I've just finished reading Ingo Swann's "Penetration". I liked the stuff he writes about our moon (not sure if it's all true, but also nothing new to me, except the part of growing plants there), but I am more interested in the parts about remote viewing. I expected the book to be quite technical, but instead it was more of a story - with many loose ends, or so it appears. I still have a lot of questions and thought this might be a good place to ask.

One of the first thing that made me wonder was that he mentions that he could not drink wine at dinner because the next day he had to "work" (remote view something). So it appears that alcohol is bad for you if you want to remote view. This makes some sense, as being drunk is generally not a good idea if you want to accomplish something, but I don't see how a single glass of wine the night before would influence his ability to remote view the next day. I do consider alcohol to be a harddrug, but I didn't know it was that bad, apparently. But then nicotine (and supposedly cafeine also) does not seem to have that effect, as I get the impression that Swann smokes a lot and drinks a lot of coffee. Am I right in thinking this? What is it then about alcohol? Are there any other drugs with this effect?

Then there's the incident where he is remote viewing Luna and is discovered by some kind of security guards it seems. He then tells Axelrod that it seemed as if they sensed some kind of presence, rather than seeing (or feeling) him personally. What is this about? I've read other stories about remote viewers being detected when viewing secret facilities. How is this done? Is it psychics (other remote viewers?) who do this, like Swann suggests? I've also read accounts of people meeting other people while remote viewing, but that seems to be different, as then they recognize persons (be they human or not) instead of only sensing a presence. Where does this difference come from? Are there different dimensions one can go to?

The biggest question I have is: what kind of phenomenon is remote viewing? Is is the same as astral travel? That is the closest thing I can think of. Swann states it is different from clairvoyance (I agree) but also implies that it is something more than "simply" telepathy. At least that is how I understand him. He says that the current mainstream model of telepathy is wrong, that it is not mind-to-mind transfer, but has more to do with consciousness that is present everywhere. It made me think of the collective subsconscious, but unfortunately Swann does not really explain what would be -in his opinion- the correct model of telepathy. He also does not explain why remote viewing is something "more" (or at least other) than telepathy.

I assume remote viewing is something like astral travel, if not the same. Is it like sending out one of your bodies? (I'm not sure how many bodies humans are supposed to have, other than the physical. As far as I know, the different terms we have for non-physical bodies could all refer to the same thing. Do humans actually have more than one non-physical body?) I've read some things about sending out your soul but I don't believe that is what happens in this case. My guess is that if you send out your soul far worse things would happen. But then there's the stories about the "soul" of the remote viewer being captured so that it can not return to the body it came from. Regardless of whether this really is the soul or some other part of the being, the idea that this could be done scares me. I tell myself such things are impossible but I still wonder if they really are.

Unfortunately Swann does not go into detail about the technicalities of remote viewing, like how exactly "he does his thing". Yes, his experience are quite interesting but I want to find out myself. (If there's no danger of being captured in any way.) Also, by reading his book I got the idea that remote viewing was always done in the now. Later I learned that remote viewing could be any place or time. This makes sense to me but makes me understand it even less. I believe it can be done, but if this is so, why are there so many (historical) mysteries left unexplained? Because they cannot be substantiated by physical evidence? Swann talks about the need for feedback; there is no use to remote view something if you cannot check your findings and furthermore there is always the possibility that you are viewing a fantasy, thus enlarging the need to be able to check it.

Is there really no way for a person to know if they are remote viewing something "real" or merely their imagination, besides external confirmation? Even if this is the only way, I think that remote viewing then still could be used to first remote view some mystery and then investigate it scientifically to check the remote viewing hypotheses. It seems science could learn a lot this way. Why aren't a great many people doing this?

Finally, how is remote viewing different (or not) from the scanning that is taught here at Elfpath? Wait, it just occurs to me that Swann probably means that telepathy-as-we-know it doesn't exist, only this process he calls remote viewing which is something other ("more") than mind-to-mind transfer of information. Am I correct in thinking this? Are remote viewing and scanning then the same thing? From what I've gathered until now around here that does not seem to be the case. What do you think of this? Maybe Swann is writing complete nonsense? Or should I wait until the course before asking about scanning?

Dennis

As far as alcohol goes, I know from experience how horrible the effects are for your intuition. The main part of doing energy work of any kind relies on being able to put focus on something, and partly imagine it happening. Alcohol doesn't exactly work wonders for either one of those. I'm not quite sure on coffee, I don't think it has an awful effect, depending on how sensitive you are to energy boosts you get from caffeine. If you're the type to turn hyper, better stay away from it before doing any work, because, as with alcohol, being hyper kinda inhibits your ability to focus on anything.
And controversy aside, pot works really well for energy work if you can keep up the willpower to work on anything. It seems like it catapults you directly into a deep alpha state of mind. Better stay away from most others -- including LSD -- though. Most have the same drawbacks like alcohol does, usually to a much higher degree too.
There's also this thing about fatty stuff. I know from experience that it inhibits overall sensitivity (and for said reason have to watch my food x_x I'm so sensitive I'm actually energetically allergic to the stuff).

So far that's all I know about the drugs/food and the like.

As far as remote viewing goes --- I never really came in contact with it yet through my classes in Elfpath. I'm not really familiar with the term either...
But what I get from the words themselves, it's a bit like intuitively 'looking' at some place. The idea is definitely similar to astral travel, though that is more like actually separating your energetic body and consciousness from the physical while through remote viewing your subconscious stays in touch with your body. (So yes, there def are different bodies out there. You can google plenty about it if you want, though systems aren't always similar. Some talk about as much as 8 bodies for example while other systems keep it to 4).

To me, with remote viewing, it does seem very similar to scanning. Scanning, put quite simply, is attempting to retrieve accurate information about anything in existence through any and all of your senses. In the case of remote viewing, you simply use your vision to retrieve said information. Other intuitives can pick up on that, like you said happened before in some cases with people attempting to remote view something. When scanning, for example, your focus goes to whatever you focus on. Say a toaster. If you focus on something, your energy (or at least part of it) goes there, and others can actually sense that part of you. If the other happens to be intuitive enough, he/she can decide to even track the energy 'signature', so to say, back to sender and track where it comes from (which can lead to them actually remote viewing the one who started to remote view. Or scan them out with any other senses available.)
Though like I said, I'm not familiar with the term itself, so this may or may not be completely off the bat.

A possible example of this would be some of the work more experienced members have done so far. During, and before the shift, we regularly had meetings where we'd work on stuff to make sure everything went as smooth as possible on an energetic level (we still have these meetings, though less than i'd want..). During those meetings, we'd work on clearing a certain area of the world of messy energy. When doing so we'd kinda 'gather round'. We all simply put our attention to that area and we could actually see each-other. Not physically so, but vaguely, like a memory passing by.
I usually wok with colours through this, seeing humanoid shapes in certain colours, but without detail (though i have moments where it looks like a movie). Others simply see blobs -- sometimes with comical effects. Whenever I'd wave at Mari when I did, she saw the blob that represented me wiggle about funnily.
This, to me, very much looks like remote viewing, though I might be wrong?

Hope this clears stuff. Or maybe it confuses ya. xD

Thank you for your reply. It makes a lot of sense to me.

Your comments on drugs are pretty much what I wanted to hear . I'll leave it at that.

I've never heard of energetic allergies. How does that work? Are you energetically incompatible with fat foods? How did you find out?

I know different systems talk about different numbers of bodies, which is why I am confused as to how many there actually are. The way you describe scanning and the way you are able to see each other indeed sounds a lot like remote viewing. It also sounds as a very cool experience, meeting other people like that. I want to do that too!

But if astral travel is sending out one's astral body, are remote viewing and scanning then sending out one of those other bodies? Or is it "only" the focus of your consciousness that you send out? Could thinking about (being in) a different time and/or place then be seen as a precursor to scanning/remote viewing? It seems as if only the experiential/perceptual aspect is missing from merely imagining some distant place or time.

Dennis

^^; as I said, I'm really unfamiliar with astral travel itself, though I know a few here at least know how to do it (even Ro's cat used to do it). So they might give you a better idea through first-hand experience. Good luck with that ^^ . That said though, you got me curious too

I know I have astral traveled a few times or so in my life, but I don't remember how I did it. I just know that my subconscious just runs off, and does whatever while body is sitting there resting for the night. Dreams are usually insanely vivid when this happens, and sometimes it would seem like I didn't get any rest at all even though body was "resting" the whole time.

Either way the experience is a bit like what Epic described just that it gave a more dream feel, but a bit more realistic at the same time. I hope that answers some things. ^^;;

@EpicLunatic:
I've never even considered the possibility that animals could astral travel. Knowing that they can makes it even more interesting.

@LuufieMoon
That sounds familiar to me. I think I might have experienced the same. When I was around the age of six I loved going to bed and going to sleep, because I knew that then I would fly. I can vividly remember flying over our backyard at night. I have no idea how often this has happened, but my clear memory of the experience makes me think it was something other than dreaming.

- - -

I've just thought of something: -doing a quick search- ah, yes, it's called "hypnic jerk" or "hypnagogic jerk". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk) I think we all (or most of us) know it as the experience of suddenly being awakened by the sensation of falling. I can vaguely remember something about people claiming that this experience was evidence that everyone "went out of their bodies" at night.
Is it in fact an experience that everyone has? I've always thought so but WIkipedia claims it's a disorder. (Yes, I know WIkipedia is unreliable but still.)
Has this experience anything to do with astral travel at all? The story goes that people who have this experience are "falling back into their bodies" because their (astral?) journey was somehow interrupted. Supposedly then we all travel every night, but we only notice it when something goes wrong. What do you think?

Dennis

I just watched the episode “Telepathy” of the series “5th Dimension – Secrets of the Supernatural”. While the other episodes are mostly of the debunking or at least sceptical kind, this one seems to acknowledge that there is something which should be (and has been) investigated in a serious manner. It's mostly about the scientific research that has been done on this topic and the “psi race” between the former Soviet Union and the USA.

Project Stargate features prominently in this film. Swann was part of this project but is not mentioned. They do have other people talking about this project and remote viewing. It's somewhat explained how it works, or at least what happens. (I highly recommend watching it, I found it very interesting.) What makes me wonder is that the people of this project (Swann included) regard remote viewing as a kind of telepathy.

In my opinion, telepathy and remote viewing are two different things. Not unrelated, but distinct enough from each other to be considered different phenomena. But the Stargate people describe remote viewing as visualizing (being in) a specific location and then getting information from that. One of them even says he has experiences I would describe as future sight, which (to me) is (again) different from both remote viewing and telepathy. But to them it's all a kind of telepathy.

Opinions?

Dennis

Some have had experience with some form of telepathy actually. Back when we first started out, so I'm guessing roughly a year ago already, I recall Rohaa and Jacob (currently not here) talking about an exercise they did together and actually having success with it.

For instance, Jacob had a word in mind. A single word, and animal, or a plant, a place.. and Rohaa attempted to find out what it was. I don't exactly know how she did it, but she ended up with the vision of a dog, and a black/white chessboard. She didn't quite know what to make of the metaphor she got. Then Jacob said he had a penguin in mind. Duh. Dog=Animal, and then the black/white isn't that far fetched anymore.

Over the course of time, other students, me included, tried to do a similar thing. We've had some interesting results.

So as far as that goes, telepathy definitely exist. Though the experience is vastly different from remote viewing because you stay consciously awake, usually just into a deeper alpha state of mind (while remote viewing is more a very deep theta state). You don't leave the body either, your energetic/spiritual/whatever bodies that might be involved, they stay connected to the physical.

Though both are definitely forms of intuition applicable by only those with a higher awareness level - with the exception of those that do it naturally (Susi could be considered one of those).

(That being said, telepathy involves in fact 'scanning' the other person's thoughts and focus (the term 'scanning' is applied loosely here though), and trying to catch what those are. Remote viewing and future sight don't involve people's minds directly in any way, so that alone already implies that they're different techniques altogether.)

Thank you for your reply. My apologies that I did not read it and reply sooner.

What you say about telepathy being an alpha state of mind and remote viewing a theta state I find very interesting. I have never heard or read anything like this, but it seems a very plausible explanation to me. At the very least this would be an easy way to differentiate between the two; just measure the brain waves.

I think you are right that telepathy is something different from both remote viewing and future sight. That is why I found it so strange that the people from the Stargate project (who supposedly investigated all this scientifically) consider it all to be more or less the same. Then there is also that Swann says that our current model of telepathy is wrong, implying that it is not mind-to-mind transfer of information. If that is true, then it could be that telepathy is more like remote viewing and/or future sight than most people think. The thing is, the more I read about this kind of stuff, the more confused I become. I really want to learn how to do all these things myself, so that I can compare my experiences.

For more confusion: I have just read the book "Astral Projection or Liberation of the Double and the Work of the Early Theosophical Society" by John Patrick Deveney. While the book is not really about astral projection itself (Deveney uses it only to show that the TS changed from a practical organization to a theoretical one), it still is a good overview (I think) of the different views on astral projection. Those views range from 'astral projection is the liberation of the double' (meaning that one's double (or ethereal body) is literally sent out of the physical body) to 'astral projection is nothing but vividly imagining going out of your body' (meaning that the whole experience is in the mind and that nothing really gets sent out of the body, physical or otherwise). Considering that most of the members of the early TS were experienced astral travelers, why (and how) did they come to such different explanations or interpretations of it? If personal experience cannot tell us what exactly astral travel and the like are, then what can?

Dennis

EDIT: spelling

dennisvo wrote:One of the first thing that made me wonder was that he mentions that he could not drink wine at dinner because the next day he had to "work" (remote view something). So it appears that alcohol is bad for you if you want to remote view. This makes some sense, as being drunk is generally not a good idea if you want to accomplish something, but I don't see how a single glass of wine the night before would influence his ability to remote view the next day. I do consider alcohol to be a harddrug, but I didn't know it was that bad, apparently. But then nicotine (and supposedly cafeine also) does not seem to have that effect, as I get the impression that Swann smokes a lot and drinks a lot of coffee. Am I right in thinking this? What is it then about alcohol? Are there any other drugs with this effect?

Meta- senses are extremely vulnerable and easily fooled with. Even a small amount of alcohol and most drugs will affect them adversely for 1 to several days. If you seek to be a skilled meta- senser,

avoid alcohol altogether. just give it up
completely cut out red meat
cut fat intake to a minimum, preferably 0%, tho this is physically unhealthy
cut out all drugs, prescription and otherwise. (I find aspirin has no adverse effects and sometimes meta- sensing is painful)
cut out all "junk food," that is anything with lots of preservatives, additives, artificial colors and flavors, etc
eat only whole foods, favoring veggies, a little fruit, brown rice, whole grain bread, etc
avoid all caffeine (this falls under drugs, but some don't realize it)
use no sugar at all. the little bit of fructose in fruit is more than enough
stop watching the news (news does to the head what fat, sugar, and alcohol do to the biology), besides it's 80% garbage, 10% information, and 50% entertainment (the percents overlap)
Spend time every day doing sweet and such. otherwise internal chaos will interfere
avoid fights or anything provoking anger or strong emotion
sex is ok, but only if you have a truly loving partner. +99% of the time sexual interaction is violence
tobacco is ok, for some reason, but the additives in it are not. go for pure tobacco if you smoke.
exercise every day, at least stretching and a little cardio. good meta- in a weak physical is often weak meta-

that said, none of those things are truly necessary. they simply remove the noise and chaos from the system, increasing the signal to noise ratio. the strongest meta- sensers will often eat lots of fat, smoke, drink, etc just to turn down some of the noise.

++ Angel