Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies (Paperback)

On the positive side, this book has a tremendous amount of detail, some of it hard-won. It's the only book by an 'outsider' to the field (although it shows as much or more bias in some areas as books by ! insiders, so I'm not sure if that matters). It documents in detail many of the "amazing stories" in remote viewing that I have heard first-hand from many of the people involved with the former government program. It was nice to hear a compilation of these accounts in one place, and in that sense, it does provide some validation of remote viewing, and some very interesting reading.

It is worth noting that darn near every amazing story in Schnabel's book, other than a few related to now-deceased folks, is attributed to Joe McMoneagle, who thus far seems to carry the entire burden of 'proving RV' on his shoulders (while everybody else makes money off supposed expertise at the subject). It is a little confusing though, that the book presents it as if McMoneagle were the primary source of info or something, when that is not the case. According to subsequent interviews with McMoneagle, he barely interviewed with Jim at all, and nearly all that info Schnabel just lift! ed from existing interviews, Joe's book MIND TREK, etc. Sc! hnabel presents it otherwise, to say the least.

There are even a couple of places, one in particular (related to Joe supposedly seeing grey, large-eyed aliens) that is an outright fabrication tacked onto an otherwise legitimate account - why? Why would Schnabel throw that in when Joe said no such thing himself? It does little but serve to discredit an otherwise no-nonsense man who has worked hard to distance himself from just that sort of thing.

That really disappointed me. I could understand Schnabel featuring McMoneagle -- after all, nobody truly looking into this field could come to many other conclusions -- but it was a backhanded and questionable compliment to pretend a source he didn't have, and then present things so... creatively. I wondered if maybe Schnabel's notorious need to 'debunk' everything (as he allegedly did with Crop Circles in a previous book) was creeping in there.

There is one startling bias in the book that people outside the RV field may not n! otice, but which anybody in it should find horrifying. The entire foundation and legitimacy of RV is dependent, first and foremost, on the laboratory research under highly controlled conditions. The controls ('the protocol') are in fact the definition of the difference between 'remote viewing' and 'psychic work' --the science is the whole reason RV was granted some legitimacy and utilized at all.

Yet, Schnabel deliberately focused on the "psychic methods" of one man, invented a good decade after RV itself was used to demonstrate and get funding by the US Gov't (and which was one of a number of methods utilized). He carried forward a deliberate and ongoing, highly publicized mythology in this field, that 'remote viewing', which has been in progressive study since the early 70's by many individuals, is summed up by "the psychic methods Ingo Swann compiled in the 80's." (These methods are a unique conglomerate of many sources, most notably French research! er Rene Warcollier's work, and a little bit of Swann/Puthof! f's "Scientology" influence.) Mr. Swann deserves respect, but he and his later methods are not the center of, nor are they the summation of, remote viewing as a field. This focus may seem like only a subtle misunderstanding, but it has been used to completely annihilate the credibility of RV in the media, introduce literal mind-bending cults, tie RV into UFOlogy and half a decade of pre-existing disinformation, etc.

Methods used have little to do with what is inherently RV, although they do touch on the means that various remote viewers in the program may have gone about things. Probably the only Viewer who is currently "proven" in many areas is Joe McMoneagle, who as something of an irony, doesn't even use those methods. So...

Schnabel's book almost seems to focus AWAY from the science altogether. The physicist who directed 85% of the published research for the program (Dr. Edwin C. May of Cognitive Sciences Laboratory) was briefly mentioned as if he! were completely unimportant, and then ignored for the rest of the book. It was as if the entire science program ceased in 1985 -- which is rather ironic, since in fact, more was accomplished and demonstrated from 85-95 than previous to that, and even third party reviewers have commented on the improvement in the science since that date.

Schnabel seems very positive, yet in directing the reader away from what constitutes at least half the subject and history -- and the most legitimate part of it -- he subtly invalidates the subject while on the surface seeming to support it.

Perhaps he thought the average reader wouldn't be interested in science. Or perhaps he was trying to leave "a doorway out" for the continuing attempt that the CIA and other groups have made to discredit psi ability as part of the pretense that it is not used ("because it just isn't worthwhile, so you can trust us that we're not doing it") in black ops projects.

If you are inte! rested in remote viewing, don't miss this book. But, be aw! are that there is more than one side to any story...