The Point of Control

Archived from the former firedocs blog. 08 March 2006

This category should be subtitled "Incredibly long boring essays about RV." Don't say you weren't warned.

Someone asked me recently:

The funny thing I noticed is that all of the tasks for the galleries state "describe the focus of the photograph". So technically, if we are doing what we are supposed to be doing, and tasking really is as important as is generally regarded, then using the galleries should technically only make you really good at describing the focus of photographs. In other words, when you say that I should be getting more concepts and emotional information, wouldn't those things be peripheral to the direct task? Is it possible that I only described the appearance of the castle because that was the task? Maybe the tasking is only allowing me one dimension of information. Just an idea, I am curious about whether the viewer shapes the experience or the tasker.

Since I promised myself that I would sometimes answer email via blog in order to (a) get some email answered and (b) keep the blog alive, I'll start with this.

The funny thing I noticed is that all of the tasks for the galleries state "describe the focus of the photograph".

Just for the record for others, "nearly" all the "practice" tasks do. With practice however, unless you're doing it differently for some reason, usually the tasking is considered a bit "self-tasked from after-session based on feedback". What the tasker (who is the viewer in that case) considers "part of" the target and "important or relevent" to the target, is really up to them. Other kinds of tasks (the Missions, and some of the advanced tasks) may have different instructions (given viewer) or directive (tasker 'intent' as recorded). However, it is a common thing that the focus of a photograph defines the "parameters" of what is included in the tasking.

should technically only make you really good at describing the focus of photographs.

The point of practice is to learn to aim as specifically as possible. The 'given assumption' of the target creator is that anything involved at the place/time the photo was taken, is part of the target. If there is a picture of a boat at a dock and you hear engines and seagulls, smell fresh air and feel a rocking motion, all of that is considered to be a valid part of the target; it is "implied" by feedback. Obviously a camera only gets visuals. A videocamera would also get motion and sound. You'd have to visit the site yourself to get smell or feel. But viewers get all of these things in session, even on sessions that are based on photo feedback. The 'focus of the photo at the time the photo was taken' is definining a space/time coordinate and everything within those -- including motion, emotion, concept, and more.

concepts and emotional information, wouldn't those things be peripheral to the direct task? Is it possible that I only described the appearance of the target because that was the task?

I would say, you describe it because you think that was the task. A tendency to highly visual data also suggests you are highly visual. That may seem obvious, but it matters because you're the tasker. In practice where the parameter is set by feedback, the viewer is the person doing the evaluation. If the viewer sees as feedback a photo of a woman crying next a hurricane-ravaged home, and they think, "Biological. Manmade. Mess." then their "self-tasking" is going to be different than a viewer who thinks to themselves that the most important aspect of the target is, "An event, destruction," or, that the important aspect is, "a woman, feeling terrible grief." Those can be three different taskings! Or one. Or.... well, it's up to the tasker.

The point of viewing (objectively) is to get what is most important about or relevent to the target. The point of practice with specific feedback is to get as good at that "fine tuning of focus" (narrowing the aperture from 'the universe' to the parameters of the tasking) as possible. In the case of practice, it's at least in part determined by what the viewer actually thinks of the target. This is why I suggest that viewers, upon feedback, sit down calmly and really study it. Feel with it, merge with it to whatever degree; go through your session and work to re-experience it and understand why each thing that came through did, or what it might mean.

Tasking Matters.

Remote Viewing has several key issues where something "can" matter and "does" matter -- but does not "have" to matter.

For example, the idea that "tasking matters" is like saying that when are driving, visibility matters. Absolutely! It can matter, it does matter, it can effect results -- but, that doesn't mean that we expect every driver who encounters a little fog or rain or other "lessened or impaired visibility" to drive off the road. What we hope is that they have sufficient driving skill that they can drive at night, in fog, in rain, in snow, and not kill themselves or anybody else. Obviously, if they are on a good wide road with tilted curves on a clear day, they can really rock a racecar! That's an ideal condition. But anybody expert at racecar driving under those perfect conditions is also expected to be at least decent at driving a subaru at night in the snow on a back road in Connecticut if needed. "It was night" is not an excuse for poor results. It is simply a statement of fact. People can excel under even poor conditions. The percentage of likelihood they will do so is probably less compared to an ideal situation. That doesn't mean it is zero.

This is why no matter how fabulous an ice skater may be at jumps, they have to "do the 8's" and qualify for the competition. It's not enough to be a great jumper under perfect conditions. Basic skill across the board is considered a fundamental. After that, a specialty in some area is great. People who claim to be expert jumpers but can't seem to get around to doing the 8's aren't taken seriously... for good reason.

Some will say that you should be able to sufficiently describe a computer-tasked, computer-generated photograph-feedback decently if you're a good viewer. I agree with that. You're basically tasking yourself after the fact on that one, since you evaluate it compared to feedback. And, despite the ability of some viewers to profoundly believe in linear time---something which I think the experience of remote viewing obliterates, and I just don't know how they missed this effect---I don't believe that tasking needs to come first. Just view for awhile by describing the target that WILL be tasked to you. It might be iffy at first. Stick with it and you will see: it just doesn't matter.

Some follow on that no-tasker logic by extending it into territory where it doesn't belong, by saying that this (viewing computer-selected targets) is so "....because tasking doesn't matter." Well, that's getting carried away. Of course tasking matters. But just because it matters doesn't mean it should make a viewer incompetent under any other condition. Like the driving analogy above, what it most means is that if you WANT ideal viewing conditions, you will arrange them.

Are ideal conditions good?

Sure!

Is this good for the viewer?

It is good for helping a viewer learn to view under ideal conditions.

Is that fairly limited scope good for the viewer?

That's up to the viewer to decide. I think learning to ski under perfect conditions is ideal, but I wouldn't send anybody off to a serious mountain who didn't have experience and competence under a variety of conditions.

Some people think that only viewing under perfect conditions, with tasker and monitor and a 3 hour session twice a week, is worth doing. Maybe it is for them. It's their viewing, it's their life. If they have a tasker, a monitor, and three hours twice a week, and if that fulfills everything they want to do, then heck yeah, go for it! Others think that they should be able to view while waiting in line, or when they only have 6 minutes while in a rushing helicopter. If that's their parameter for performance, that's their choice. There's no good or bad to it. In the end, what matters is the viewer's development based on their own reasons for viewing. If what you're doing is working for you, great. If it isn't, do something else.

Maybe the tasking is only allowing me one dimension of information.

Whether the tasking allows something is a completely different story. Allows?? Flesh that out a little. Are you suggesting the words on the screen limited you? Are you suggesting the psychic intent of the tasker limited you? If so, you'd have to be assuming the tasker was (a) someone other than you, and (b) specifically excluded all information except the visual.

There is a difference between a viewer choosing to align their intent with the tasker's, vs. the viewer being controlled by the tasker. The latter implies a level of psychic subservience that reminds me of some of Ingo Swann's essays about this. (Somewhere I have one on that topic, I will see if I can dig it up.) I do believe that a person can "hand over their autonomy" to others if they choose. From subtle marketing to cult indoctrination, people do it all the time -- consciously, subconsciously, and psychically. I believe it's important for viewers to have the strength to be autonomous, self-determined, even boneheadedly stubborn and independent when necessary. But, that's just my opinion.

In most situations done in a good protocol, it is critical that the viewer's session be specifically geared to the 'tasker's intent'. But a good quantity of tasking provided viewers, particularly by those who are not experienced viewers themselves or in 'social' viewing, is lousy tasking. If a viewer cannot psychically and psychologically "bring the point of control into themselves" for this process, they will be subject to every smallest screwup a tasker can make, and the list is infinite. Is the tasker's intent what they wrote down as their intent? Or have they subconcious (or conscious) intentions aside from what is 'on paper'? "Which" intent is the viewer viewing? What if the intents conscious vs. subconscious vs. written are contradictory in some fashion? How much detail does the intent include? If the target is the town square at 9pm next Tuesday, does the tasker really want to know the environment there at that time? Would they be interested to know that at 9:17pm a bomb goes off? Interested, or actually looking for something like that? If the latter, are they even tasking that correctly?

(Target definition is an art as well as a science, and I personally suspect that we could trace more of remote viewing to that subject than to anything else outside of the viewer's psychology.)

For any viewing which feedback is eventually available (and eventually may mean '25 years'), it may very well be up to viewer to determine what was most appropriate data for the occasion. The viewer makes that decision assumedly psychically, although they consciously evaluate what they can (the conscious part is after the fact, though). In an idealized world, the viewer makes it in psychic tandem with the tasker and both are in tandem with the purpose and outcome of the viewing. It is not always an idealized world though.

At some point, when the tasking is unknown (e.g., the viewer has no directions but is only told 'describe the target' or given numbers or what have you), it is going to come down to who is to be master of the decision. About the task, the details, the 'truth'. The tasker, or the viewer? What if there is no tasker? What if the tasker is wrong, has conflicting intentions, etc.? Do you train a viewer to rely utterly on the tasker, and devote most of your time to training taskers not to screw up? Or do you train a viewer to rely on psi, and devote most of your time to training viewers how to remote view "what matters"?

I am curious about whether the viewer shapes the experience or the tasker.

Who makes that decision? Who can make it, except the viewer?

The reality of psi is that you do astoundingly well because you want to, you allow yourself to, you make it happen, and you more and more come to accept that it can and it WILL.

That is no different for describing a stone structure than a person's feelings or a temporal series of events.