(estimated reading time: twelve minutes)
According to many neuroscientists and researchers who study the human brain, we are using less than five percent of our mind’s potential. What if this was not only true, but you could find a way how to somehow tap into all of your mind’s unused resources? How might your life change if you began to fully utilize that other ninety-five percent? Wouldn’t that mean you could absorb twenty times as much information and use it twenty times as creatively? Imagine for a moment what you might be capable of, the things you might accomplish, and how your life might change. Would you create a multi-million dollar company? Would you write a NY Times Best Seller? Would you form a non-profit organization to more quickly find a cure for Alzheimer’s Dementia?
Scientists are accumulating evidence that we really do have this enormous potential and we actually can gain access to all of our mind’s resources. Very few people are aware of the extent of this evidence and, as a consequence, the dramatic implications of this research are not yet being seriously considered. If you are not already familiar with this work, this article was written to introduce it to you and to help you begin to explore its possibilities.
The important research findings that I am referring to are widely scattered within the scientific literature. Fields of knowledge as diverse as physics, psychology, engineering and medicine have produced research findings considered to be anomalies because they violate many of the most basic assumptions of current scientific theories. I am in the process of writing a book which points out the striking similarities within the anomalies that have been found in these diverse fields. To simplify this article, I will focus on just one of these areas of research that I present in my book, a psychological technique called remote viewing, since it nicely illustrates the understanding I wish to convey.
If you are not familiar with remote viewing, briefly, it involves isolating research subjects and asking them to describe their mental impressions of a distant target about which they have no prior information. Their recorded mental impressions are then compared to photographs of the targets that they were asked to describe. I am not going to present the data or cite the sources from my book chapter here, since that would make an already long article much too long for this blog format. Instead, I will provide a brief overview of the important findings and ask you to assume for now, for the purposes of this article, that I am correct when I say that these research subjects truly can derive accurate information about targets without any physical contact. My primary focus here will not be on the proof, it will be on the conclusions we can draw from the data and carefully considering the important implications that will really matter to us. If you get as excited as I think you will about the possibilities, you will likely want more details. I will make a copy of the rough draft of my book chapter on remote viewing available to those who want an easy way to explore this topic in more depth without waiting for the completed book. At the end of the article, I will show how to obtain this chapter copy.
The nature of the evidence
There are a number of books readily available written by people who might be described as remote viewing prodigies, since they are so adept at using these skills. These books share results that obviously could not be achieved by chance or by accident. Some of the stories were carried in the national news. You might recall some of the details, and they can be verified by reports published at the time of the incidents.
A further confirmation comes from the confidence that both the American military and intelligence communities have shown in the practical value of these abilities. It is now public knowledge that several organizations dedicated to remote viewing were secretly developed and funded for over thirty years by the US government. Part of the data produced is now declassified and available. The information is quite convincing. Because of the controversial nature of techniques like remote viewing, the officials that approved the formation of these exploratory programs did so at considerable risk to their own careers. They would not have taken this risk if the evidence was not very compelling indeed.
The most convincing evidence comes from scientific research labs where these abilities have been rigorously tested. The researchers involved possess impeccable credentials developed while investigating more conventional research topics. As they have applied their highly developed research skills to this unconventional and controversial topic, they have confirmed the reality of this remarkable human talent. Since their work meets the most demanding scientific standards it is as conclusive as any scientific research findings can be.
Taken together, the reports from highly skilled remote viewers, the data produced by the American intelligence community, and the results of the scientific research labs strongly support each other’s conclusions: these are genuine human skills that can be objectively and repeatedly demonstrated.
The observations and the logical conclusions they support
Despite the undeniable quality of the remote viewing studies, most scientists have resisted accepting the findings. The reason for this rejection has been the inability to account for the findings using any of the mechanisms known to science. Ironically, it is the complete exclusion of all known information carriers (like energy waves or material particles) that is actually the most important proof of the existence of the phenomenon. This complete certainty of the exclusion of all physically mediated processes was accomplished by placing the research subjects in specially designed rooms shielded from any possible electromagnetic signals, while also preventing any contact with the teams that chose the remote viewing targets. Since these precautions also show that the information transfer is instantaneous and its accuracy does not weaken with distance in the manner of signals like radio transmissions, we have a second strong validation of the reality of the phenomenon. The evidence of this mysterious information transfer is so strong and so well confirmed that it is completely unreasonable to reject it, despite the lack of known physical mechanisms to explain how it might occur.
While some of the most clear-cut and dramatic data from remote viewing was produced by certain very adept individuals, if this talent was just limited to them, I suspect this article would not be very useful to you. To the contrary, the scientific research shows that these capabilities are found in everyone tested, but they are effectively hidden and undeveloped in individuals without known remote viewing skill. For most people, it takes sophisticated scientific techniques involving careful statistical analysis to demonstrate their presence. But we all have these abilities; most of us are just not aware that we do! The conclusion is inescapable that the human mind possesses some sort of non-physical faculty that allows us to gather information from the world around us. It is part of who we are and our point of access to these remarkable abilities is only through focusing our attention within our own mind.
Once we have accepted that these human abilities do in fact exist and that we all have access to them within our mind, it is obvious that there are two completely different ways we can interact with and connect to the world around us. In addition to the way we receive direct physical sensations through our sense organs, part of our mind is also capable of reaching far out beyond our body to access information unavailable to our senses. In contrast to our experience of time confining us to our current moment when perceiving through our physical senses, through the actions of our inner mind we can somehow observe events from the past and gather accurate impressions of the future.
Compared to the usual physical domain we are all aware of, the non-physical domain is paradoxically both quite subtle and quite powerful. It is so subtle that our much more compelling physical impressions usually completely blind us to our mind’s non-physical connection to the external world. Thus, for all intents and purposes, it may remain invisible and not even seem to exist. Yet, as the remote viewing data show us, it is so powerful that it can allow us to connect with events located anywhere, at any time, just by our intent to do so.
The remarkable implications for our lives
At this point in time, we face a huge obstacle in acknowledging and accessing the powerful potentials within the human mind that this research is uncovering. The main obstacle is how these potentials conflict with some of the most deeply ingrained assumptions of science and many of the most strongly held beliefs widely shared within our society. Most scientists consider it “unscientific” to even consider that the human mind can instantaneously connect with distant events or that we can look back into the past or out into the future. In addition, accepting the reality of this capacity of the human mind also places us far outside the mainstream of what people around us believe and trust. The mental powers we are discussing easily provoke reactions like “weird,” “woo-woo” or “new age craziness.” It may take considerable courage to confront the reality that the truth of much of what we have believed in the past is challenged by these findings. It may also take a lot of courage to come to terms with and fully accept the radically new view of ourselves and of our world that will result from accepting them.
Once we get past these obstacles, though, discovering the enormous power that has lain dormant in our mind provides a new, expansive image of who we really are. As shown by the remote viewer’s ability to gather information about any target at will, we possess a potential connection with any part of the world at any time, conclusively proving that our mind is much more potent than we ever imagined. We find that this new and more complete self-image includes the ability of our consciousness to gather knowledge from far beyond our body unconstrained by our eyes and ears. We see that who and what we are, in some mysterious way, includes the ability for our mind to function independently of our body and extend out into the world without limit. We also see well grounded evidence implying that our intuition and our creativity really do connect us with sources that transcend our brain’s limited resources in the way mystics and psychic individuals have claimed. Perhaps most importantly, we find that this capacity is not something we must acquire; it is a natural attribute of our mind we just need to learn to better access.
Most of us take it on faith that a non-physical, “spiritual” aspect of the cosmos exists and there is much more to life than what happens within the physical events of the world. From this perspective, proof of the existence of non-physical interactions that lay invisibly behind physical events is consistent with what most of us already believe. But we have not known of any way to directly experience this presumed spiritual reality, at least not in the solid and undeniable way we experience the physical, so we have had no choice but to take it on faith. What we see with techniques like remote viewing, though, is a new window from which to view our beliefs about the spiritual. We are seeing ways to objectively study the subjects of our faith with sophisticated, highly developed and effective scientific methods that were unavailable in the past. With the ability to produce scientific evidence in support of spiritual concepts, we now have access to a new level of confidence in their truth.
For centuries, our scientific theories have fostered an ever greater sense of division between our material world and that of spirituality and religion. Now, through the use of these potent scientific techniques, we have a way to bring both the observable physical world and an inferred spiritual reality within one integrated view of everything that matters in our lives. We can begin to eliminate the rift within our mind that has separated the spiritual from the physical, and replace it with a more harmonious, all-encompassing perspective. Our science is not only confirming that a spiritual reality exists, it is also showing us how we might integrate spiritual beliefs more completely into our lives. We are starting to see a path to weave our knowledge of science seamlessly together with a more reliable understanding of spirit.
Through the kind of research described here, and in keeping with the metaphor of a locked portion of our mind with which I began this article, we might say we now have in our possession “keys” to unlock all of our mind’s potential. To make use of these keys, though, will require the determination to question deeply held assumptions and the willingness to approach surprising new data from a completely unbiased mental stance. Becoming aware that our mind’s extended potential even exists and acknowledging its reality is the first key. A second key was provided to us by these researchers as they showed us how to effectively investigate and more consciously use this almost unknown part of our mind.
A thorough investigation of this non-physical domain will better illuminate the invisible undercurrent that inter-connects everything physical and promises a much deeper understanding of how our physical world works. Along the way, we also stand to gain both a much clearer understanding of who we are and an enormous expansion of our mental capabilities. We stand at the threshold of an enormous leap forward in our spiritual awareness that will inevitably accompany huge advances in our science and technology. Could these insights lead to the curses of violence and hunger more rapidly giving way to peace and a more equitable sharing of the earth’s resources? Could feelings of victimization and a lack of meaning, that we sometimes face in our lives, start to be replaced by a new sense of empowerment and fulfillment?
We do not have to wait for scientists to more thoroughly investigate the mind’s hidden potential to personally benefit from this greatly expanded resource. We can seek out the scientific research already on library shelves. We can also study the writings provided by mystics through the ages and carefully consider the teachings of those adept at meditation. Our own practices of meditation, prayer or even our quiet times alone with nature might also be vehicles to explore our own inner reality more effectively. A great frontier lies before us: learning to consciously tap into the totality of our mind’s vast innate resources. What might you do with the enhanced power you find within?
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If you would like a copy of the rough draft of my book chapter on remote viewing mentioned earlier, just drop me a short email with your request: email@example.com. Also, if you think this article is important, please share it with those you suspect will also be interested. Thanks for hanging in there on this very long article.