The ouroboros or uroboros is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. The ouroboros is often interpreted as a symbol for eternal cyclic renewal or a cycle of life, death, and rebirth.
My name is Daz Smith and I have been a remote Viewer for twenty six years as of the date of this post. During this time, over and over I have witnessed Remote viewing move through cycles of repeat actions and tribalism – essentially a snake eating its own tail.
Remote viewing really became public domain in 1996. Way before intricate websites and social media, 1996 was at the cutting edge of internet speed of 4kb a second – for those non technical of you – that meant a single small image usually took 2-3 minutes to slowly reveal on your screen.
Back then – the cutting edge the internet had to offer was email newsgroup discussion list and few and far between webpages filled with mainly text and the occasional garish colours & animated gifs.
During this time several remote viewing emails lists flourished and grew, the main ones being:
[VWR] 1997-98
[Stargate] 1998-20021
Transcripts of these conversations can be found here:
The RV Wild West
The one thing about the nineties is that remote Viewing was a hot new topic. Hardly any information on it existed, in 1995 the CIA went public on Nightline, nov28 19952. After that remote viewing went full on public domain and has grown since.
In the nineties these Newsgroups were the wild west – the front line so to speak. All at once many of the ex and some still working for the military (not as viewers) personnel and RV hungry people collided in the quest for information. During this time there were many people making claims of working within the military/intel remote viewing circuit, selling their wares and trying to asset their dominance in this virgin territory.
In these early years there were no real resources online, no real discussions, no manuals, no real guide, no examples or videos showing people remote viewing – nothing. As with any blossoming community, it grew fast as word spread. With this growth came all kinds of claims, theories and of course heated debates, arguments and just plain old wars. The majority of these started with people claiming they too were secret psychic spies which much later evolved into conflicts over methodologies, then later into nuances between the emerging different methodologies.
During this time Ed Dames (under license from Ingo Swann3) was teaching CRV under the name of TRV (Technical remote Viewing), which then evolved into SRV (scientific remote Viewing) after Courtney Brown trained with Dames then setup his own method and company. At about the same time, Paul H Smith and Lyn Buchanan also setup their own respective CRV training opportunities with their slightly different interpretations on Ingo’s CRV. About this time we also had Glenn Wheaton appear with his HRVG, (Hawaii Remote Viewing Guild) method and claims of special ops RV training.
All this conspired to create an amazing emerging wild west of disclosures, education and gunfights in the wild west. Some of which is recorded in the Newsgroup list of the day.
My entry into remote viewing started in 1996 – but we will get to this later.
It was during the 1997 onwards time period that we started to see many heated debates over methodologies. It started with small conflicts over the use of CRV ( Controlled Remote Viewing) and non method viewers like Joe McMonegale, and in the years following it morphed into debates between the different flavour interpretations of Ingo’s CRV, and then later with the other emerging methods, TRV, SRV, HRVG and later TDS.
To be honest I actually learnt alot from these ‘sometimes’ heated challenges and discussions. I found it very interesting to see and hear for example military remote viewers (Paul H Smith, Lyn Buchanan, Bill Ray, Tom McNear, Joe McMoneagle, and others) have differing theories, thoughts, experiences and opinions on all aspects of their remote viewing training and history. Even on small nuances like Ideograms, structure, blinding, and front loading – the opinions and knowledge varied significantly at times even between those who shared similar training. Most of this can be read in the archives posts discussed –some in my book: Remote Viewing Dialogues4 – where I sources, arranged and cherry picked the discussions I felt would help anyone learning to remote view.
Tribalism or (My teacher is better than your teacher!)
Over the decades since the wild west era of remote viewing we have thankfully seen RV flourish. It started really with places like Pj Ganir’s Ten Thousand Roads5 – a zone of practice targets, acceptance of ANY methodology, flavour or nuance, frank RV discussions, presentation, sharing and more – all in an era pre social media. When social media became the monster it is today – remote viewing moved there and has grown even more as the new and old viewers have access to amazing technology today, we only dreamed of in the 90’s: simple video production, instant global communication and more. Yet the tribalism remains.
We still to this day have remote viewers split into tribal groups. The majority of these are based around respective teachers and their methods. Some of the RV teachers and their respective students are still marginalised today for actions that go back decades. We have differing flavours of Ingo’s CRV after two decades still warring over CRV nuances and details the ‘not so obsessed’ remote Viewing student doesn’t really care about – as they look on in bewilderment. I hear and watch the growing community of r/remoteviewing6 on reddit (approaching 39,000 people) and its respective discord (chat) communities, as they look on with pained expressions asking: does any of this matter?, isn’t it just about doing the remote viewing? – it’s not how you got there – but the results -surely?
Thank god the tribalism (at this point) has not infected this social media platform.
So where Daz are you going with all this?
Well, to be honest I’m just venting really?
As a researcher of everything RV, and an owner of several social media groups, platform and content sources, I do have a habit of getting embroiled in these ‘pissmires’ (one of Ingo’s favourite terms for RV antics). And I thought because of this tribalism and claims made against me, I’d better record in full my part in RV. (I wouldn’t want people to claim that I changes my Rv history now would I).
So, My RV history started in 1996. Hungry to learn RV I went online, nothing was there until Courtney brown released a manual of his training method – SRV – based on his Ed Dames CRV training. The only other options were very limited Paul and Lyn CRV training costing several thousands of dollars – not an option. To be honest Courtney’s very early SRV worked – I started improving. Bear in mind, the CRV manual7 was not in the public domain at this time.
Now, because I was watching the newsgroup lists, the rumours of the day were that ‘you had to, just had to learn the military CRV if you ever wanted to be anything akin to a psychic spy’ and like most people – I too bought into this. So that when in 1997 through these email newsgroups I was contacted by a man called Leigh Culver and invited (because he liked my questions) to attend a CRV training course in London – at no cost. I could not refuse now could I.
The documents enclosed8 show the dates of my training, where, who with and also that CRV in the UK also went on to flourish for several years after this with regular meet-ups, extra training, additional CRV training (for some) by David Morehouse, and more.
I was trained By Leigh Culver with approx 12 others, for two weekends. For the first weekend I also spent the night with Leigh and my host at their house in London. I have never changed this history nor made any other claims. I was trained in class to stage 6 CRV, and I have other instruction to stage7 – a stage of CRV only recently discussed in public by Tom McNear in 2021.
Here is where I want to make some notes on my CRV training.
It’s been claimed that I was never properly trained in CRV.
Now, I went away and thought about this very hard, of course it offended me at first, but nether-the-less I wanted to think on it. On reflection I would say this is probably true. The CRV training did leave me with many questions on the nuances of CRV/RV, many of which I later sought and got from the help of Paul Smith, Lyn Buchannan, Bill Ray, Gene, Tom McNear through the newsgroup lists.
So yes – I agree, I did not get sufficient training in 1997 to teach me CRV fully. Now does this mean that these twenty four years later, after a wealth of experience, and research that I now dont know CRV, or its history? – no not at all. I personally believe from my research of much remote viewing history that no one is currently being taught CRV as envisioned by its creator. I have also come to learn (not as fast as peers like Pj Gaenir and many others, that it does not matter in the slightest and that this whole CRV matters thing – really doesn’t, unless you think it does.
I went on to be a participant remote viewer in many projects for many of the leading people within RV, I was taught advanced operation CRV skills as part of (OCP) Operation certification program from the Lyn Buchanan favour of CRV, I worked on the Husick Group CRV teams, I worked as one of Paul H Smith’s Operational CRV team on a number or test and ops projects. Now, does this sound like I was taught CRV incorrectly or that I had not grasped a capable use of the skill.?
Like the comments from the new generation of remote viewing enthusiasts on platforms like Reddit – I feel my CRV results and participation in thousands of projects speak for themselves – not the how, who, and when I started my training journey back in 1997. This new generation of people starting out in remote viewing don’t care about lineage, nuances and squabble – all they want to know is how does it work, show me how, and let me do it. It’s the ONLY RV community that does NOT have methodology wars.
In fact, I would agree with Joe McMoneagle9 and others and say that NO ONE is being taught CRV correctly or how it was envisioned and taught by its creator Ingo Swann. Ingo’s vision for CRV was very laser-like focussed, very long with himself as an integral component in the (two year) training cycle of every student. Does that mean all CRV since is incorrect – no of course not.
Now please note: Paul H Smith is teaching a very close interpretation of the Ingo Swann CRV, probably the closest you will ever get. If that is something a person desires above all else – then yes that is your best route – go for it. BUT it is not the ONLY route, and other routes – IF they get valid, accurate RV data are just as valid.
I also do want to be very clear – Ingo and the Ingo Swann estate has put out many public statements that the do not endorse ANY commercialisation of remote viewing or ANY remote viewing training.
Of course, as stated because of this constant tribalism, a few people don’t agree with my comments and research on this, and in doing so there are people that believe that any small changes, nuance or flavours to this distorted view of CRV history, means you inherently don’t know what you are doing, or its instantly wrong. Yet the military when ‘modelling their CRV training program on the POG’ they too made changes – these changes are OK of course, even though they don’t come from Ingo’s CRV but from necessity. But anyone else with a slight difference of interpretation or personal change and well that’s it. You just were not trained properly.
But even me, as I make these comments – it again, makes me a part of this continuous RV Ouroboros. As I become part of this destructive cycle of eating our own tail. When in reality none of this really matters, it’s just noise that has for decades divided us as a community. I’m shocked that decades after the Wild West days – CRV practitioners (more than ANY other group) are still battling over wording and nuances instead of putting that energy into more needed validations science and projects, and as part of this problem. I am ashamed that I allow myself to be pulled into this.
Surely we should be judged on our abilities and our remote viewing output?
Does it really matter that I see more visual information (from my artist background) that a different person when doing the Ideogram stage of CRV? Do I not as a ‘viewer’ produce valuable and actionable data that can be assessed? No matter how I may do my ‘thing’ or from how I educated myself along the way?
Does it matter who a person trained with, how they internalise their remote viewing – or should it all be based on their performance and output?
In 2021 should I really have to feel the need to have to present how I trained in an RV method over a period of twenty five years to combat allegations against me – is my RV accuracy and rv record not a testament to this already?
Finally I just ask – when can we just stop eating our own tail?
Notes:
1 – Email newsgroup discussion lists – https://www.remoteviewed.com/remote-viewing-bibliography-newsgroupposts/
2 – Nightline: Psychic Spies #647979ABC Special for Tuesday, Nov 28, 1995
- Live discussion with Ted Koppel (ABC), former CIA Director Robert Gates, former CIA Technical Advisor identified as “Norm”, and former ESP Project Director Edwin May re: the use of people claiming to have the ability of Extrasensory Perception (ESP) as a resource for law enforcement and government intelligence gathering agencies.
- Taped segment with Michael Guillen (ABC), May, psychic spy Joe McMoneagle, former Defense Intelligence Agency Project Stargate Director Dale Graff, customs official William Green, psychologist Ray Hyman, and Professor Jessica Utts.
3 – Letter in the Ingo Swann archives at UWG – discussing Ed Dames having a license and full support of Ingo Swann to teach his CRV. In the Ed Dames folders.
4 – Remote Viewing Dialogues – 2015, Daz smith – https://is.gd/gKT5Rj
5- TKR – Ten Thosand Roads – https://www.dojopsi.info/
6- reddit remote viewing community – https://www.reddit.com/r/remoteviewing/
7 – CRV- Controlled remote viewing manual – https://www.remoteviewed.com/crv-manuals/
8 – Daz Smith documents from 1997 on his CRV training and CRV growth in the UK in 1997/98.
9- Authors documented facebook debates with Joe McMoneale of CRV efficacy.
