The Dark Screen and the Devil I Know

Archived from the former firedocs blog. 04 April 2006

I was looking through my overdue-for-reply email folders and thinking about the amount of time I have spent writing email on the internet since 1993 when USENET and Compuserve sucked me into The Dark Screen, as I call the addicting aspect of the internet.

It is fair to say that I could have written at least a dozen novels during this time. Got a black belt in a martial art or two. Finished my degree and got another. Or, since late 1995, done something really significant with my viewing, rather than having almost no time for it and when I did, inconsistently.

I don't think I regret it. I'm a weird combo of an introvert by deepest nature, life-trained to be an extrovert. Which means I act extroverted around people, the more people the moreso, but when left alone I lurk in solitude happily. So email has been my outlet, my inlet, and my doorway to the best friends I have ever had.

RV Online

I first met the online world with RV stuff in late '95, although most was in CompuServe then, as the www was barely existent and the average person had never heard of a search engine. As '06 wore on I did more and more online as the web grew and RV grew with it. In fact, since the StarGate program was declassified in Sep95 I can almost track the 'public growth/awareness' of RV with that of the world wide web.

By late '97 I was massively burned out on the 'online social' aspect of RV--mostly for time and politics reasons--and I officially left the field for almost four years on July 4, 1998. Yet when I returned in '02 to the field, it was as if I'd never been gone. Not a lot changed. The methods people were still battling it out, people were still fighting for recognition to use no-method or one not Swann-derived, and if it wasn't some bozo claiming to be a gov't viewer (and changing or growing stories daily) it was some bozo selling something (if not a video on how the world is ending Any Day Now™, you can buy a Psychic Sex Crystal that looks suspicious like an adults-only novelty item).

About the only diff was that CRV, in part a monster of my making on the internet I realized, had become The Establishment. Which was novel, given the massive marketing done by Dames and his legions to kill it previously. But by then I was in a different space. I'm still working off web karma to bring things into balance, despite that doesn't endear me to CRV folks who feel I betray the methods-ideals for which I used to be the poster child. On the other hand, I burned most my bridges there already anyway. C'est la vie.

The various former StarGate guys, aside from Joe who is my friend, are friendly because that is their gift as intell men and likely because I have web media in a field they're working to make a living in. We're friendly to each other. But I suspect if I were relying on them to save me from a dragon out of sheer appreciation, the lot of their love combined would likely end with me toasted by morning.

There you go. I'm the devil they know.

The Old Neighborhood

There are quite a few people that I knew online in '96 and '97 who are still in the online field. Some came in through a methods doorway and some are independents. Some were more UFOlogists with an interest in RV, and some were always sort of on the outside with RV as an interest not a pursuit. Some got sucked into one semi cult or another. For the most part though I'm glad to say that many of the folks I was around in 1997 are still around.

It feels like I've known them forever. Rich and Liz and Vance and Daz and Gene and Shelia and Dave and Glyn and Bill and I could go on with names for several paragraphs and still leave people out. Except a couple I've never met them and many I don't even email with much if at all anymore. But I've known these people for ten years! Ye gods! I accept them for what they are, whatever the areas where we diverge. I feel a bond with them difficult to explain. It's not even that all of us are friends. It's more like... they're my extended family by now.

Funny enough, a few of my un-fave folks are still around as well, and like the bonehead uncle who married into the family... they're extended family too. For me, the "RV Online" field has become almost like the old neighborhood. I suspect the stunning rate of change on the internet creates an interesting psychosocial effect similar to travel. You know those great sayings about how the person you wouldn't speak to at home is hailed as your best buddy when you're on the other side of the planet in a foreign land. There's a parallel in online RV: I've developed an almost-affection even for my seeming enemies.

You might still hold the same opinion and say so. But you lose the energy for having any real emotion behind it. It may be true that so-and-so is a jerk you've had 17 major fights with over the years and if he shows his reptilian head again you'll throw rocks at it. But it's not even really personal anymore. It's just what you do. She or he's a jerk, but he's your jerk. It's like in little ethnic neighborhoods or something. He's from the old town, and his sister married my cousin Tony and one of his kids went to college with my nephew. He may be an SOB but you know him well. Familiarity bred contempt but yet-more familiarity bred comfort. Now, he's the devil you know.

TKR is great because it mixes the old and the new, although in the Galleries (aside from the Window Gallery) it's mostly new viewers... those who don't yet have so much ego invested they're afraid to fail in front of others. I like meeting new people and there needs to be a place for new people. But sometimes it seems lonely. New folks don't have that history with me. That comfort. They're welcome-intruders in a city that is not really theirs, not in the eyes of the homeboys anyway, at least not until they've put in a significant block of history of their own, with the people, with the locale.

I don't trust them to stay around yet. To be in it for the long haul. They have yet to go through the illusions and delusions and disillusions and come out the other side still dedicated to RV even when everything in its little world seems to let you down.

Everything but what feeds you. Everything but the viewing.

Viewing...

The first and last lesson of RV online is that the only truly decent part of the field of RV is the practice of Remote Viewing. Of course, it sucks you in like The Dark Screen of the internet. Remote Viewing is The Dark Screen of the Soul. It tempts you and feeds you until you need it. 'Til you breathe it. 'Til it doesn't matter what the often bizarre details or problem people or paranormal side effects might be, because viewing is now a part of you. You need to feel that part of you, it's what makes you alive.

You know I love it. Some days I think I hate it. It delights me, infuriates me, rocks me, confuses me, drives me, frightens me, and calls me home with that deep longing only a session with my soul can quench.

For sure... it's the devil I know.