How is remote viewing different from regular "psychic" stuff?

The way the term "Remote Viewing" is designed, it represents a process--not a thing. You technically are only remote viewing if you do psychic work within an approved RV protocol. If you are doing anything else, you are "being psychic." (Which is fine, it just isn't RV.)

Many psychics learn the protocol, follow it, and can legitimately call themselves remote viewers. Many 'remote viewers' don't bother using the RV protocol, in which case, they really don't have the right to call themselves Viewers, no matter what method they are using. Today, many psychics (and people who want to be) use the term "Remote Viewing" as if it is a generic description of clairvoyance. They feel it means "visual psi data about something remote from you." (I must admit, that's exactly what the term sounds like!)

But to the people who coined the term, there were already lots of terms for "being psychic." They didn't need one more. The "Remote Viewing" term was developed because what was needed was something to describe being psychic within that certain set of rules (protocol). So when a scientist said they had done a remote viewing experiment, other scientists would know what they meant: not just that it was psychic, but how it was gone about: something worth taking seriously.

It's unfortunate they chose such a descriptive term, as the world instantly glommed-onto it, and it is now meaningless for the general public. Later scientists invented the term "anomalous cognition," which they hoped the public would be less fond of. Indeed-- the public is so less-fond of it they’ve never even heard of it.

Most of this sounds like semantics. The reason it is important to make a distinction between psychic work and remote viewing work is because there should be a respectability carried with real RV. People pretending to be psychic--or who, in innocence of the many other ways to obtain data, may think they are being psychic --cannot function properly within an approved RV protocol, as all potential sources of information are cut off. If you work within an approved protocol and you get correct data, it is because you WERE truly demonstrating psi ability.

As for psychics vs. remote viewers, one is not better than the other. Many psychics are tremendously gifted, and some so-called "natural psychics" are better than most "trained" remote viewers will ever be. But technically, all people, including remote viewers, are "natural psychics." The questions are simply "to what degree?" and "How carefully is this approached?"

The bottom line in any comparison is the quantity of data; the quality of that data; and the dependability of that individual to collect any given kind of psi data consistently. Only hard facts (feedback) to compare your results to can tell you how accurate or consistent your data is.

-- PJ