| Interest in things psychic arouses also some fear. | | | | leader. He realizes that one of the thoughts in that |
| "Opening up" to the psychic may spell an "opening" to | | | | foreign leader's mind had to do with murdering his wife. |
| danger as well - why else seek "protection" by | | | | Buchanan hadn't consciously processed that thought, |
| "surrounding" oneself with "light"? What of these | | | | but it had remained active somewhere in his mind. He |
| metaphors? What is the danger, where does it exist, | | | | was later convinced that he would have indeed killed |
| and what to do about it? | | | | his wife, and not known why, had not that thought |
| Consider The Seventh Sense: The Secrets of | | | | come into his awareness, alerting him to the danger. If |
| Remote Viewing as Told by a "Psychic Spy" for the | | | | RV is, as Buchanan describes it, actually experiencing |
| U.S. Military (Paraview Pocket Books) by Lyn | | | | your own mind rather than the mind of someone else, |
| Buchanan. It contains many interesting stories of the | | | | then for Buchanan to accurately reflect the mind of |
| author's use of remote viewing (RV) for military | | | | the foreign leader, he had to connect with his own |
| purposes, up to and including Desert Storm. Spying | | | | capacity to harbor murderous feelings. His saving |
| may be a rather unseemly use of psychic ability, but | | | | grace was that the evil thought became conscious |
| even more disturbing is that Buchanan argues that | | | | before it triggered action. |
| protection from spying is not possible. If he is correct, it | | | | Buchanan describes RV training not as learning to |
| is scary. His reasoning, however, is very intriguing. | | | | become psychic, because we already are psychic, but |
| The term remote viewing is itself a metaphor, | | | | instead as learning to dissolve the barrier between the |
| suggesting distance and eye-balling. Certainly, sticking | | | | conscious and the subconscious mind, which knows |
| your eyeballs into someone else's mind should be | | | | everything in some inexplicable fashion. Siding with |
| something that the person should be able to detect | | | | psychoanalytic experience, Buchanan notes that when |
| and defend against, in the same way that one's | | | | the conscious mind no longer has any barriers to the |
| immune system casts off alien organisms. Yet | | | | subconscious a powerful transformation develops in |
| Buchanan explains that RV is actually a sensitivity to | | | | the individual. As any psychoanalyst will tell you, the |
| one's own subconscious mind, which, he claims, already | | | | subconscious will mirror back the face that is shown to |
| knows everything. Thus he reframes RV as a form of | | | | it. If a person approaches the dark side immaturely |
| omniscience, such that there really are no secrets. If a | | | | with judgment and dominance, there is often an |
| "viewer" detects that the target person is protecting or | | | | unfortunate revolt, but if the person approaches it with |
| hiding sensitive information, the viewer need not be | | | | loving acceptance combined with a values-based |
| blocked, but simply ask, "what is the information the | | | | constraint on expression, there will be a creative |
| target person is hiding?" and the subconscious has the | | | | blossoming. Buchanan had developed the |
| answer. His model seems akin to the proverb, "If you | | | | self-acceptance that allowed him to become aware of |
| wish to know the heart of another, look into your own | | | | the evil thought brewing within. B |
| heart." | | | | Buchanan's experience with RV suggests that the |
| People vary in how sensitively they listen. Some will | | | | spiri- Btual challenge to opening your psychic |
| hear only your words. Others will hear also the feelings | | | | awareness is not whether you will do bad things with |
| in what you say, sometimes hearing you at a deeper | | | | your new "powers," but whether the powers will do |
| level than your own awareness. Is that spying into your | | | | something bad to you. Can you handle the totality of |
| mind or is it simply being sensitive to what you are | | | | yourself? He quotes, "If you don't learn how to control |
| broadcasting? Complicating matters is that even | | | | your own mind, someone else will." But you can't |
| sensitive listeners tend to hear more readily those | | | | control what you don't know. The real danger lies |
| feelings that they can personally identify with and | | | | within self and the best protection is self-knowledge. |
| recognize. As we learned in kindergarten, "it takes one | | | | The "white light" we seek for protection from outside |
| to know one." | | | | influences would be better used to illuminate our own |
| Driving home from work one day, Buchanan | | | | internal selves. When no thought or impulse is a |
| daydreams about the "honey-do" list awaiting him and | | | | stranger to oneself, compassion grows naturally. When |
| just happens to notice a passing thought about how he | | | | a person can balance universal awareness with |
| is going to kill his wife. Startled, he stops his car to | | | | individuality of choice, then RV can become, besides a |
| introspect and recalls that day's RV session spying on | | | | tool for information-gathering, a spiritual vehicle of |
| the mental state of a potentially dangerous foreign | | | | self-actualization. |