For the details on why i wrote to this article & my background – (click here – or bypass for now)
I first want to start this article with a longer overview. I also want to say how lucky we are right now that we can all reach out and communicate over miscommunications, ideas, theories and other issues in the is amazing subject of remote Viewing. This article itself is in its sixth re-write as I have had the great experience in showing it to a few select people, Colleen Marenich, Lyn Buchanan and Tom McNear (one of only two people fully trained in the long form of Ingo’s CRV). The experiences and knowledge of these people have helped me clarify and correct the article.
As Remote viewers and Controlled Remote Viewers, following a methodology and way of practice created by Ingo Swann, we owe it to his memory, ourselves and the future generations to try to sort out any issues, misunderstandings and details about ‘the way’ that arise.
In my opinion this could have been done a long time ago, and way better with a group discussion instead of cold posts and arguments on social media.
The start of this Issue – The Ingo Swann era.
Controlled Remote Viewing or CRV, was developed by Ingo Swann and Hal Puthoff at SRI from approx. 1976-1985. The numerous Star Gate (CIA) archived documents and the UWG Ingo Swann archives, both have papers that detail the ownership of CRV and its documentation.
SRI under contract to the intel services and later the military was tasked to create a trainable method based on the earlier successes they were having with a technology called CRV. CRV was based on the experiences of its primary subject: Ingo Swann and how his intuitive process worked from within. Ingo, being a scholar of all things esoteric and artistic also used ideas and techniques within these realms to also understand the intuition process and to work as part of his emerging methodology.
Now, because things moved fast, and moved in a manner out of the control of SRI, SRI and Ingo decided to train the military in this ‘prototype’ method before it was both finished and fully tested and documented. Like alot of projects, when money shows up to keep an endeavour going, you take the money and worry about the finer points later. That’s what happened with CRV. Much to Ingo’s credit – he did recognise this as a problematic situation before they went down this route as details in the SRI communications.
In a December 1984 document entitled, Special Orientation Techniques: S-V and S-VI, Swann stated, “As the first trainee to complete the S-I through S-VI program, Trainee #059 (Tom McNear) fulfilled an important role in the development of the overall training package. Although Stages I through III has been pretested with other trainees, the desire of the client (U.S. Army) to move ahead expeditiously with the training of this particular candidate resulted in his providing our first research data on technology transfer of Stages IV through VI.”
Add to this Ingo’s contractual stipulations that he is the sole owner as creator of the CRV technology and his (almost) paranoid insistence that ALL CRV related documents, training notes, student notes, RV sessions and data be stored in a single location and accessible by a key few individuals.
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- Because Ingo owned it and he saw himself as the key component in the CRV training process.
- Ingo knew the importance of the technology and wanted to keep it out of the hands of the Russians.
In 1985 a few internal conflicts within SRI and its client started to emerge. Primarily brought about by this situation outlined (lack of training materials, lack of scientific testing/validation of the prototype methodologies efficacy). The CRV program involving Ingo Swann as the single and central trainer was terminated in 1985 due to this and the natural end of the current contract. This is where Ingo pretty much left CRV and its public spread to where we are today with it being the dominant and source remote viewing methodology. Click here to see my methods map showing the main Remote Viewing instructors and the methods being taught today.
I hear you all asked OK, but why is this background Important to all this?
And that’s a good question. It’s because of the outlines previously. When Ingo left in 1985, He essentially took a major part of his technology with him. Ingo didn’t have time to create extensive training documentation, the vast majority of the students training notes, essay lecture notes and training RV sessions, all remained with Ingo. This left the military with one option – to take the existing trained people in the CRV prototype methods and to get them to document the training they received. Which is what they did. Headed by Paul H Smith and with help & advice from the existing members, they created the Controlled Remote Viewing manual, circa 1986. This manual and the earlier Tom McNear Training notes (1985) (that I uncovered in the Star Gate archives in 2007) are the two main sources of information on CRV training other than mentions in multiple SRI reports and the memories of the students themselves. Neither manual was ever intended to be a “training manual.” This is why they seem to have glossed over several topics, such as the ideogram.
Also remember that at this time of these manuals creation, only a single trained student in all six stages of the prototype CRV method existed (Tom McNear). The remaining students who helped write the 1986 CRV manual were all only trained by Ingo up to stage three in CRV.
The CRV methodology as created by Ingo Swann was meant to be a two year intensive programme. Ingo as mentor was an integral component in this process – a watcher over what he saw as a complex and fragile process or rewiring the trainee’s mind to best work with his method. It was never intended nor can it really, be trained from a manual.
I believe this situation is why we appear to have differing opinions about how best to train students on the ideogram – because of the lack of proper and fully detailed documentation on the subtleties of the CRV process.
So with this, let’s get back to the crux of article – The Ideogram controversy.
Within CRV there appears to be significant disagreement regarding ideograms and how to train them. Is there really a controversy, or is it more a misperception of how ideograms are being trained. I will ask this question again at the conclusion of this document.
This perceived controversy revolves around the use of Ideograms within the CRV process and how to do this. This has been termed the Paul Smith way against the Lexicon way.
- The Paul Smith way – The Ideogram contains no visual information.
- The Lexicon approach – The lexicon approach definition says that a particular ideogram “always” means the same thing, i.e., a right angle is always something manmade, a wavy line is always water, etc.
[Source: Presentation by Paul H. Smith at the IRVA conference in 2015]
Several online sources have stated their opinions, the most recent here: Men who stare at squiggles –The Ideogram Controversy. https://psi-unit.com/en/ideogram/ .
There is also this older video on this topic: The Ideogram Controversy in Remote Viewing with Paul H. Smith. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGOKfM7AORI
To summarise the claims and dispute is that; some branches/trainers of CRV and some methods that branch from CRV are using the CRV process as first envisioned by Ingo Swann, wrongly and with potential deficit in the Ideogram portion of the method.
To try and clarify this – here is a quick list of the main people/methods teaching both CRV and variants of CRV and how they do this important first stage of the process.
Paul Smith CRV
very close to the Ingo way of teaching CRV. Pauls approach is identical to the 1986 CRV manual he co-wrote. Ideograms have no visual information – all the information is from the Feeling/motion of the Ideogram.
Don’t “look” at ideogram for information
[Source: Presentation by Paul H. Smith at the IRVA conference in 2015]
Lyn Buchannan CRV
Lyn’s CRV has different naming for the CRV structural elements and some differences in theory/practice.Lyn’s approach is that Ideograms DO contain visual information – and therefore can be trained or practiced. But that the overriding factor is still the Feeling/motion of the ideogram. This is NOT a Lexicon approach.
When asked about this Lyn commented with:
“When I train the ideograms, I always tell my students that there are only so many discernible shapes to lines, and that it is BOTH the shape and feeling that determine what any one line may mean. A straight line that feels, say, rough, will mean one thing (maybe the basic aspect of “landiness”), and that the same straight line that feels another way will stand for another getstalt.”
PsiTech/TRV/Learn RV
Ed Dames – started off teaching a duplicate of CRV during the PsiTech era. Over the years and iterations into his own copyrighted method he did make major changes to the Ideogram process, dropping the Ideogram process I believe. This is NOT a Lexicon approach.
SRV – Farsight.
Farsight Advanced SRV Lesson 1: Ideograms – https://youtu.be/AGw9gHfSEwM
12.00 onwards – sometimes visual-sometimes not, probe the ideogram for feeling. They do recognise common visual gestalts. This is NOT a Lexicon approach.
TDS: Prudence Calabrese – John Vivanco.
Quick and Dirty Remote Viewing Ideograms – John Vivanco – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtJAjmW5QwA
3.30 onwards – we have six ideograms. subject (life), water, surface (land), structure (artificial), natural structure, energy The can present as common visual gestalts. They can contain Visual information.
Note from Jon Knowles: In TDS – a wavy line is NOT always water. What it is is something fluid-like, could be water. The same with the other six ideograms. As to whether the TDS approach is a lexicon approach. Based on this definition below,
lex•i•con
noun
1. the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge.
o LINGUISTICS
the complete set of meaningful units in a language.
I would say no, it is not. But it does say that ideograms contain visual information related to the target and that a set of them are trainable. Other definitions might be broader but this one does not describe TDS’ approach since the ideograms are not a “complete set of meaningful units in a language”.
From first examination – I don’t really see many people who do teach this so called ‘Lexicon approach’?
The crux of the alleged controversy looks like it comes down to two things:
- Can and do ideograms contain visual information?
- Can ideograms be taught and drilled like a language?
I am going to add my thoughts, opinions and research into this interesting and confusing topic in an effort to try and clear up any confusion.
Ideograms
Ideograms are the corner stone of the Controlled Remote Viewing process. They are very important and any issues in their creation through the three step Ideogram process, what we call the I/A/B sequence. The Ideogram is a reflexive graphic mark in response to the target.
The CRV manual definition of an Ideogram is:
The ideogram is the spontaneous graphic representation of the major gestalt, manifested by the motion of the viewer’s pen on paper.
The Ingo Swann/SRI definition was:
A picture or symbol used in a system of writing to represent a thing or idea, but not a particular word or phrase for it.
A note from Tom McNear on this:
“Ingo was a strong proponent for using dictionary definitions. He issued us each our own dictionary. Very frequently during our discussions we would pause and look in the dictionary to ensure we had a common understanding of the words we were using. He used to say “words are mind-traps,” Upon establishing a common understanding of the words we were using we would continue with our discussions. The definition you see here is very much a dictionary definition.”
This of course all started with Ingo Swann’s revelations about the ideogram and its importance in the remote viewing process so we should start there. In this letter (below) to myself Ingo describes how he came about the Ideogram process and its relevance to CRV:
I want you to take note of Ingo’s comment from the letter:
“The RV process was a creative gestaltic artistic one from the bottom up, not an intellectual linear one at all.”
Also:
“Ideograms are a picture or symbol used… to represent a thing or idea… not the object pictured, but some thing or idea that the object pictured is supposed to suggest.”
I feel this is important into helping to clarify the what, how where and who of Ideogram use within CRV today.
How I, Daz smith fit into this picture.
Before we go any further it’s best I give an overview of how I personally fit into this topic and some of the recent Ideogram use and research I have gathered over the years.
I have been a graphic designer since I was eighteen. This gives me thirty three years involved in logo, graphic, corporate design, & branding. My entire working life has been involved in making Ideograms and pictograms as logo images that convey more meaning than the visual itself. With this, add my twenty-four years of using CRV every week for projects, practice and clients – you could say my life has been all about Ideograms. It’s why I believe the CRV manual is misunderstood and some of the current thinking is wrong in regards to Ideograms within CRV. To do so let me present some Ideogram research first.
I want to present this because we know a lot more now than we did when Ingo Swann discovered the Ideogram and enfolded it into the CRV process nearly fourty-one years ago. Let’s start off with Modern interpretations of what Ideograms are: (my emphasis in bold)
Wikipedia
An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek ἰδέα idéa “idea” and γράφω gráphō “to write”) is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept, independent of any particular language, and specific words or phrases. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by familiarity with prior convention; others convey their meaning through pictorial resemblance to a physical object, and thus may also be referred to as pictograms.
An example of ideograms is the collection of 50 signs developed in the 1970s by the American Institute of Graphic Arts at the request of the US Department of Transportation.[3] The system was initially used to mark airports and gradually became more widespread.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOT_pictograms
The History of Visual Communication
https://www.historyofvisualcommunication.com/02-ideograms
An ideogram or ideograph is a graphical symbol that represents an idea, rather than a group of letters arranged according to the phonemes of a spoken language, as is done in alphabetic languages. Examples of ideograms include wayfinding signage, such as in airports and other environments where many people may not be familiar with the language of the place they are in, as well as Arabic numerals and mathematical notation, which are used worldwide regardless of how they are pronounced in different languages. The term “ideogram” is commonly used to describe logographic writing systems such as Egyptian hieroglyphs and Chinese characters. However, symbols in logographic systems generally represent words or morphemes rather than pure ideas.
A logogram, or logograph, is a single grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme (a meaningful unit of language). This stands in contrast to other writing systems, such as alphabets, where each symbol (letter) primarily represents a sound or a combination of sounds.
A brief history of pictograms and ideograms
https://saffroninteractive.com/?p=10981
Ideograms are graphical symbols that represent an idea or concept. Good examples of ideogram are the red circle that means “not allowed”, or the orange or yellow triangle that means “attention” or “danger”.
Today there are thousands of pictograms and ideograms that have been universally accepted and we directly recognise them at a first glance. Popular examples are the email icon, the telephone icon, the play button, the download button, etc. Some of them are pictograms, others are ideograms and some are a mix of both.
Sometimes a pictogram is also playing the role of an ideogram. For example, the icon that represents the meaning of the idea is represented by a light bulb. Even if the light bulb is in fact the representation of an object (a pictogram), it conveys the message of the idea, a concept (an ideogram).
Now let’s move on to Ideograms and how humans have used them as a language.
Ideograms as part of human language.
Simple doodles or Ideograms have been a part of human communication for thousands of years. Recorded all over the world on rock and in caves – primitive art shows us man communicating through visual forms.
In the article and research – Did Stone Age cavemen talk to each other in symbols?
Previously overlooked patterns in the cave art of southern France and Spain suggest that man might have learned written communication 25,000 years earlier than we thought
According to von Petzinger. For the symbols provide clear evidence of the way our ancestors moved from representing ideas realistically – as in those beautiful images of bisons and mammoths – to the stage where they began to represent concepts symbolically. In some cases, signs appear to emerge from the use of truncated images of an animal and eventually come to act as a symbol for that animal in its entirety.
Another source on this is: 40,000-Year-Old Ice Age Writing of Ancient Europe | Ancient Architects – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkvLC1VrnvI
In the 2017 article: What the mysterious symbols made by early humans can teach us about how we evolved
After examining dozens of Ice Age cave sites across Europe, paleoarchaeologist Genevieve von Petzinger discovered our ancestors repeatedly used 32 signs. Why? She walks us through her eye-opening discoveries — and their implications
Shown below are the the 32 signs that von Petzinger has catalogued in Ice Age cave art across Europe.
They account for the vast majority of non-figurative imagery found across the continent during this 30,000-year time span, suggesting that they were used with purpose and were meaningful to their creators. Each of the 32 signs has their own distinct pattern of use. Courtesy Genevieve von Petzinger.
So, we can pretty much establish that visual ideograms have been used across every facet of society as a language. The visual appearance had a meaning and imparted information – and still does today. For most people when asked to doodle water – they usually present a wavy line, Land, usually as a single quick, straight line, life as a simple stick character, and a house as an angled shape or bo
In the 1991, Washington Post article – Decoding doodles. – https://is.gd/3RNimJ
Most of us doodle. According to a 1988 survey by the pen makers Faber/Castell (folks with a vested interest, to be sure), nine out of 10 people between the ages of 18 and 34 are regular doodlers. Among the over-65 set, six out of 10 people admit to the habit.
…the pictures we draw when our minds are elsewhere are far from mindless scribblings, says psychologist Robert C. Burns, who directs the Seattle Institute of Human Development, a private research and education foundation. Burns has devoted his career to understanding the meaning of drawings and doodles and uses them to diagnose emotional problems and understand the dynamics of troubled families. “Even the most innocent doodle may carry messages from the unconscious,” says Burns.
“The left brain is constantly analyzing, trying to put things into words, trying to make sense,” says Betty Edwards, professor emeritus of art at California State University, Long Beach, and author of the popular book “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.” “But when the right side of the brain begins to draw, the left brain says, ‘Hey, it’s just doodling.’ As soon as it lets down its guard, all sorts of surprising things pour forth.”
“Keep in mind that we have a long history of expressing ourselves in lines and images,” Edwards says. “Drawing dates back to 30,000 B.C. Written language didn’t begin until 25,000 years later. The language of drawing goes beyond words, beyond cultural boundaries. It’s a language children use more readily than adults.”
…the interpretation of doodles and drawings, like that of dreams, isn’t an exact science. “It may take years of experience to become sensitive to the subtle messages that drawings and doodles contain,” Burns says. He also admits that there’s a lot of “foolishness” out there in the field of doodle analysis.
Ok, so that covers how Ideograms & Pictograms do have a language that is universal and has been used as far back as 40,000 years – So what about today?
Modern Ideograms & pictograms in everyday lives.
We live today in a way different world than when CRV was first created in the 1980s. Who would have known back then, four decades ago that our very lives would involve us using common ideogram forms, thousands of times every day, all around us, and even in our pockets. They are everywhere. Ideograms are perfect carriers for instant visual communication of deeper meaning without hard thought. For example these ideograms are icons that we all use many times every single day, without a second thought.
In the Phone example (above) the heart shape has commonly now been used to express health, a cog means settings, a speech bubble now means instant messages. Then we have emoticons – visual expressions of feelings and ideas: love, happy, ill, sick, upset, good, bad, and so on.
Ideograms or pictograms are now everywhere and they are essentially visual first in imparting information.
Then there are these (right) used all over the globe in browsers and email programs. One represents email – electronic communication and another represents HOME – your first point on a digital journey.
This is all great – But how does this fit into the controversy I hear you ask – So, let’s get to that.
Back to the Controversy
If you remember the controversy seems to stem around the concepts of:
Can and do ideograms contain visual information?
Can ideograms be taught and drilled like a language?
It is my experience through use, research and education that ideograms within CRV, CAN contain visual information. The genesis of where Ideograms came from (Doodles) confirm this. I also believe that if anyone were to ignore this is it would be an error in the CRV process.
Some people have termed this thinking as the Lexicon approach. I feel this is a misunderstanding on their part. Most of the People training and using CRV (outlined above) do recognise that the Ideogram CAN have visual information in the form of common gestalt forms. But as practitioners who recognise this – the forms are not set, they change, mutate and can be something other than the visual form they first look like. All is determined by the feeling/motion+ the visual look to determine the Ideograms B: component – its automatic analytical response. This is not A Lexicon approach.
Shown Right are some examples of my ideogram forms – they also mirror the common gestalt forms for those things; (Land, water, structure, life, energy). When I do my CRV, I have no pre-conceived ideas of what will present. The process is automatic and the Ideogram is always created by the feeling/motion of the target – expressed in the doodle. In the process this is always confirmed with the A: part of the three step Ideogram process. Using the LAND ideogram as an example – the feeling/motion sometimes says the ideogram is land – sometimes it says something different – I always go with this feeling/motion confirmation not on visual look alone. All I am doing is recognising that Ideograms CAN contain visual information, and that there does seem to exist a common gestalt language.
Also be aware – that in every iteration of my Ideograms, even though they look similar at first glance -they are slightly different, angled differently, they have flourishes, embellishments, sizes, angles – no two ideograms ‘look’ identical even if the visual component plus the feeling/motion identify them as such.
These common visual gestalt shapes are also prevalent in many other people’s remote viewing – In my many years of RV project management and research into the Star Gate and Ingo Swann Archives – I often see these very same common visual gestalts in many RV sessions. As shown they are also similar or used across all borders of time in human language as presented in the previous examples going back as far as 40,000 years.
Along these lines and for at least the least two months I have been having a discussion through emails and Zoom chats with Tom McNear on this very topic and this article and ongoing debate. The article has gone through (many, many) rewrites as we both have expressed our thoughts on these conflicts and miscommunications in the larger community.
The confusions as stated are I believe down to lack of communication within the CRV community amongst trainers and practitioners and also in that both Tom McNear’s training notes and then Paul Smith’s later CRV manual were not meant to be used as a training manual, and that as documents being used for reference on the subtleties of what is a very intricate process – they are lacking subtle details.
Here is what Tom McNear wrote to me on the subtleties:
The ideogram is produced by the subconscious before any left-brained analysis enters the “system.” The key component of the ideogram is the feeling/motion (the A). Ingo emphasized to focus on the A and not the ideogram nor the automatic analytic response (the B). It is the subconsciously produced feeling/motion that activated the viewer’s arm muscles to produce the ideogram. This muscle activation is definitely pre-visual, hence the importance of the feeling/motion. As we discussed, and herein lies the critical difference, if the viewer perceives or “sees” the ideogram before it is produced on paper, it is an AOL. If the ideogram is spontaneously produced without any analytic input, then the viewer can integrate the visual appearance with the feeling/motion (the A) to produce the automatic analytic response (the B). The formula is I + A = B. So what Ingo didn’t say was that the viewer should ignore the visual appearance of the ideogram, and he never said that there are not some ideograms that commonly occur and mean similar things. The CRITICAL aspect is that the feeling/motion is the deciding factor, not the visual appearance. As we discussed, a flat line is often land, but a flat line is also the common ideogram produced by the viewer when they are placed in the middle of the ocean. What is different between these two flat lines… it’s the feeling/motion that produced the flat line in the first place. There are a number of ideograms that are mostly this or that, but if the viewer misses or ignores the feeling/motion that produced it, they are starting out on a fool’s errand.
I wrote back to Tom McNear saying:
Tom – So this is me trying to clarify this process fully. On writing the target coordinate we get a spontaneous feeling/motion. This causes our hand to draw the Ideogram (the feel/motion in graphic form). We then also record the feeling/motion as words in the A: component. The feeling part is usually one of five or more very basics: solid, liquid, gaseous, energy and temperature. The motion is the movement of the pen as it created the ideogram.
The B component is the first automatic analytical response to the ideograms VISUAL (which is the feeling motion recorded as a graphic) AND the written feeling/motion data, to create a combined general gestaltic (noun) type response: land, water, man made, natural, life, energy, movement, structure and so on.
I then wrote back with:
So, Tom, you agree that Ideogram process doesn’t discard the visual look all-together – but the combined I/A: generates the (B:) analytical response that can confirm or deny the visual look.
But Tom – this isn’t how it’s written in the 1986 CRV manual or taught. The VISUAL feel/motion is ignored. Students are told that ideograms don’t look like what they are – when in reality they can do – but only if the process confirms it.
Tom wrote back with
We are ABSOLUTELY in agreement that the ideogram process doesn’t discard the look or visual appearance. The visual appearance is one of the two key components: the first is the feeling/motion (because the feeling/motion is only one thing), and then the visual aspect, in that order. We agree that these two components combine to produce the automatic analytical response (the B).
Regarding the 1985 CRV manual… mea culpa! When I wrote that manual I never intended it to be used as a training manual. There are many areas I didn’t explain well. I have noticed that often when I look at it for some guidance. I especially did a poor job writing about ideograms… again, because it wasn’t intended to be a training manual.
Regarding your last statement regarding students being told they don’t look like what they are… that is absolutely wrong. They very, very often look like what they are, but the student should focus on the feeling/motion (one thing) first and then observe the visual aspects.
So, where does this leave us with the controversy?
Well, there may be an issue with Paul Smith’s way of teaching ideograms , or maybe it truly is a simple misunderstanding that has grown out of proportion.
For example this recent article: The Men who stare at squiggles –The Ideogram Controversy. https://psi-unit.com/en/?p=3641
Under the heading: The Conscious and the subconscious mind – it states: (bold is my emphasis)
Paul H. Smith brings the following comparison to this: The ideogram functions like a seismograph, which indicates whether the viewer has connected with the target – or with the signal line. The seismograph now deflects and a mark is made on the paper.
This mark itself does not contain the information, but it is the connection needed to make contact with the process that made it happen.
Then under the heading: Just a line on paper – it states:
So the idea is to read out of the “squiggle” of the ideogram, to extract everything that was put there in compact form at the time when the ideogram was created as a manifestation of the contact. It is important to distinguish: This information is not in the drawing itself, even if this impression could arise, because the viewer retraces the ideogram with his pen, but in what it represents. What caused the stroke is densely packed information, the squiggle itself is an epiphenomenon, a concomitant, of this process.
Also under the heading: Controversial ideogram philosophy: Then under the heading – The newer approach – visual lexicon of archetypes: It displays points for both approaches:
It says under the Swann approach:
- Don’t “look” at ideogram for information
And for the Lexicon approach is states:
- Viewers often “look” at ideogram for information
[Source: Presentation by Paul H. Smith at the IRVA conference in 2015]
Final thoughts.
It all comes down to the subtleties of the process and how these have been recorded in the available materials and taught. I don’t believe either of the existing CRV documents used for training by CRV students do the best job in recording these subtleties, taught by Ingo, entirely. It’s why we are still lucky today to be able to discuss these nuances with those who were actually taught them by Ingo – people Like Tom McNear.
As Tom McNear said:
The subconsciously produced feeling-motion activates the viewers arm muscles to produce the ideogram. If the ideogram is spontaneously produced without any analytic input, then the viewer can integrate the visual appearance with the feeling-motion (the A) to produce the automatic analytic response (the B).
I believe I have confirmed and shown that most CRV approaches are NOT using a lexicon approach, but that they do recognise that there does seem to be common gestalts in some form of language that can (but not always) occur within CRV, and that these can be developed and used by the individual – If done properly.
I believe we also know way more now about Ideograms and the origins of human communication and language than we did when CRV was first developed, this has to be taken into consideration.
So, I don’t see what the issues are other than some people possibly being taught that Ideograms hold no (possibly) useful visual information. Unless that too is something else being miscommunicated in this long time confusion?
Note: I would like to thank Tom McNear for his help, advice and clarification on his CRV training and the intricate subtleties of the Ideogram process in CRV. Even after all these years I am still amazed at the genius of using this within intuition and the beauty of its simplicity but also its complications. We are all (as students of RV/CRV) very lucky to be able to discuss these differences and subtleties with Tom McNear, Paul H Smith, Lyn Buchanan and others.
References & resources for this article:
These CRV resources can be downloaded here: https://www.remoteviewed.com/crv-manuals/
SRI – Co-ordinate Remote viewing (CRV) Technology 1981-83 briefing. – from a paper authored by Hal Puthoff and the consultant Ingo Swann. I have included a ‘briefing version’ of this paper as it has more explanatory references to the CRV process and the R&D of stages 1-8.
Special Orientation Techniques – Stages 1-3 – Author – Hal Puthoff – 1984 – Overview of the first three stages of training with examples.
Special Orientation Techniques – Stages 4 – Author – Hal Puthoff – 1984 – Overview of the stage4 of training with examples.
Special Orientation Techniques – Stages 5-6 – Author – Hal Puthoff – 1984 – Overview of the stages 5-6 of training with examples.
Tom McNear CRV Training notes – 1985. One of Ingo’s first and possibly one of his best students training notes in document form.
Paul H Smith CRV Military Training manual. Circa – (1996 onwards in the public domain) The modern most well know and used CRV manual.
Wikipedia – Ideograms – https://is.gd/B6ZwmT
The History of Visual Communication – https://www.historyofvisualcommunication.com/02-ideograms
A brief history of pictograms and ideograms – https://saffroninteractive.com/?p=10981
40,000-Year-Old Ice Age Writing of Ancient Europe | Ancient Architects – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkvLC1VrnvI
Did Stone Age cavemen talk to each other in symbols? – https://is.gd/FEcAyn
What the mysterious symbols made by early humans can teach us about how we evolved – https://wp.me/pbZGXZ-rwL
Washington Post article – Decoding doodles. – https://is.gd/3RNimJ
Remote viewing methods map – https://www.remoteviewed.com/remote-viewing-methods-map/
Men who stare at squiggles –The Ideogram Controversy. https://psi-unit.com/en/ideogram/ .
The Ideogram Controversy in Remote Viewing with Paul H. Smith. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGOKfM7AORI
Farsight Advanced SRV Lesson 1: Ideograms – https://youtu.be/AGw9gHfSEwM
Quick and Dirty Remote Viewing Ideograms – John Vivanco – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtJAjmW5QwA
Backrgound to the article:
(I put this at the end of the article so as not to detract form the article itself.)
HI, I have recently spent quite a few weeks and many re-writes compiling my thoughts into an article on what has been a divisive topic within the CRV community – the Ideogram process. For this article I had help and input from crv people and from one of only two people fully trained in all the six stages of CRV – Tom McNear.
For a year or so I have heard the term ‘Lexicon approach’ being used to describe an interpretation of the Ingo Swann CRV stage 1 process. The articles and videos seemed to imply that anyone using this approach is misinformed and that they are using and inferior interpretation.
The lexicon approach says that a particular ideogram “always” means the same thing, i.e., a right angle is always something man-made, a wavy line is always water, etc.
I set about trying to determine exactly what this ‘Lexicon approach’ was, who was using it and to try and clarify some of the very subtle parts of the CRV process that just are not covered in the available documents. My aim is to try and put this to rest somewhat so that we can all actually as a CRV community focus more upon the use of CRV than being divided over interpretations – especially when both the differing interpretations seem to work equally.
Now, during this research and I am sure after I publish this. We will see comments about me, my CRV lineage, and people questioning my ability and audacity to suggest and write such things. After all my teacher of CRV (24 years ago) wasn’t (probably) trained by Ingo Swann, and I wasn’t trained by Paul Smith –so what do I know? Well, as a background for those who don’t know me. I was trained in 1997 in CRV. This was in London in a class of fifteen people, it was over four days. I also spent the nights and more with the instructor as we were sleeping in the same house. My CRV teacher then was Leigh Culver (you can find him online). We haven’t really communicated since 1997, so I can’t tell you any of his RV history. I was trained and I moved on – I am not one to hero worship or attach myself to teachers I feel my RV is from me not who taught me over the years. All I know is that he mentioned special ops, and had just returned from USSR where he was teaching emergency medicine techniques – London was a stop-over on the final way back to the U.S. All this was well before any CRV manual was online, before real internet and before any real CRV information was available. We had to write our own CRV manual as part of the four days lectures – it’s an exact copy of the 1986 CRV manual. Since that time I have spent the last 24 years researching RV and CRV. I asked alot of questions, I read and databased the entire Star Gate archives of over 100,000 pages of data. I have researched the UWG Ingo Swann archives; I communicated with Ingo Swann for a few years and was invited by him to stay with him in NY. I also aksed Ingo a great many questions. I have also continuously over the 24 years used CRV (now with some of my own nuances) over this period – much of my work has been used in projects by the top people in RV.
I have published many videos on rv, seventeen issues of eight martinins remote viewing magazine and three books on remote viewing (with one on the history of CRV in the works).
A few years back I participated in and passed the Lyn Buchanan and Colleen Marenich ‘Operational Certification Programme’- to train CRV people to work the best they could in operational use. I also undertook two test targets for Paul H Smith (hit both and even named one in session) for Paul’s Operational CRV team, here I worked targets several ops for Paul and was at one point invited to the U.S. to participate in a paid CRV project. (A volcano eruption in Europe stopped that one).
So, for those out there who do and will attack my credibility – saying what do I know of CRV – well that’s my history – you make up your own mind. I feel my experience and research of all things RV& CRV, allows me to have valid input into this topic. I’m sorry I had to write all this – but as I said: you can determine if I know enough about CRV/RV to ask questions and write comments and articles.
Back to the article:
I feel I show that the genesis of Ideograms is visual, and the subtleties not included in the CRV manual and notes do allow for graphical information in Ideograms to present and be valid. (when used properly in the feeling-motion process.) I also believe that after researching the methods and asking the main set of people accused of using a ‘Lexicon approach’ – the Lyn Buchanan arm of CRV – that this isn’t the case. Although – they like me do recognise that Ideograms can (not always) show graphical information – but the feeling-motion part of the Ideogram process is the primary element.
As said earlier it’s my hope that this puts to bed some of these miscommunications and that we can as an RV and also a CRV community move forwards to better things.
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