LEARNING PREFERENCES AND ETHICS

LEARNING REMOTE VIEWING

Single pass direct perception can be learned in about a half hour if the student follows the directions. –Is that too much to ask? Sometimes. We are taught in childhood that acts of mind are “imaginary” or unreal, and that ther no rules that apply to thoughts. This is incorrect. Acts of mind are acts of attention provided there are some possible states to pay attention to. They are real acts with real consequences.

If I may digress, some of the best students I’ve ever had were engineers. They followed the instructions. (Give an engineer a checklist and he’s a happy man.) They didn’t expect to get results without putting in effort. They reported truthfully on their mental states. And they were brave.

My most difficult students were New Age psychologists. Many of them did not actually believe in the existence of objective reality. You’ve heard “you create your own reality.” Well, these folks literally believed in that. Therefore, while what I said about acts of mind was true for me, they felt it wasn’t necessarily true for them. They also did not report accurately on their mental states. Psychologists lie to themselves a lot more than engineers, I observed.

--How could I know about someone’s mental states? Observing human attention in all of its configurations is a skill of long standing, and it is essential to me as a teacher.

AUTONOMY

Remote viewing is easy to learn provided the student has not already internalized an incompatible procedure. Once a psi accessing mode has been developed into a habit, it can prove difficult to change.

Autonomy is a key issue. In some schemes the viewer enters a passive trance state and waits to be given direction. The viewer relies on another person to select the target and control the experience. In extreme versions, the viewer never directly perceives the destination. He or she produces fractional images and sometimes symbols, which are given to someone else to collate and interpret.

Many of them have told me that they cannot select their own targets, or destinations. This must be done for them by someone else. If they are ‘front loaded”—provided with information about the target—they will be unable to remote view it.

This problem does not occur in direct perception. We can remote view anything we wish without permission or help from any other person. Our skill set begins with suppressing the internal dialogue and goes on from there.

It is hard to switch from a non-autonomous to an autonomous psi accessing mode. People who have learned to relinquish autonomy have a difficult time getting it back.

It is entirely possible that they don’t want it back. Perhaps they feel more comfortable with someone else calling the shots.

Whom would you trust to control your acts of mind? If the answer is a resounding “nobody but me!” you would probably like the direct perception approach. But if the answer is “a cool intelligence agent,” you would be happier with a non-autonomous method.

Now let’s compare the results. Check out some of the other remote viewing websites. Look at their raw session data. You will see batches of isolated perceptual elements, symbols, etc. Some of them actually use spreadsheets.

By contrast, remote viewing by direct perception is as good as being at the scene, with the saving grace that (if you know what you are doing) nothing there can hurt you, and (with a few elementary precautions) nobody will see you.

There is really no comparison in terms of the amount of detail that is recoverable. For example, a specific scientific question can be addressed via direct perception even though that requires a significant amount of prior knowledge about both the target and the question.

The concept of a thought experiment takes on new significance when the viewer can review the possible states. “Which of these features is responsible for the tendency of the aircraft to destabilize during a specific maneuver?” It is not a difficult question.

ETHICS

Some ethical considerations obtain. I do not believe that any onus is attached to acquiring knowledge by remote viewing, although I think it is rude to remote view your friends and loved ones. Should you learn a secret, you are responsible for what you do with it. You should never reveal anything without considering what the consequences may be, not just for you but for other people.

Acts of mind are, first and foremost, acts. They merit the same ethical standards given to physical behavior.

In that connection-

When I was first learning arts of mind a rare event occurred. I met a dark side practitioner on the astral, in circumstances that allowed us to have a conversation in spite of our mutually antagonistic alliances.

I prize the encounter because I learned something.

I asked him why he did evil. He scoffed at me. “When I want something I go for it,” he said, “and I take down anyone who stands in my way. But except for that, if someone doesn’t interfere with me I let them alone.”

“But you” he went on scornfully, “your ambition far exceeds mine. You want to make your ideas the standard for everyone else’s life. You want to inflict your good intentions on the whole world.”

It was a bad tasting pill but it was the truth. I finally understood why my teacher insisted on respecting other people’s right of choice. Girding up for battle and setting out to mop up the local dark side practitioners was wrong, not because we couldn’t do it but because, unless they trespassed against us or someone who asked for our help, we did not have the right to interfere.

Enforcing our concept of right and wrong on other people without their consent is simply tyranny, indistinguishable from what the dark side does.

Respecting another person’s power of choice does not at all equate to pacifism. One can return a psychic attack to its perpetrator with substantial force. Depending on the strength of the attack and some other factors, the return might even be fatal for the attacker. But his choice has not been taken away. The defender has merely altered the consequences.

Walk softly, behave ethically, and try to abandon egotism. It is a big universe. It can be a wonderful place if you approach it correctly.