upton Sinclair and his wife, Mary Craig Kimbrough. They recorded these experiments in a book called Mental Radio. Some of you may know that Sinclair was a hard-nosed socialist who spent his life documenting and criticizing the social and economic conditions of the early twentieth century.

The book, which I got through inter-library loan, was presented as evidence of the clairvoyance of Craig Sinclair. Initially very skeptical, Upton engages on a series of experiments where Craig draws through clairvoyance a series of drawings that Upton has made in the next room. Others are engaged in the process as well, including a brother-in-law who lives some 40 miles distant.

Sinclair attempts to format the material in a "scientific" manner and has the material reviewed by William McDougall at Duke.

In a later preface Albert Einstein says this of the material: "The results of the telepathic experiments carefully and plainly set forth in this book stand surely beyond that which a nature investigator holds to be thinkable. On the other hand, it is out of the question in the case of so conscientious an observer and writer as Upton Sinclair that he is carrying on a conscious deception of the reading world; his good faith and dependability are not to be doubted."

The book is quite frank in that it includes the failed attempts as well as the successes and to be sure, some of the successes take a stretch of the imagination to really link to the original drawing.

But the book when taken as a whole does present an interesting early experiment in "remote viewing" in its entirety. I would suggest if anyone is interested in the book to try and obtain an older printing. It seems from the reviews on Amazon that some of the more recent printings don't include the drawings themselves! Or at least that their inclusion is incomplete. Sinclair is an excellent writer and he presents the material with a lot of affection for his mate. A good and quite fast read. It can easily be read in a couple of hours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Radio

http://www.amazon.com/Mental-Radio-...8&qid=1386943514&sr=8-1&keywords=mental+radio
 
I had a look at another of the videos on the page: the one called “Precognition Example”

Well, the precognition seems okay. But that stuff about the submarine, like before, needs putting into context.

Joe did six sessions on this target, up to October 1979, and they took place a year before the Typhoon submarine was launched. It contains no reference to Joe seeing an empty bay three months in the future.

Joe did not put the missile tubes in front of the conning tower, but to the rear as was common for the time. He draws them at an angle which, far from being a hit, is not how they were in the Typhoon submarine.

The Americans had known a submarine was being built at Severodvinsk since 1977 so it’s unlikely that they wouldn’t have believed Joe when he told them there was a submarine there.

Besides, it is unclear how much the interviewer knew about the target. He certainly has the co-ordinates and knows it is a large concrete building, but it is not uncommon for the interviewer to be more knowledgeable about the target. I mention this because all of the data about the submarine comes from the sixth session concerning this target. In one session previously, Joe had mentioned the building was linked to ship building, and then in session five Joe mentions building parts for submarines, and then in session six when Joe mentions submarines again, the interviewer asks for more information about that, which is when the remote viewing focuses on a big submarine.
 
I would suggest if anyone is interested in the book to try and obtain an older printing. It seems from the reviews on Amazon that some of the more recent printings don't include the drawings themselves! Or at least that their inclusion is incomplete. Sinclair is an excellent writer and he presents the material with a lot of affection for his mate. A good and quite fast read. It can easily be read in a couple of hours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Radio

http://www.amazon.com/Mental-Radio-Upton-Sinclair/dp/1477605088/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386943514&sr=8-1&keywords=mental radio

It's available online:
https://archive.org/details/mentalradio017719mbp
 
I had a look at the last one: the last one, filmed for the National Geographic Channel. It’s a hit with odds of one in six, but I noticed that Ed May, when judging the six potential targets, put the real target and one other apart from the remaining four, which indicates he wasn’t too confident about his choice. He can’t have been helped by the target set itself. Instead of being six distinct locations, I found that four of them shared very similar features

Joe’s session notes appear to describe a park or public gardens, nothing like the harbourside area that the target went to. Of course, directly comparing session notes to the target is not the right way to judge remote viewing, but even Joe makes excuses about some of the features he described that simply weren’t there. It’s also unfortunate that this target is, essentially, identical to the one in the Put To The Test.
 
In my opinion the potential targets that were not chosen does not enter into the RV at all. The beacon never went to any of the other five potential targets, so there was only one target site. The reasonable way for them to evaluate the session was to do as they did, to compare the session notes to the target site.

Now Ed May tried another approach, and acted a blind judge, to try and see if he could tell what target was used, from the quality of the descriptions given in the session.
It's still not clear to me why the other places should be relevant at all. Logically one might think that if he missed the target then he would not have hit any of the other five by chance; But in fact, there is a phenomena in RV that can make even potential targets "bleed through"; So it kind of boils down to: How well could he describe the target to distinguish it from the other five potential targets, and that meant that he had to know them as well, but there were no beacon there.

By my limited statistical knowledge I say: the RV was a hit on its own if the participants felt it was, and the judging was a hit by 1 in 6 to chance.
 
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