A Message about Remote Viewing and Contact
Ingo referred to Remote Viewing as one of the many superpowers of the human biomind and biobody, a small fraction of the vast array of abilities within our built-in perceptual awareness systems. The answer to us as unlimited human beings, he said, is already within us.
In terms of Remote Viewing directly Ingo wrote, "Those who supported the development of remote-viewing training for fifteen in-house years were also its only users, and were thus accustomed both to its formatting and had developed ways and means to evaluate its efficiency. Since then, various alleged kinds of 'remote viewing' have by others been offered to various kinds of public users. Because of this, several issues have been confused by non-professional attempts to colonize the term, and the entire issue of what professionally trained remote-viewing is, and what a standard professional remote-viewing report must look like, and the kinds of information it must contain to be efficient has never been presented outside of the earlier in-house usages. ... A 'viewing' (of a distant site or topic) cannot be said to have taken place until positive feedback indicates that it has taken place. This is the formal definition of professional remote-viewing in that unless positive feedback is achieved the 'viewing' must be held as occurring only in the mind or imagination of the alleged viewer."
In a 1998 interview with Alternate Perceptions, William Belk shared his views on the paranormal. Growing up in a wealthy family and having worked in Naval Intelligence, Belk had created a research foundation dedicated to investigating the unknown. He strongly supported Andrija Puharich's work with mediums who claimed to communicate with the Council of Nine. In the interview, Belk discussed how his life had been intertwined with unexplained phenomena. He described the Council of Nine as invisible beings who rule our planet and control us from another realm. He also mentioned witnessing individuals possessed by entities from other dimensions, some of whom were confined in mental institutions. According to Belk, channeling is simply a marketing term for mediumship, which has existed since ancient times when Hebrew prophets communicated with higher powers. Today, it is known as Contact.
During a self-evaluation session in 1976, Ingo experienced intense distress over the potential for interference of outside influences (Contact) during remote viewing exercises. He understood the importance of safeguarding his communication channels from these intrusions, so he created Controlled Remote Viewing (CRV) and it's protocols as a form of an intellectual discipline for this specific purpose. In this way, Ingo's CRV was never intended to facilitate Contact with external entities; in fact, it was designed to prevent such Contact from occurring.
The CRV Story Goes Something Like This ...
It is the height of the Cold War, late 1960s/early 1970s and the US clandestine world is concerned about Soviets and their work and successes in psychotronics, the Eastern bloc’s word for parapsychology. Laser physicist Dr. Harold (Hal) Puthoff, with several patents to his name, having worked in and continuing to be interested in quantum electronics comes to SRI in 1971 from Stanford University. Meanwhile, Ingo, known as The Psychic Artist in his home of Greenwich Village, New York, has gained notoriety for his ability to perform successful acts of psychokinesis--manipulating objects with one's mind. He is currently collaborating with Dr. Gertrude Schmeidler on experiments involving thermometers in sealed containers as well as on out-of-body experiences at the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR), along with Drs. Karlis Osis and Janet Lee Mitchell. Ingo's repeatable results were rare and highly sought after in parapsychology.
However, by spring of 1972, Ingo has grown frustrated with the ASPR because they doubt the validity of his impressive results. He writes to Puthoff, thanks to his connection via psi experimental work on plants researcher Cleve Backster, and in turn Puthoff invites Ingo to SRI to play around.
This playing around as Puthoff calls it happens in July of 1972 and involves taking Ingo to Stanford's Physics department where there is a quark detector buried under eight feet or so of cement, shielded from frequencies and emissions. Ingo is surrounded by Stanford University physicists and Puthoff. He starts to concentrate his attention on the object and begins to sketch it, causing the readings to fluctuate in a way they never had before. The readout, which had previously remained steady, now shows signs of disturbance due to Ingo's actions.
Shortly after Ingo's effect on the read out of this detector and his drawing of the device itself (which was classified) another well-established laser physicist, Dr. Russell Targ joins the team. After that as the story goes the US clandestine world began to provide funds, CIA monies, the first of which comes via a small grant Puthoff secured called the Biofields Measurement Contract from the CIA in August of 1972, as a result of Ingo's psychokinesis deeds. The grant was for what they, Puthoff and Targ called psychoenergetic work, perception of information through an unknown channel and the perturbance of equipment through non-physical means.
Based on his further work in remote seeing, CIA funds would then flow to SRI determine whether anomalous mental phenomena (i.e., extrasensory perception or ESP and psychokinesis) existed and the degree to which such phenomena might be applicable to problems of national interest. This led to the refinement of remote viewing under Ingo's recommended project in 1973 Scanate (scan by coordinate) with the emphasis on making it an operationally useful i.e. espionage tool, the whole of which is most readily referred to as Star Gate.
The use of RV as a tool for espionage however was first implemented by the Army's intelligence security command group, INSCOM, through a project called Gondola Wish in 1978. Army Intelligence contracted with Robert Monroe and his institute to explore altered states of consciousness and out of body experiences. While altered states can be achieved through methods such as drugs or hypnosis, Monroe used audio stimulation. This resulted in what is called Extended Remote Viewing or ERV. The project evolved into Grill Flame in 1980, a joint effort between the DIA and Army.
With Puthoff's collaboration, Ingo developed a set of protocols for Remote Viewing known as Controlled Remote Viewing (CRV). This method allows individuals to gather information in stages without leaving their bodies, entering altered states, using or channeling entities. It is an intellectual process that can be taught to anyone, as Ingo believed it to be a trait inherent in all humans. Ingo explained that it was a natural part of our perception system, something we simply need to remember we have and can consciously control
In 1982, Ingo started teaching CRV to military personnel sent to SRI by Army Intelligence. The following year, Grill Flame was terminated, and Project Center Lane took its place. By 1984, the US Army had hired Ingo to train more military members in CRV under this program. In 1986, Center Lane became an active program known as Sun Streak. Soon after, there was a fusion of ERV and CRV techniques within the program, that is RV'ers were using CRV to get to the target and then ERV to drill down into specific details. In 1990 the program was renamed as Star Gate.
So in all RV change hands over time and not in this order between Army intelligence, the Air Force, the DIA, and the CIA, lasting until 1995, being retired under Star Gate. Ingo for his part retired from the program in 1988/89 but really started to limit his involvement in 1985 when Puthoff left the program and it was transferred to the DIA.
A more detailed timeline follows below, while information on Ingo's serial memoir about the development of CRV, Remote Viewing: The Real Story, including a free download of it, can found further down this page.
CRV
Ingo's Training
How does Controlled Remote Viewing (CRV) work?
Simply put...
The superpowers of the human biomind, of which Remote Viewing (distant-seeing) is one, existing for time immortal, weaving in and out of humanity's history under the guise of many names, are defined as those indwelling faculties of our species which can transcend space and time as one major category of activity, and energy and matter as another major category. The concept that human powers and perceptions are locked into and only accord with the known laws of matter and energy and time is not correct -- although such has been the dominant concept of the last two centuries. The full extent of our species faculties of memory, for example, transcend the known laws of matter and time, as do the faculties for human imagination. Memory and imagination, therefore, are among the many superpowers -- although they have not been identified this way within the prevailing wisdom of the Modern Age. In addition to memory and imagination which are universally shared by all specimens of our species, the several formats of intuition and of the telepathic transfer of information are also very broadly shared. These first four of the superpowers are accepted as naturally existing, although they cannot be explained by conventional beliefs based in conventional concepts of matter and time. But it is understood that these first four of the superpowers recombine into creativity and inventiveness -- and which have been the two major hallmarks of our species from time immemorial. The superpowers are probably arranged along some kind of perceptual-cognitive spectrum, the fundamentals or rudiments of which are carried by all born individuals. This spectrum also consists of other indwelling faculties which are less broadly shared in their natural state, but which seem to need special development if they are to become active. The existence of the superpowers as a species thing transcends social formats and their levels and/or defects of knowledge. The faculties for the superpowers are therefore permanent within our species. Each generation of humans born is a carrier of the faculties, equally as much as it is a carrier of our species' gene pool. It is not the purpose of this site to convince anyone that the superpowers exist. The only purpose is to present information.
--- Ingo Swann
To get a sense of how much more there might be to us, in Reality Boxes Ingo talks about exceptional human experiencing which relate to "abilities," i.e., just looking at things people may experience: cosmic consciousness, Inter-species communication, so like between you and your pet, transformational experience, exceptional experiences such as with human performance and within the martial arts, out-of-body experience, empathy, electrical sensitivity, bilocation experience, aura sensing, charisma and/or vibe sensing, guardian angel encounters, kundalini awakening, "aha" experience, lucid dreaming, déjà vu, intuition, premonitions, out of the blue inspiration, abductee and UFO experiences, near-death experience, demon experience, and the list goes on. Ingo would call these things, these experiences which are part and parcel of our perceptual awareness systems, our superpower faculties.
The Phenomena Called Remote Viewing
Believing all things "psi" are species wide abilities, pioneered the development of a Remote Viewing training technique using geographical coordinates, with its requisite protocols, called CRV (first labeled Coordinate Remote Viewing, then later Controlled Remote Viewing).
Ingo's Technique
Ingo used CRV protocols to train intelligence operatives to assess operational targets, ones that could not be seen using conventional means. Ingo's training consisted of progressing through six stages, and took place under a project called Center Lane.
But What is Coordinate RV, later called controlled RV?
The best way to explain Ingo's CRV, would be to show it...
When Jim Schnabel trained with Ingo in 1994 as part of his background research for his book Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies, Ingo included commercial airline pilot Robert (Bob) Durant in the training too. Like Jim, Bob had been a recent introduction to Ingo, although Bob had been actively involved in UFO/Remote Viewing studies prior to his work with Ingo. After Ingo's training was complete, Bob became a lifelong friend to Ingo.
Over a decade later as film makers worked with Ingo on a documentary about him, still a work in progress but now called A Life Gone Wild, Bob was interviewed by journalist Nick Cook regarding his training with Ingo. In the videos below are Bob's narration of that training to Nick, showing an example of what exactly CRV is. This includes a brief discussion with one of the film makers, Robert Knight. The videos are of that marvelous interview, in its entirety, without any editing.
Let's just wake up and remember we have these things!
For a beginner's guide on RV see Ingo's book Everybody's Guide to Natural ESP.
The Real Story
Determined that a record of his story of how Remote Viewing came into existence be available for open-and-free-access historical purposes and for those who might chance to have interest, Ingo began working on the Remote Viewing: The Real Story in 1995 and shared his chapters on his Superpowers of the Human Biomind website as he wrote them. By 2013, he had completed 58 chapters, with still more in his mind, no doubt, to share, when he passed away.
About this Ingo wrote...
An (eventual) full-length book (currently in process of being serialized in the Internet and WWW), revealing the actual history of Remote Viewing and its developments. Four general categories are interwoven throughout: the Discoveries; the Political and Technical History; the Rise and Fall; the Saga and the Soap Opera. Although the the topic of Remote Viewing has attracted media and speculative attention at various times, the real and detailed insider story has never been presented before.
A fully copy is available as PDF download below.
In 1997, Ingo wrote a letter to Jeffrey Mishlov in response to those in the "field" who actively discourage the truth about the development of Remote Viewing. A copy of that letter is also provided as a PDF download below.
Superpowers
A complete and free PDF, available for downloading, has been made of everything that had been on Ingo's Superpowers of the Human Biomind website and is contained within the Superpowers section of this one.