As I read and ponder the discussions about the “problem” of displacement - the phenomenon of a remote viewer accurately describing the unintended target, I see an image of water spilling through the seems of a box. The water is moving, rushing, powerful, unstoppable, white, foaming, liquidy. There is no grasping it, and ultimately no containing it. No amount of tape, glue, wood, nails or any other kind of reinforcement can stop the leakage. The water is what we refer to as our subconscious and probably a whole lot more. It’s the part that can access information about anything, any one, and then bring this information back to our aware selves through our physical senses in the form of thoughts, sketches, feelings, bodily sensations, words, visions, smells, sounds, etc.
The Box in this analogy represents the boundaries, the rules, the organizational system we keep trying to install around the water. We think the problem(s) is with the water, but it’s really with the box. In modern day American society, many people first build the box without having an idea the water is there, and by the time they actually find the water, they forget that they built the box around themselves to begin with. Now they are behaving as if the box is more real then the water and getting themselves into all kind of trouble.
Conversely, when it comes to ARV, people like Marty Rosenblatt are highly, even painfully aware of the water, and are having a growing understanding of the flimsiness of the walls of the box, and are therefore tirelessly working to find ways to both reinforce those walls and work with the water itself so that it will stay within it’s designated area - namely the channel or trench or tub that is associated with the winning feedback photo. Every time a new strategy is attempted to stop displacement, a new wall is erected or perhaps an old one patched up, and yet still, the force of the water seems too strong. So in recent discussion, and in regards to Lyn Buchannan’s (www.crvier.com) brilliant analogy where he suggests the subconscious is more interested in getting a piece of chocolate or a hug then a million dollars, we have to look at what will, if anything, keep the water content to pour into and REMAIN in it’s own designated area, at least long enough for us to get the results we need. DISPLACEMENT IN PSYCHIC READINGS I’ve specialized in developing my own clairvoyant reading abilities and helping others to do the same for the past 17 years (I started learning Controlled Remote Viewing only about 5 years ago). A common question that I’m asked in just about every class I have is, “Isn’t it unethical to ‘read’ someone that isn’t aware of or requesting this?”.
In most psychic readings, one person is requesting the reading and this person is present at the time of the reading with the psychic, either in person or phone. However, Inevitably, they are going to ask a question about someone else, since so much of our opportunities and our struggles are related to others. My first response sometimes confuses these concerned students. What I say is, “Do you believe it’s unethical to just merely think about other people?”. Then they say something like, “Well of course not, I mean I try to think positively about them, but we are always wondering about what others are thinking, what they are doing or going to do, what they want from us, what their motivations are, how they will react or respond, we can’t help it”.
So then my next response is, “Well, what happens if during the course of thinking about someone, even momentarily, you happen to get intuitive information from them? What happens if suddenly you know this person is upset, or this person wants to get you in bed or that this person is trying to sell you something? What happens if you are standing next to someone and suddenly your neck starts to hurt because your body is “matching” them and now you are feeling their neck pain? What happens if they are feeling exhausted or stressed or angry, and now you are talking to them and suddenly feeling exhausted or stressed or angry. You didn’t intend for this to happen but there was a sharing of some energy, a merging of your fields and not only is your body experiencing what they are, if you are aware that the boundaries most people think are there are really not, then you not only have sensations, you have information about that person. What then? Are you violating their right to privacy?”
The slippery slope here is pretty clear, providing you understand how flimsy the boundaries are between all individuals. I bring this up because here, in the above example, what we essentially have is displacement. The “water” is spilling over from our bodies and minds over to someone else’s body and mind and vs. versa. When I do a reading on someone who wants me to describe who, when and where they will meet their next romantic partner, my intention is to see into the future, and to see the actual outcome....”the truth”.
But if I have underlying intentions and/or they have strong desires or a picture of who they wish or think they need to meet and under what circumstances, I and all other psychic readers can then easily end up viewing their fantasy or expectations instead of the actual outcome. (This became clear to me early on in my practice!). If you add into the equation that the psychic may have an overwhelming desire or even slight desire to please the client, to feel their approval, to be told they are right, the end result is equivalent to displacement in an ARV session. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do psychic readings any more then it means we shouldn’t utilize ARV or do research or training exercises that involves a target pool. It just means it’s something that must be dealt with.
Here could lie a clue, and it’s most apparent in psychic readings with live clients: Being told you are right, in the moment, by the person who is sitting before you, possibly paying you, is not the same experience as knowing you are right, or discovering you were right at a later time, but without that person’s approval. What happens on an emotional, visceral level when another human being congratulates you, hugs you, applauds you, and loves you is a very different experience then when you are right, but that person doesn’t realize you are right or wishes you weren’t right.
In the same way, it’s a very different experience on a body level to tell someone the truth who wants to hear this truth as opposed to someone who says they want the truth but really is emotionally attached to a different outcome then the one that is truthful. In other words, if my client wants to hear that her baby will live, but the truth is it will die, me seeing and saying it will live and the reaction I get from this is a far different experience then I and my body have when I tell her the truth and she starts to cry and insist that I’m probably wrong. Same thing if a person wants to know when they will meet that rich guy and I see they won’t meet that rich guy until they first make something of their own life. Even before I deal with their response, I will sense and know what their response will be because I’m so tuned into them AND I’m operating off past experiences that have shown me they love me when I tell them what they hope to hear, they don't when I tell them the opposite, so I’m going to be sitting there for a period of time either feeling like I’m enjoying something akin to fine Belgium Dark Chocolate melting in my mouth or an ax being slammed through at my head, and I may start to experience this feeling even before they walk in the door or get on the phone, because “the water” also has no boundaries when it comes to time.
I can experience a person’s grief hours before I encounter it directly. Isn’t that fun? ( FYI: I’m not the exception here! It’s just I tend to recognize that I’m doing this more then others who are popping painkillers and anit-depressants prescribed by “experts” who are unaware of “the seeping in through the cracks” issue).
So even though I am dedicated on a personal level to always telling the truth, and I believe that I really want to ultimately be correct 100 percent of the time in all my sessions, what I have to go through in the course of that process is brutal. When I told my client two weeks ago that I thought her unborn baby would live, I wondered even at that moment I was telling her “yes” it will, whether or not my own survival needs were kicking in and clouding my vision. As it turned out, the baby did not survive.
This isn’t any different then in ARV where we are telling ourselves we want to see that feedback photo attached to the winning target. Just like the signal coming from a client can serve to channel the “water” into a certain area, there are so many signals coming at us in the process of ARV. While it’s long been established that viewers tend to see what they are interested in, I’ve been noticing some other things. Viewers will tend to have a much easier time viewing targets that their logical minds could comprehend right away if they were seeing it in everyday life. When I give a student an object to look at that is something they could name, (i.e. a radio, a telephone, a jewelry box), even though they know they must describe and not name, this target overall is easier to describe and work with and they enjoy it more then a target that is abstract, one that they wouldn’t be able to identify even if they saw it for several seconds or minutes with their eyes open.
Just think of yourself as a viewer, at the time of feedback, when you see the photo and for a few seconds, your mind can’t make out what it is and then you realize that you’re “land” gestalt represented a crust, and your “structure” gestalt was the anchovies and the “water” was tomato sauce because the entire photo is of the inside area of the top of a pizza. (sorry Marty! but I don’t think anyone liked that as a target!).
The initial feeling is of confusion and disappointment, even if you session actually displayed a sketch of people eating something triangular. This is very different then if the target was a “boat” and you sketched a triangle shape pointing sideways and indicated there was water there. The boat is going to be far easier and thus far more attractive for a viewer to view then a pizza, especially if the viewer expects to see a feedback photo and the photo is entirely of a close up of a pizza. I’m realizing that the need to understand and recognize what one is viewing while one is viewing it, is an impulse that may be stronger or more stubborn to remove from a viewer then any other. So if a viewer has a pool of targets, and one of these targets will allow himself/herself to have a feeling of recognition, familiarity, as if they have a frame of reference, this may be the target they are drawn to.
The other thing I’ve found about targets is that for many viewers, the first thing they see is movement. I believe that’s because they are tuned into the underlying energetics. Energy is always moving. So viewers will see the movement before they can describe what’s moving. Some targets move more then others and are easier to see. Other targets may just naturally emit stronger energy impulses. These could be because of emotions (which can serve as both an attractor and detractor), but there may be even more about the energetics of a target we don’t understand at this time. For example, does a target that is made of metal emit more of a stronger frequency then wood, thus drawing more attention to it then wood? Does a red target attract viewers more then blue? What ever they are attracted to, they may be more likely to view, even if it’s not the “correct” one.
Why do we gravitate to certain people? Why do we find some people way more interesting, while others could be in the room with us all day and we don’t notice. Perhaps if we can understand what draws us to certain people, maybe we can better understand what draws us to certain targets. This being said, I do believe wholeheartedly that Marty is completely on the right track when he says that the more we build our relationship with our subconscious, the more we will stay or get on the right track as viewers. In life, just because there are shiny objects or shiny people waving us away from our current path and relationships doesn’t mean we have to stop and engage with them. We must remain focused and faithful to our overall mission in RV, ARV, and psychic readings in the same way that we as travelers of life need to stay focused if we are going to achieve certain goals. Those who are good at focusing can achieve a lot.
Those who are easily sidetracked end up having all kinds of adventures and affairs but may not achieve all they set out to in the end. While we as ARVers and psychic teachers and RV researchers are in the heat of the search for answering, “How do we contain that which we are finding is uncontainable (the part of us that can observe anything even when we tell it “look at this but not this”)we are occasionally reminded that there are still people out there who don’t even realize that this part exists. They are steadfastly guarding their own little boxes, having been taught since preschool that everything and everyone is separate. Yet we who know this is opposite to the laws of nature are still left trying to squeeze it into a form that we can work with. Is this the right approach? To contain “the water” or is there a different one? What if it wasn’t contained? Then how would we ever focus on anything long enough to answer the questions that need answering, ones such as “Who will win the super bowl” or “What is the meaning of life?”. One thing is clear to me in all of this: If we are going to understand the water, it’s not going to work by reaching out to it and trying to grab it with our fingers. No, we are going to need to allow ourselves to plunge into the water, over and over, whether in our sessions or in meditation or elsewhere, and then let the water show us a thing or two.
Maybe that’s a good visual. Imagine yourself merging with the water and ask it, “So now what?”. That’s what I’m doing as I write at the moment and it gives me this idea - I wonder if one approach to be tried in ARV would be this - divide your paper into two parts. The first part is labeled, “Describe and sketch the feedback photo site attached to the winning team”, the second half of the paper (or second page) would labeled, “Describe and sketch what is not at the feedback site but that is of interest”. Something like that. As long as the viewer carefully defined what they were intending to view and when and put it all down on the correct portion of their paper, then perhaps the viewers subconscious (i.e: the water), would feel unbounded to do all it wants and at the same time we could view the correct target. This could perhaps be carried out in the course of a single session, as opposed to two sessions involving an actualized side and un-actualized side.