So I have been pretty pathetic in my whining, whimpering and begging for God to provide me with a visionary understanding of the nature of His|Her being, and for it to be revealed to me through a transcendantal means. So on one particular night, before I fell asleep, I was hammering God, trying to break down the inpenetrability of His|Her form; playing on a sympathy, that I wasn’t sure that God possessed, and I finally fell into a fitfull sleep, filled with unremembered dreams. The following morning, just as I was regaining consciouness in awakening, I perceived three words that were shouted into my enlightening mind:
“I am You.”
Well what the hell do you do with that?
So, I have been reading the work of Ingo Swann. He is one of those right-brained empaths, that have a special way of viewing and understanding reality, that is not conscribed by any tradition, but which springs spontaniously from the soul. I have only read one book of his so far, but there are others such as “Reality Boxes,” which I have just begun. Why do I always write about authors before I read them, that is weird in deed.
I will let AI give you a little background on this eminently, intersting man:
“Ingo Swann (September 14, 1933 – January 31, 2013) was an American artist, author, and psychic widely known as the ‘Father of Remote Viewing.’
Early Life and Background
- Birth: Born in Telluride, Colorado, high in the Rocky Mountains.
- Education: Earned a double bachelor’s degree in biology and art from Westminster College in Salt Lake City.
- Military & Career: Served three years in the U.S. Army in Korea, then worked for 12 years at the United Nations Secretariat while pursuing his art career.
- Early Experiences: Claimed to have experienced out-of-body states and seen auras from childhood
Pioneer of Remote Viewing
- Coined the Term: Worked with physicists Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in the early 1970s, where he helped create and define controlled remote viewing (the ability to perceive distant geographical targets using extrasensory perception).
- Government Projects: His testing caught the attention of the CIA and U.S. Army, leading him to become a key participant in governmental psychic intelligence efforts, including the covert Stargate Project.
- Jupiter Experiment: Famously described features and rings of Jupiter in 1973 before NASA’s Voyager probes later confirmed them.
Artistic and Literary Work
- Cosmic Art: Created visionary paintings inspired by his out-of-body and remote viewing experiences. His art is featured in permanent collections like the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and the American Visionary Art Museum.
- Author: Wrote several books exploring consciousness and the paranormal, including his autobiography Penetration: The Question of Extraterrestrial and Human Telepathy (1998).
- Passing: Died in New York City on January 31, 2013.
He lived openly as a gay man during a time when it was highly taboo, particularly for someone involved with government intelligence and military contracts. He wrote about his experiences navigating life, his art career, and the psychic research community as a gay man in his posthumously published memoir, Resurrecting the Phoenix: An Autobiography of Ingo Swann.
During the Cold War era, being an openly gay man while working alongside the military and intelligence community presented significant hurdles, but Ingo Swann’s unique position created a complex dynamic.
His identity impacted his work and his relationship with government agencies in several key ways:
1. The Security Clearance Paradox
During the 1970s and 1980s, the U.S. government routinely denied security clearances to gay individuals. The prevailing federal logic at the time—often referred to as part of the “Lavender Scare” legacy—was that homosexual individuals were high risks for blackmail by foreign adversaries like the Soviet Union.
- The Exception: Because Swann was a civilian contractor working through the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) rather than a direct military enlistee, he occupied a gray area.
- Leverage: His unique “skillset” was deemed so valuable to the Stargate Project and CIA sponsors that the agencies overlooked guidelines that normally would have disqualified him.
Ingo Swann (September 14, 1933 – January 31, 2013) was an American atist, authorm and psychic widely known as the ‘Father of Remote Viewing’.
Early Life and Background
- Birth: Born in Telluride, Colorado, high in the Rocky Mountains.
- Education: Earned a double bachelor’s degree in biology and art from Westminster College in Salt Lake City.
- Military & Career: Served three years in the U.S. Army in Korea, then worked for 12 years at the United Nations Secretariat while pursuing his art career.
- Early Experiences: Claimed to have experienced out-of-body states and seen auras from childhood. [1, 2]
Pioneer of Remote Viewing
- Coined the Term: Worked with physicists Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in the early 1970s, where he helped create and define controlled remote viewing (the ability to perceive distant geographical targets using extrasensory perception).
- Government Projects: His testing caught the attention of the CIA and U.S. Army, leading him to become a key participant in governmental psychic intelligence efforts, including the covert Stargate Project.
- Jupiter Experiment: Famously described features and rings of Jupiter in 1973 before NASA’s Voyager probes later confirmed them.
Artistic and Literary Work
- Cosmic Art: Created visionary paintings inspired by his out-of-body and remote viewing experiences. His art is featured in permanent collections like the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and the American Visionary Art Museum.
- Author: Wrote several books exploring consciousness and the paranormal, including his autobiography Penetration: The Question of Extraterrestrial and Human Telepathy (1998).
- Passing: Died in New York City on January 31, 2013.
He lived openly as a gay man during a time when it was highly taboo, particularly for someone involved with government intelligence and military contracts. He wrote about his experiences navigating life, his art career, and the psychic research community as a gay man in his posthumously published memoir, Resurrecting the Phoenix: An Autobiography of Ingo Swann.
During the Cold War era, being an openly gay man while working alongside the military and intelligence community presented significant hurdles, but Ingo Swann’s unique position created a complex dynamic.
His identity impacted his work and his relationship with government agencies in several key ways:
1. The Security Clearance Paradox
During the 1970s and 1980s, the U.S. government routinely denied security clearances to gay individuals. The prevailing federal logic at the time—often referred to as part of the “Lavender Scare” legacy—was that homosexual individuals were high risks for blackmail by foreign adversaries like the Soviet Union.
- The Exception: Because Swann was a civilian contractor working through the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) rather than a direct military enlistee, he occupied a gray area.
- Leverage: His unique “skillset” was deemed so valuable to the Stargate Project and CIA sponsors that the agencies overlooked guidelines that normally would have disqualified him.
2. Guarded Personal Life vs. Radical Transparency
Swann had to strike a careful balance between his personal freedom and his professional survival:
- The Greenwich Village Sanctuary: In New York City, Swann lived quite openly, immersing himself in the burgeoning 1970s downtown arts scene.
- The Intelligence Bubble: When traveling to California for SRI or briefing military officials, he had to navigate an deeply conservative, hyper-masculine military culture. Swann later noted that while he didn’t actively hide his identity from colleagues, he consciously compartmentalized his life to prevent his personal background from being used by detractors to discredit the legitimacy of remote viewing research.
3. Fighting the “Double Marginalization”
Swann often felt he was fighting a war on two fronts for validity:
- In the Gay Community: Mainstream society already viewed gay men with deep prejudice. For Swann, adding the label of “psychic” or “clairvoyant” made him double-subversive to conventional society.
- In the Scientific/Military Community: He faced immense skepticism from rigid government officials who looked for any reason to dismiss parapsychology. Swann believed that any perceived personal vulnerability—such as his sexuality—could be weaponized by skeptics to tank the funding for the entire remote viewing program. This pressure drove him to develop incredibly strict, objective, and scientific protocols (Controlled Remote Viewing) to ensure the data could stand on its own, completely independent of his personal life.
4. Posthumous Reflections
Swann didn’t fully unpack the intersecting anxieties of his sexuality and his government work until late in life. In his posthumously published memoir, Resurrecting the Phoenix, he detailed the psychological toll of being a psychic pioneer for the deep state while navigating a world that legally and socially criminalized his identity.
Would you like to know more about the specific protocols he created to make remote viewing scientific, or see how his artistic peers in New York viewed his strange government job?
The Master of Harmlessness.
So, I read “Master of Harmlessness,” a tale of just 47 pages which is deeply profound in ways that flow through a hidden perception. It is just a story after all, right?
The short and sweet of the tale is that a “Master” appeares mysteriously in a small town, and how his quiet presence totally transforms the residents as they try to find the meaning within themself of his appearing.
“The Master of Harmlessness…who came and told us something about our real selves…”
Author’s Note
“The use, however of the term ‘rapture’ remins questionable regarding intent of the narrative. No exact meaning meaning in translation has been identified regarding the proto-Uralic term used in the text. But it is apparenently derived from two root words meaning (1) ‘lifting’ or ‘outgoing upward,’ and (2) ‘ecstacy’ or ‘thought-substance-harmony.’ Here we have to bear in mind that it’s not unuasual to have to employ a string of English words to approximate a single word that was familialy used in antiquity…Literally expressed then the Uralic term means thought-subtance, ecstacy-lifting, outgoing upward, harmony.”
“Rapture typically means an expression or manifestation of ecstacy or passion, During the Middle Ages, however, when capitalized, it came to refer (1) to salvation of the good at the End of Times, and (2) the lifting or transporting of the good into a Utopia of peace and tranquility and harmony and prosperity…”
“…Thus, the entire tale of the Master of Harmlessness is a rapture story and is herein presented as such…”
“And he smiled again and said: ‘I don’t need a name. I’m a merchant of harmlessness, as I’ve already said, and the names of the harmless are never remembered, so its pointless for them to have names…’ You see–if you can so see– the cruel, the mean, the destroyers, they have to have names so they can be remembered in history because people have always paid them more attention than is given to the harmless. Violence, atrocity, conflict, even war, these are remembered the best because they bring about rukuses, and so have to be focused on the most. The harmless don’t make ruckuses and so they need not be remembered…”
The Master said ” ‘At best, I am, like all and each of you here gathering, a wonderous life-unit and can have many names and identities depending on how and why I need them. But I need these not, for I’m searching for life, and the love that supports it, and what good are names, and identities, and from-wheres in all this. Life is, Love is. And with or without names they are.’ ”
“In any event, our small park was now a-glowing with the lights of the flower, and when people considered the seeds of trees, then too did the nearby trees begin illuminating in one beautiful way or another, and many glorious lights and auroras bathed the entire surroundings…And these glorious lights and auroras were the of the colors blue and glowing green, burning red, and dark brown, and of other hues and tints, too, just like the Master’s own rainbow eyes…”
“To this the Master responed. ‘The hardest part of life doesn’t revolve around finding answers which exist in plenty, but in asking the right questions. Answers to questions not asked remain unknown, and so nothing of their answers can be seen or illumiated…”
“Now retunred the smile to the Master’s face. ‘Kind soul, the only way anyone will ever find is that which each finds of and in themselves. The ways found by others for themselves might be discussed, perhaps for comparing them. But will you embark on another’s way? A way not discovered within yourself, but discovered by another, or taught by another? The Ways of Life and Love are not like the ways on a map going from city to city, or between town and town.’ “
“What good are the ways of others, even those of masters, if you first don’t realize what your already-indwelling life-way is all about? How can you try to look at the many ways of life outside of you, without first looking at yourself, and your Way?”
“…One of the funny things about all of our lives is that when we look cheifly at what’s outside of us, then we actually begin to see less of what’s out there…”
“The Master paused, ‘No, is it not that life comes before spirit and body can be, it is out of that life that spirit nand body are built, and this is as sure as is anything, and everything, built out of something elese…”
“…Let me then tell of how beautiful and wonderful each and all of you are, from the most intelligent to the most stupid, for all of you are magnificent and astonsihing… At this many who might not have been thinking themselves beautiful and wonderful, as many don’t, nonetheless began trying to see themselves as such– or at least think upon it in some small way,”
“The master let this sink in and then resumed, ‘This human bio-body, as are all bio bodies, as are those of plants and creatures and flying wonders, all are miracles of structure and function. Are these not put together in ways that are inexplicable. And are they not delicate, yet strong, and do they not do what they do without us having to tell them thus and so about what to do?… And are not all these bio-things made up of trillions of active and ever-changing cells and atoms all working together and knowing by themselves what to do, and do so even though you don’t know at all that they are doing so?”
“But indeend, how many of you live within this perfected and perfect bio-body thing and know not that it’s your nearest miracle of life and living? Yes, all of you are living within a miracle, and if you can’t perceive this first miracle, then how will you perceive other miracles around you? Indeed, it takes a miracle to see other miracle, for only the miraculopus can see and find one another. And is not seeing itself a miracle?… And miracles seeing each other bring into existence that which sustains them altogehter– but what that is I’ll not tell you, for if you can’t find it yourselves along your life-units’ ways, then what good does it do to merely say what is?”
“Then slowly but surely did begin to form an opening-up emotion of the miraculaous–and shortly, as if an orifice of love slowly turning and expandind and expanding and turning with many gentle illuminations, them this opening-up eveloped the entire crowd-gathering, and many though tand spoke out that miracles must have love in order to perceive each other, for without this love and no sight and seeing blind?”
“For demons neither are formed nor appear unless there is interst in them, for it is this interest-essence they feed upon and grow from, and not the essences of love and life and marvelous miraculous-ness and harmlessness…And people began saying that this was so simple , and they then wondered why they had not, in this simple way, understood it berfore.”
“Furthermore, all of us gathered began asking each other and ourselves, is not love always felt as some kind of ecstacy and rapture? ANd within ecstacy-feeling and rapture-feeling what need are there of questions of words? And yes, agreed the Master, ‘Yes this is so too, for are there not miraculous things that have no need of questions of words?…”
Protocols for Remote Viewing
To strip away the mysticism from psychic phenomena and make it acceptable to the U.S. military, Ingo Swann developed Controlled Remote Veiwing (CRV) protocols. Working with physicists Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ, Swann broke the remote viewing process down into a highly structured, repeatable, six-stage science.
The core philosophy of CRV was to separate raw psychic data from the human brain’s natural urge to interpret that data. Swann called this mental interference Analytical Overlay (AOL).
The six sequential stages he created to train individuals are detailed below:
Stage 1: Coordinate and Ideogram (Major Signals)
- The Process: The viewer is given a set of arbitrary coordinates (numbers) representing the target. They immediately touch a pen to paper and draw a quick, unconscious squiggle called an ideogram.
- The Goal: To capture the very first split-second of psychic contact before the conscious mind can start guessing. The viewer analyzes the movement and feeling of the line (e.g., jagged, smooth, hard, fluid) to determine if the target is land, water, man-made, or natural.
Stage 2: Sensory Imagery
- The Process: The viewer begins to register basic sensory impressions coming from the target site.
- The Goal: Record basic raw data only. Viewers are instructed to write down colors, textures, smells, temperatures, and sounds (e.g., “red,” “rough,” “cold,” “metallic”). They are strictly forbidden from guessing what the object is.
Stage 3: Dimensional Sketching
- The Process: The viewer translates the sensory data from Stage 2 into a simple, rapid dimensional sketch.
- The Goal: Capture spatial relationships, perspectives, and basic geometry (e.g., tracking a horizon line, a vertical column, or an expansive flat area) without trying to draw a finished picture.
Stage 4: Qualitative and Abstract Data
- The Process: The viewer establishes a deeper connection to the target, allowing complex emotional, aesthetic, and functional data to surface.
- The Goal: Identify the purpose or feeling of the site. The viewer fills out a matrix tracking the target’s essence, such as “military presence,” “religious importance,” “industrial use,” or “feelings of fear.”
Stage 5: Interrogation of Target Elements
- The Process: The viewer revisits specific components from Stages 2 through 4 to expand on them.
- The Goal: Refine details. If the viewer sketched a “cylinder” in Stage 3, Stage 5 involves mentally probing that specific cylinder to extract its exact texture, material, and internal composition.
Stage 6: Three-Dimensional Modeling
- The Process: The final phase where the viewer constructs a physical 3D model (often using clay or a detailed architectural drawing) of the target site.
- The Goal: Provide actionable intelligence. By this stage, the viewer can accurately track spatial layouts, locate tracking rooms inside buildings, or map out terrain maps that military intelligence could use for operations.
The “AOL” Safety Valve
Throughout all six stages, Swann instituted a strict protocol for dealing with Analytical Overlay (AOL). If a viewer saw a flash of blue and their brain thought, “It’s the ocean,” they were required to write “AOL: Ocean” on the right side of the paper. This explicitly dumped the conscious guess out of their head, allowing them to reset and return to capturing raw, uncorrupted psychic data.