Reflections on Rhea White's Presidential Address to the 1984 Convention of the Parapsychological Association

One of the many good things about not having read every book, article and research paper in the field of parapsychology is that I am regularly thrilled by a new find.

The downside of course is that I sure wish I had read Rhea White's Presidential Address to the 1984 Convention of the Parapsychological Association years ago. These presidential addresses usually cover a lot of ground, but there are some fantastic points she makes that shed a lot of light on current thinking in the field. You may have been present for her speech, or you may have read the article years ago, but something struck me at the beginning of the speech that may benefit us to take another look today.

Remember, its 1984 when the speech was made. The parapsychological world is just learning about Remote Viewing from Targ and Harary's book "Mind Race". Cellphones had just been invented, were the size of a brick, and wouldn't become widely used for another decade or two. In 1984, the Macintosh was introduced, the first personal computer using a mouse and a graphical user interface.

Rhea White's address emplored parapsychologist to break out of their current mindset in viewing PSI and its mechanics, since she felt new approaches were needed to discover productive areas of research. To stress the frustrating nature of PSI research at the time, she used the example of the telephone ringing spontaneously, as PSI events are almost always just as capricious.. She asked, how can we make it ring again, who is calling, why are they calling?

The telephone model, with a sender and reciever, was and still is a popular way of conceptualizing how PSI works. Her point in 1984 I don't think was to reinforce or support the sender/receiver idea of PSI, but to point out the difficulty in figuring out what is going on with a random phone ring, something we can still relate to in 2010. But my point here is to take her example and look at it in the light of our current telephone technology, and then update our view on how PSI works.

Back in 1984, for the most part, all calls had a sender and a reciever. Calls were carried with electrical signals on wire, from point A to point B. Other than the occassional thunderstorm, when the phone rang, it was because someone sent a signal on a line to make it ring. So back then, remote viewers talked about signal/noise ratios, and worked to make the signal stronger or the line noise less. To clean up the "signal line", efforts were made to insulate the line with all sorts of things, faraday cages, the ganzfeld, controlled remote viewing, hypnotism, you name it.

Modern phone technology is a little different. Signals from sender and reciever are sent out in every direction, the communication only occurs because the two locations share an agreed upon frequency upon which to transmit the signal. Hundreds of other signals are flying through the air at the same time, but your phone rings because it is receptive to a particular piece of information. The frequency can change with each use, if it does NOT change its an unusual conincidence. So if you get a call, then turn right around and try to find the sender again on that same frequency, it probably won't work. Many of the suggestions Ms. White makes for new approaches to research make a lot more sense if we update her 1984 phone technology to the present one.
Take this process and now think about the transmission of information in PSI events (if transmission of information is actually what is happening). Every person is receiving the information, but only if the person is tuned in to a particular signal will they get a useful communication. The other implications for updating our view of communication via "extrasensory perception" also provide new ways of working with research design and the "how-to" of PSI. I will leave all that up to the reader, my main point here is that evolving technologies such as computers, holograms, and many others give us an opportunity to likewise evolve our way of looking at PSI. Rhea White was asking readers in 1984 to change their course in researching and understanding PSI, and we can do just that by examining what new technologies can perhaps suggest to us about an old problem.
- Benton Bogle

A Report on Joe McMoneagle's visit to the Rhine from Benton Bogle

Joe McMoneagle visited the Rhine Center last weekend (June 4th and 5th) and it was once again an amazing event. Joe is considered by many to be the finest Remote Viewer alive, having been tested hundreds of times and having appeared on numerous live TV programs displaying his talent. He does not do a lot of appearances and virtually no training, but occasionally he visits the Rhine Center to enlighten us with his knowledge and fascinating anecdotes from his lifetime of work in the highest levels of military intelligence. Joe was a "psychic spy" for the military for almost 20 years, and helped develop what we know as remote viewing today.

The first thing you notice about Joe is that he's a friendly guy who is eager to help you learn about Remote Viewing. He's direct and thorough, so you learn from him that discipline and practice is centrally important in improving your RV success. He talked about his own method, and how important it is for each of us to find our own process, and to dedicate ourselves to it.

Like any other skill, RV is something you have to make a part of your life, you need to care deeply about it and pursue it. If you are interested in learning about how Joe does Remote Viewing, you will do yourself a big favor by reading his book, "Remote Viewing Secrets" where he spells it all out. The book Joe recommends you read to put it all in perspective is his book "The Stargate Chronicles: Memoirs of a Psychic Spy". Like his talks, it is full of stories from the development and application of the Military/Government program that flourished in the 1970s through the mid 1990s. Fascinating reading, and Joe shared many stories from those years that did not make it into the books, and follow-ups to impressive viewings.

He spent a lot of time answering the questions of the audience members in his Friday night talk, and did the same on Saturday after putting us through our paces with numerous Remote Viewing sessions. He worked with us as viewers and monitors during the sessions, and emphasized where we were getting it right, and where we needed to improve.

I had the good fortune to have Joe as my monitor on a few sessions, and he really kept me on task and guided me to use effective strategies to get the information I was looking for. You could tell from the chatter on breaks and afterwards that everyone there got a lot from the day's education, and we took a lot of great training home with us to apply to our future Remote Viewing.

The Rhine Center will be posting a video of the Friday evening program if you are interested in hearing what went on. If you have the opportunity in the future to go hear Mr. McMoneagle speak, its a great experience. Anyone interested in Remote Viewing as a practice, or the exciting stories of its application in the intelligence/political field, should pick up a copy of Joe's books and give them a good read.

Memoirs of a Psychic Spy - A Radio Interview with Joe McMoneagle

Friday, June 04 2010 by Frank Stasio and Lindsay Thomas

For years, Joe McMoneagle was known as “Remote Viewer No. 1” during his involvement in a top-secret military program called The Stargate Project. The multi-million dollar federal program was set up to determine the potential for military use of psychic phenomena like ESP and remote viewing, the ability to gather information about unseen places or objects. The idea seems implausible, but the research project ran from the 1970s through the mid-1990s. McMoneagle has documented his experiences as a remote viewer in the book “The Stargate Chronicles: Memoirs of a Psychic Spy” (Hampton Roads/2002) and this weekend, he’ll speak to audiences at the Rhine Research Center in Durham, NC. First, he joins host Frank Stasio to talk about psychic experiments in the military and how remote viewing is used today.
Click Here to Listen

Seeking participants for study on individual differences and normal and paranormal pattern detection

Participants are needed for an ongoing study (funded by the Bial foundation) which is exploring individual differences in pattern detection. The study is exploring the observation that a lot of paranormal experiences occur against a random backdrop (e.g., reading the tea leaves and "electronic voice phenomena") and there is a human tendency to find patterns (e.g., seeing shapes in clouds). This study is looking particularly for people who are definitely disbelievers in paranormal phenomena to take part.

The study consists of filling out a questionnaire and then coming to take part in a computerized study comprising a series of visual noise and auditory noise trials (some trials have targets (weak stimuli and "ESP" targets associated with them, while others will be just random noise). The computerized part of the study takes around an hour and a half to complete and participants will each be given a cinema or book voucher worth $15 to thank them for their time.
The experiment is taking place in Durham at the Rhine Research Center (2741 Campus Walk Avenue, opposite the Millennium Hotel and near to Duke's West Campus)

Please see the study website at http://www.wix.com/simmonc/patternexperiment or contact Dr. Christine Simmonds-Moore or 919 951 8916 for more information or to sign up.