Peterson, Priestcraft, Profits and the Paranormal

[drumdude]

Why didn’t the DoD use it to avoid murdering 270+ school girls in Iran?

It’s too powerful to be used for such small purposes.

It’s best kept gated behind a $12,000 online course so it can be properly applied to finding lost car keys, and reading the backs of playing cards.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

These skeptical arguments are evergreens that keep turning up in discussions pertaining not just to ESP claims, but in other areas as well. I think they deserve a response, even at this late date.

It should be noted that “Evergreen” content as it relates to media and like content denotes useful, relevant, or long lasting popularity rather than becoming outdated.

Naturally, the grifter misuses the term in an effort to discredit the skepticism, found here and elsewhere, toward his nonsense.

That said, I hope the Major is enjoying his retirement.

[I Have Questions]

For the Cassius archivist’s files:

Remote Viewing 1

I begin with some famous and very apt words from the English poet and literary critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834):

Roughly a year ago, I read an interesting book by Paul H. Smith entitled The Essential Guide to Remote Viewing:The Secret Military Remote Perception Skill Anyone Can Learn (Intentional Press, 2015). It’s a basic tutorial on, well, remote viewing — which is the alleged ability to perceive information about a distant or unseen target without relying on conventional sensory input but using only the mind. Thus, if it really exists, it’s literally a kind of extrasensory perception. The study of remote viewing is one of the areas of focus within the controversial field of parapsychology.

I first met Paul more than fifty years ago as a missionary in Switzerland. I pretty much lost track of him thereafter but, a couple of years back (or thereabouts), he joined one of the international tours that my wife and I accompanied and, thereafter, sent me a copy of The Essential Guide to Remote Viewing.

I certainly found it interesting. He not only believes in remote viewing but says, quite matter-of-factly, that he has done it many times and that — precisely as he indicates in the subtitle of his book — just about anybody can do it.

Lest you write him off immediately as a mere crackpot, permit me to share some of his background:

Paul retired from the United States Army in 1996 with the rank of Major. Prior to that, he was part of the federal government’s “psychic espionage” program for seven years, starting first in 1983 with the Army’s “Center Lane” remote viewing project and then, in early 1986, moving with the program to the Defense Intelligence Agency (Denver International Airport). He served not only as a remote viewer himself — he is credited with more than a thousand training and operational remote viewing sessions during his time with the military unit at Fort Meade, Maryland — but as theory instructor for new trainees as well as recruiting officer, unit security officer, unit historian, and primary author of the program’s training manual. In 1990, he was transferred out of the program to participate as a tactical intelligence officer with the 101st Airborne Division in Operation Desert Storm.

Fort Meade, by the way, is also the home of such operations as the Defense Information School, United States Cyber Command, the National Security Agency, the Defense Information Systems Agency, and the U.S. Navy’s Cryptologic Warfare Group Six.

Paul is president and chief instructor of Remote Viewing Instructional Services, Inc. and a founding director, former board member, past vice-president, and twice past president of the non-profit International Remote Viewing Association. He also serves as a board member for both the Parapsychological Association and the Rhine Research Center.

Paul holds a bachelor’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies from Brigham Young University, a master’s degree in strategic intelligence (with a Middle Eastern emphasis) from the National Intelligence University, and a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin, where he concentrated on the philosophy of mind, consciousness, and the philosophy of science. His doctoral dissertation was entitled “Is Physicalism ‘Really’ Real?” His first book, Reading the Enemy’s Mind: Inside Star Gate — America’s Psychic Espionage Program (Tor Forge, 2005), was a Reader’s Digest Editors Choice and Book Bonus selection.

I mentioned The Essential Guide to Remote Viewing here on this blog soon after reading it, and the response to my mention of it was, over at the Peterson Obsession Board, predictably fierce, mocking, and dismissive. I had just confirmed, for a redundant fourteen thousand five hundred and eighty-seventh time, the unanimous view at the Obsession Board that, in addition to being viciously cruel, morally depraved, and utterly dishonest, I’m a ludicrous buffoon. I called the Obsession Board’s response to Paul Smith’s attention, and he asked whether I would be interested in his formulating a reply. I answered that I would be interested, and what follows below is the first portion of that reply.

Why do I care about this matter? For one thing, because it’s interesting. Moreover, I like to keep my eyes and ears open for anomalies suggesting that our picture of reality may require major overhaul; I wish that Loch Ness actually contained a plesiosaur. Is remote viewing important to my religious views? Well, yes and no. Belief in remote viewing — via what seems, if it’s real at all, to be a natural human ability rather than a spiritual gift — is not essential to my theology. Religiously, I can easily do without it, just as I can do without Nessie..[sic] If it is real, however, it strongly suggests that naïve materialism is likely false. Which I think would be important to know.

Physics Guy Rebuttal

I first met Dan Peterson when, as a wet-behind-the-ears new missionary, I checked in to the mission home of the Swiss-Zürich Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in March of 1974. Dan was a thin, already-balding young man wearing (as I recall) a printer’s apron, appropriate because he was on temporary assignment in between proselyting gigs as the mission printer. The ink came from Dan’s role as temporary care-giver for an offset printing machine. Dan impressed me not just because he was engaging and outgoing, but also because he was clearly very smart—tempered by just the right degree of humility to make him thoroughly authentic as a person. Well, that and the fact that we had both taken Hebrew at BYU and shared an interest in the Middle East.

After our missions, our paths radically diverged—Dan’s into academia and mine into the military. Now (much) later in life, we find our paths again converging, thanks to his core roles in the FAIR conferences and Interpreter organization, and mine and my wife’s interest in these things. This convergence was enhanced by Dan’s open-minded writings about some of the more credible paranormal phenomena—of particular interest to me, remote viewing.

Why? Briefly summarized, as an Army intelligence officer, I spent seven years in what became known as the Star Gate Program, working as—and there’s no way to sugarcoat this—a literal psychic spy for the US Government. I and my colleagues were tasked to (speaking loosely) “project our consciousness” from a small physical facility on Fort George G. Meade, Maryland. We sat in a sound-proofed, windowless room in an old “temporary” clapboard building upgraded for classified purposes, and regularly used our minds to perceive and report on foreign threats and adversaries. We did this under blinded conditions (that is, we were not allowed to know what our targets were, nor what the questions were that we were to answer). I always add this: Remote viewing wasn’t always successful. But there were projects for which we produced intelligence unavailable through any other collection means. At times it absolutely worked.

Unsurprisingly, Dan’s writing on the subject sparked push-back from people skeptical of what he was saying. And, typically, these objections were almost uniformly biased, ill-informed, and unscientific. At least for a while, the self-described “Physics Guy” was one of the more prominent of these objectors. To start, I appreciated the tone with which Physics Guy lodged his objections. From what he had to say, I got the impression that, though he spoke with assuredness, he actually has no idea whether these phenomena exist or not. This is not unusual to find in the world of anti-psi skepticism.

Before checking out of the discussion, Physics Guy didn’t make many serious arguments against psi or for his point of view. In this and other articles I will submit to Dan for him, at his discretion, to decide to publish or not, I will treat some of the hoary old objections that skeptics habitually bring to the subject matter that has been my focus for the past 40-plus years. A caveat: I will do this in occasional installments; if I were to try to do it all at once it would be far too long and indigestible. What you are now reading serves as the introduction to the “series.” I list here the skeptical objections I plan to cover subsequently. If there are other of these objections that readers want to suggest, I am open to adding to the list.

• There is no evidence” for remote viewing or other kinds of ESP.

• Didn’t the CIA find that remote viewing was of no use?

• Remote viewing (and ESP in general) is impossible because it would violate the laws of physics.

• Positive ESP results are due to fraud.

• Positive ESP findings are the result of poor research design or methods.

• Confirmation bias explains ESP effects that aren’t the result of fraud or flaws.

My tardiness in fulfilling my promise to Dan to “come up with something” in response to Physics Guy may be an excuse for some to complain that this is all water under the bridge. I submit that it is not. These skeptical arguments are evergreens that keep turning up in discussions pertaining not just to ESP claims, but in other areas as well. I think they deserve a response, even at this late date.

Remote Viewing 1

Dan has an unquenchable desire to be gullible.

The Stargate Project was terminated and declassified in 1995 after a commissioned review by the CIA concluded that it was never useful in any intelligence operation. Although statistically significant effects were observed in laboratory experiments, the reviewers were uncertain whether this was the result of errors, and the information provided by the program was vague and included irrelevant and erroneous data.

And

Puthoff and Targ studied Uri Geller at SRI, declaring that Geller had psychic powers, though there were flaws with the controls in the experiments, and Geller used sleight of hand on many other occasions.[15][16] According to Terence Hines:

Geller turned out to be nothing more than a magician using sleight of hand and considerable personal charm to fool his admirers. The tests at SRI turned out to have been run under conditions that can best be described as chaotic. Few limits were placed on Geller's behavior, and he was more or less in control of the procedures used to test him. Further, the results of the tests were incorrectly reported in Targ and Puthoff's Nature paper.[17]
Psychologists David Marks and Richard Kammann attempted to replicate Puthoff and Targ's remote viewing experiments. In a series of thirty-five studies, they could not replicate the results. While investigating the procedure of the original experiments, Marks and Kammann discovered that the notes given to the judges in Puthoff and Targ's experiments contained clues as to which order they were carried out. Examples included referring to yesterday's two targets or the inclusion of the date of the session written at the top of the page. They concluded that these clues were the reason for the experiment's high hit rates.[18][19] Terence Hines has written:

Examination of the few actual transcripts published by Targ and Puthoff show that just such clues were present. To find out if the unpublished transcripts contained cues, Marks and Kammann wrote to Targ and Puthoff requesting copies. It is almost unheard of for a scientist to refuse to provide his data for independent examination when asked, but Targ and Puthoff consistently refused to allow Marks and Kammann to see copies of the transcripts. Marks and Kammann were, however, able to obtain copies of the transcripts from the judge who used them. The transcripts were found to contain a wealth of cues.[20]
Marks noted that when the cues were eliminated the results fell to a chance level.[21] James Randi noted that controlled tests by several other researchers, eliminating several sources of cueing and extraneous evidence present in the original tests, produced negative results. Students also solved Puthoff and Targ's locations from the clues that had inadvertently been included in the transcripts.[22] Marks and Kamman concluded: "Until remote viewing can be confirmed in conditions which prevent sensory cueing the conclusions of Targ and Puthoff remain an unsubstantiated hypothesis."

And

A variety of scientific studies on remote viewing have been conducted. Early experiments produced positive results, but they had invalidating flaws.[4] None of the more recent experiments have shown positive results when conducted under properly controlled conditions.[10][n 2][20][n 1][28] This lack of successful experiments has led the mainstream scientific community to reject remote viewing, based upon the absence of an evidence base, the lack of a theory which would explain remote viewing, and the lack of experimental techniques which can provide reliably positive results.

“None of the more recent experiments have shown positive results when conducted under properly controlled conditions.”

I can quite confidently predict that Paul H. Smith would fail to show remote viewing abilities when examined under properly independently controlled conditions. Is Smith obtaining money from people on the back of claiming to be able to teach them to remote view?

For amusement, people should watch the film “The Men Who Stare At Goats”, or better still, read the factual investigative book of the same name by Jon Ronson that inspired the movie.

[drumdude]

I know Daniel is a pretty smart guy, but I don’t understand why he thinks adopting the null hypothesis is such a radical view.

If someone tells you there are watermelons growing on the moon, it’s not by default a 50/50 chance that they’re right. If someone tells you these Egyptian scrolls contain the writings of Abraham, it’s not a 50/50 chance they’re right.

You need evidence to overcome the vast improbability of these claims. You need a lot of evidence. Dan can say it’s not impossible, fine. But it’s still incredibly improbable. Sometimes laughably so.

Dan’s core worldview is centered around something incredibly improbable. So I guess it makes sense that he can more easily adopt ridiculous beliefs, and think it’s a toss up if watermelons grow on the moon.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Dan’s core worldview is centered around something incredibly improbable. So I guess it makes sense that he can more easily adopt ridiculous beliefs …

He claims to have an open mind, though. He further claims that he can change his mind when presented with evidence.

I don’t know about you, but for me Dan Peterson is the gold standard of rational thinking; a learned maester who humbly changes his mind when presented with new evidence that challenges his position. Have you not seen him frequently offer ‘mea culpas’ for a mistake, own up to an erroneous statement, or allow himself to be corrected when he was wrong? He’s easily the most flexible thinker from the current crop the intelligentsia has to offer. May the scales fall from your eyes, drumdude.

[drumdude]

Dan’s core worldview is centered around something incredibly improbable. So I guess it makes sense that he can more easily adopt ridiculous beliefs …

He claims to have an open mind, though. He further claims that he can change his mind when presented with evidence.

I don’t know about you, but for me Dan Peterson is the gold standard of rational thinking; a learned maester who humbly changes his mind when presented with new evidence that challenges his position. Have you not seen him frequently offer ‘mea culpas’ for a mistake, own up to an erroneous statement, or allow himself to be corrected when he was wrong? He’s easily the most flexible thinker from the current crop the intelligentsia has to offer. May the scales fall from your eyes, drumdude.

The book of Abraham is the textbook example to highlight his rationalization. When the original papyrus was found, it offered a direct test of Joseph Smith’s claims. The results of the test were that Joseph lied, or Mormon God deceived him. But Dan found a way to continue to believe in spite of that evidence against his position.

It’s ironic that he mocks flat earth and anti-vax beliefs. He’s doing the same thing they do.

[Tom]

Peterson:

Roughly a year ago, I read an interesting book by Paul H. Smith entitled The Essential Guide to Remote Viewing:The Secret Military Remote Perception Skill Anyone Can Learn (Intentional Press, 2015). It’s a basic tutorial on, well, remote viewing — which is the alleged ability to perceive information about a distant or unseen target without relying on conventional sensory input but using only the mind. Thus, if it really exists, it’s literally a kind of extrasensory perception. The study of remote viewing is one of the areas of focus within the controversial field of parapsychology. …

I certainly found it interesting. He not only believes in remote viewing but says, quite matter-of-factly, that he has done it many times and that — precisely as he indicates in the subtitle of his book — just about anybody can do it. …

Belief in remote viewing — via what seems, if it’s real at all, to be a natural human ability rather than a spiritual gift — is not essential to my theology. Religiously, I can easily do without it, just as I can do without Nessie..[sic] If it is real, however, it strongly suggests that naïve materialism is likely false. Which I think would be important to know.

It’s been a year since Dr. Peterson read Dr. Smith’s tutorial on remote viewing. Dr. Smith says just about anybody can do it. Has Dr. Peterson attempted remote viewing? I invite him to share his experiences. Just think: Dr. Peterson could be the one to falsify naïve materialism. Funds donated to the Interpreter Foundation to create eighty episodes of Bowdlerizing Brigham should be diverted to make it happen.

[drumdude]

Anyone can bend the spoon too. If the conditions are right. And the chakras are in alignment.




When Jupiter is in the right astrological sign, Dan can even find oil as well as water with those dowsing rods.

[I Have Questions]

Peterson:

Roughly a year ago, I read an interesting book by Paul H. Smith entitled The Essential Guide to Remote Viewing:The Secret Military Remote Perception Skill Anyone Can Learn (Intentional Press, 2015). It’s a basic tutorial on, well, remote viewing — which is the alleged ability to perceive information about a distant or unseen target without relying on conventional sensory input but using only the mind. Thus, if it really exists, it’s literally a kind of extrasensory perception. The study of remote viewing is one of the areas of focus within the controversial field of parapsychology. …

I certainly found it interesting. He not only believes in remote viewing but says, quite matter-of-factly, that he has done it many times and that — precisely as he indicates in the subtitle of his book — just about anybody can do it. …

Belief in remote viewing — via what seems, if it’s real at all, to be a natural human ability rather than a spiritual gift — is not essential to my theology. Religiously, I can easily do without it, just as I can do without Nessie..[sic] If it is real, however, it strongly suggests that naïve materialism is likely false. Which I think would be important to know.

It’s been a year since Dr. Peterson read Dr. Smith’s tutorial on remote viewing. Dr. Smith says just about anybody can do it. Has Dr. Peterson attempted remote viewing? I invite him to share his experiences. Just think: Dr. Peterson could be the one to falsify naïve materialism. Funds donated to the Interpreter Foundation to create eighty episodes of Bowdlerizing Brigham should be diverted to make it happen.

I think that’s a good point Tom. Just how interested is the Afore in Paul H. Smith’s remote viewing ideas? Has he, for instance, spent $3-4,000 of his own money, or Interpreter money, to enrol in one of Dr Paul H. Smith’s courses? “Basic Controlled Remote Viewing” for example. If the Afore is putting forward remote viewing for his audiences consideration, they deserve to know just how seriously he is taking it. They deserve to know if he has enrolled in a course already, or if he will be enrolling in a course in the near future, or has not intention of dropping thousands of dollars on something he has put forward as a potential game changer in human knowledge.

I’m willing to bet he won’t spend his own money on it, despite advertising Dr Smith’s wares to his readership on his blog. That’s how “interested” he is in it. Peterson is being irresponsible in allowing Smith a platform to promote his costly snake oil courses. The High Priest in Ogden can ill afford $3,000 but I’ll wager he’s considering enrolling on the back of Peterson’s endorsement.

[I Have Questions]

Here is the CIA’s own summary of the Stargate programme. TL:Dr

The single conclusion that can be drawn from an evaluation of the 40 operational tasks is that the value and utility to the Intelligence Community of the information provided by the process cannot be readily discerned.

If remote viewing was a thing, that gave a return on investment, would the CIA have dumped the programme, or would it have deployed the programme? Come on Dan, stump up the $3,000 and sit the basic course, then tell us just how convinced you are.