REVISING KEITH
A Commentary on Jim Keith's
Lecture, "Revising Reality"
By Greg Bishop
Without launching into a tirade about Scientology, I would like to
attempt a reply to the honorable Mr. Jim Keith (for whose scholarship
and writing I incidentally have the greatest respect) on his
lecture/essay about remote viewing that appeared here recently. I am not
certain, but it seems that Jim hasn't read up much on the subject, and
beyond that, I have actually interviewed a couple of the "remote
viewers" myself over the past few months, so I beg your indulgence...
What is suggested is that since remote viewers are able to transcend
time and space by the power of their intentions, and through the
focusing of their mental faculties, they might be able to "fix" past
events where something in our evolution or history has gone wrong,
thereby transforming our condition into some version of Nirvana on
Earth. There are a multitude of reasons why this is not even
theoretically possible. He also seems to fall into the peculiarly
western desire to "fix" things. There is nothing in our past that needs
to be "fixed." In fact, I believe that it is the point of Scientological
"auditing" to remember and understand the past rather than to deny it.
What Jim seems to suggest is that the collective unconscious needs some
sort of bandage, or worse, blinders to clear us of unpleasant race
memories. We are reminded of that old "Those who do not remember the
past..." adage. Why as Mr. Keith suggests, would we want to "vanish
traumatic events in the past from the mass consciousness"? We'd
eventually commit whatever it was all over again.
It seems odd that Wayne Carr, a claimed viewer, would not explain to
Keith that given what is currently known about the process of remote
viewing, that the idea of affecting distant events and times viewed is
an impossibility. This is not to say that it will ALWAYS be an
impossibility, but it appears to be in the realm of fiction at this
time.
The first presumption Jim makes is that "we are not defined by our
bodies." Fair enough. I completely agree. The argument falls apart,
however as he assumes that remote VIEWING is somehow related to remote
LOCATION. Just because some of us are able to separate our consciousness
from our bodies doesn't mean that the consciousness is able to affect
anything tangible.
Some remote viewers (Col. David Morehouse notably) have said that their
viewing sessions resemble out of body experiences. From over 100 years
of research and writing about OBEs, there are only a few cases where the
participants were able to affect anything outside their immediate
personal location. The most that anyone could ever muster was the
flutter of a corner of fabric or the like. (See Hereward Carrington's
The Projection of the Astral Body for more on this.) Morehouse does
claim that he visited the site of a helicopter crash (backwards in time)
and the recently dead soul of an Army buddy, and was able to integrate
the experience and come to peace about this unfinished area of his life.
He was NOT however able to prevent it. Is Keith talking about this sort
of understanding? If a remote viewer is able to understand and integrate
past human transgressions, how is this communicated to the population at
large without the inevitable confusion and giggles?
Although rumors abound concerning research into remote influence, there
is as yet no firm documentation of this. The existing literature
suggests that this can only occur in the present- time is a limiting
factor. Some stories from the Soviet bloc had psychics injuring or even
killing subjects at a distance. Again, this is at the moment that the
medium desires, not in the future or past.
Mr. Keith also assumes that causality is linear. Why time and space
should be an illusion while leaving causality in an Aristotelian frame
of reference is not made clear. There is growing body of theories and
evidence that suggest causality depends on the meaning of the events and
their effect upon the viewer (as well as the viewer's effect back upon
them.) Cause does not always equal effect, sometimes the effect drops in
before the cause-in our time frame. The idea has also been put forward
that events are not predetermined (i.e. "fate"), and we may continually
be "jumping rails" in the paths our lives, and our species take. All
possibilities may be occurring simultaneously all the time, only we're
just able to perceive one of them, since we are incarnate in physical
bodies.
I am also forced to wonder why Jim insists that the universe needs a
therapy session. Just because he's unhappy with the outcomes of many
events in our particular space and time frame, doesn't mean that there
is something wrong with the whole shebang. Besides, in light of the last
paragraph, if the viewers went into the past and "fixed" something, the
logical conclusion is that the viewer would come back to a world that
didn't need fixing in the first place. The trap of linearity causes a
paradox. Another, more frightening idea is that messing with causality
may result in a "crash" of the viewer's reality, where ALL possible
outcomes are experienced simultaneously. This is a little weird, I
admit.
Perhaps I'm also going out on a limb like Mr. Keith.
E-mail to: exclmid@primenet.com