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<\/a>I recently read an interesting book by Paul H. Smith, entitled The Essential Guide to Remote Viewing:The Secret Military Remote Perception Skill Anyone Can Learn <\/span><\/em><\/a>(Intentional Press, 2015). \u00a0It\u2019s a basic tutorial on, well, remote viewing \u2014 which <\/span>is the alleged ability to perceive information about a distant or unseen target without relying on conventional sensory input but using only the mind. \u00a0Thus, if it really exists, it\u2019s literally a kind of extrasensory perception. The study of remote viewing is one of the areas of focus within the controversial field of parapsychology<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n I first met Paul more than fifty years ago as a missionary in Switzerland. I pretty much lost track of him thereafter but, a couple of years back (or thereabouts), he came on one of the tours that my wife and I accompanied and, thereafter, he sent me a copy of The Essential Guide to Remote Viewing.<\/em><\/p>\n I certainly found it interesting. \u00a0He not only believes in remote viewing but says, quite matter-of-factly, that he has done it many times and that \u2014 precisely as he indicates in the subtitle of his book \u2014 just about anybody<\/em> can do it.<\/p>\n Lest you write him off immediately as a mere crackpot, permit me to share some of his background:<\/p>\n Paul retired from the United States Army in 1996 with the rank of Major. \u00a0Prior to that, he was a part of the federal government\u2019s \u201cpsychic espionage\u201d program for seven years, starting first in 1983 with the Army\u2019s \u201cCenter Lane\u201d remote viewing project and then, in early 1986, moving with the program to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). \u00a0He served not only as a remote viewer himself \u2014 he is credited with more than a thousand training and operational remote viewing sessions during his time with the military unit at Fort Meade, Maryland \u2014 but as theory instructor for new trainees as well as recruiting officer, unit security officer, unit historian, and\u00a0primary author of the program\u2019s training manual. \u00a0In 1990, he was transferred out of the program to participate as a tactical intelligence officer with the 101st Airborne Division in Operation Desert Storm.<\/p>\n Fort Meade, by the way, is also the home of such operations as the Defense Information School,\u00a0United States Cyber Command, the National Security Agency, the Defense Information Systems Agency, and the U.S. Navy\u2019s Cryptologic Warfare Group Six.<\/p>\n Paul is president and chief instructor of Remote Viewing Instructional Services, Inc.<\/a> \u00a0and a founding director, former board member, past vice-president, and twice past president of the non-profit International Remote Viewing Association<\/a>. \u00a0He also serves as a board member for both the Parapsychological Association<\/a> and the Rhine Research Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n Paul holds a bachelor\u2019s degree in Middle Eastern Studies from Brigham Young University, a master\u2019s degree in strategic intelligence (with a Middle Eastern emphasis) from the National Intelligence University, and a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin, where he concentrated on the philosophy of mind, consciousness, and the philosophy of science. \u00a0His doctoral dissertation was entitled \u201cIs Physicalism \u2018Really\u2019 Real?\u201d \u00a0His first book,\u00a0 Reading the Enemy\u2019s Mind:\u00a0Inside Star Gate \u2014 America\u2019s Psychic Espionage Program<\/em> (Tor Forge, 2005)<\/a>, was a Reader\u2019s Digest<\/em> Editors Choice and Book Bonus selection.<\/p>\n I want to announce a fourteen-day land tour that we\u2019ll be doing next year, from 6-19 May 2026. \u00a0I\u2019ll be accompanying the group, yes, but please don\u2019t despair or lose interest because of that: \u00a0Kris Frederickson<\/a>, a member of the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s board, will also be there, as will the wonderful British Latter-day Saint guide and Church history expert Peter Fagg<\/a>. \u00a0Our focus for this trip will be somewhat different than for its previous iterations; we\u2019ll spend time not only on Latter-day Saint history in England (especially the mission of the Twelve in 1837-1840) but on the history of Catholic and Protestant England (e.g., the coming of St. Augustine of Canterbury, the English Reformation, the Wesleys and the rise of Methodism, and George Fox and the Quakers). \u00a0We also intend to organize an informative series of lectures preceding our departure. \u00a0You can examine the itinerary here: \u00a0 Church History and Great Britain with the Interpreter Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n I was very pleased to see this profile, in The New Yorker<\/em>, of Guy Consolmagno S.J.: \u00a0\u201cThe Vatican Observatory Looks to the Heavens: It\u2019s run by a Michigan-born Jesuit\u2014and a meteorite expert\u2014known as the Pope\u2019s Astronomer.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 Guy Consolmagno actually is<\/em> retiring soon, by the way, though he will continue to work on staff; his successor has already been named. \u00a0(See \u201cPope Leo XIV appoints new director of the Vatican Observatory.\u201d<\/a>)<\/p>\n Dr. Consolmagno spoke at the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s 2016 Science & Mormonism Symposium: Body, Brain, Mind & Spirit<\/a>, which took place on 12 March 2016 on the campus of Utah Valley University. \u00a0You can watch a video of his lecture here: \u00a0\u201cBrother Guy Consolmagno SJ \u2013 Keynote Address: Astronomy, God, and the Search for Elegance.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 He was a wonderful guest, and his remarks are well worth the time.<\/p>\n I had first become aware of Guy Consolmagno when I encountered some comments of his about \u201cMormonism.\u201d \u00a0Whenever he was speaking with various scientists and engineers about the relationship between science and religion, he said, they almost always identified two specific religions \u2014 Scientology and \u201cMormonism\u201d \u2014 as \u201cobviously wrong,\u201d he wrote in his book \u201cGod\u2019s Mechanics: How Scientists and Engineers Make Sense of Religion.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n His own personal experience, however, suggested an important distinction between the two: \u201cNo scientist of my acquaintance,\u201d he remarked,\u00a0\u201chas ever had something good to say about Scientology \u2014 rather ironic, given its name. But as it happens, I know a number of techies who are Mormons<\/a>, including my thesis advisor at MIT.\u201d<\/p>\n That advisor was John S. Lewis, an expert on the composition and chemistry of asteroids and comets who received his education at Princeton University, Dartmouth College and the University of California, San Diego, where he studied under Nobel Laureate Harold Urey. \u00a0He\u00a0 joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> in Boston while a tenured faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and he later served as a professor of planetary science at the University of Arizona. Dr. Lewis spoke at the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s first conference on science and \u201cMormonism\u201d in 2013. \u00a0(See the video at \u00a0\u201cJohn S. Lewis on \u201cThe Scale of Creation in Space and Time.\u201d\u201d<\/a>). The text of Professor Lewis\u2019s remarks at that Interpreter conference was published as \u201cScience & Mormonism Series 1: Cosmos, Earth, and Man<\/em>: \u2018The Scale of Creation in Space and Time'\u201d<\/a> in an Interpreter Foundation proceedings volume: David H. Bailey, Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, John H. Lewis, Gregory L. Smith, and Michael L. Stark, eds., Cosmos, Earth, and Man<\/em>\u00a0(Orem and Salt Lake City, Utah: The Interpreter Foundation and Eborn Books, 2016)<\/a>.<\/p>\n Posted from Logan, Utah<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 I recently read an interesting book by Paul H. Smith, entitled The Essential Guide to Remote Viewing:The Secret Military Remote Perception Skill Anyone Can Learn (Intentional Press, 2015). \u00a0It\u2019s a basic tutorial on, well, remote viewing \u2014 which is the alleged ability to perceive information about a distant or unseen target without relying on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":39372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[39032,28214,39026,39017,37170,39029],"class_list":["post-112232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-center-lane","tag-esp","tag-fort-meade","tag-paul-smith","tag-remote-viewing","tag-star-gate"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a><\/a>